Symphony D.
Deity
You said he might deny the same opportunity to others while granting it to you if demand is too high. That is the very definition of preferential treatment. Again, I don't particularly care what he does or does not do because it is tangential to my point of this being a bad idea in either circumstance.Birdjaguar said:
I think you underestimate the fragility of this forum. We have a more or less temporally consistent number of individuals playing, averaging between 45 and 60. Of those, at most half could be said to be moderately engaged. So, 22 to 30 or so. That is an exceedingly small number of people. Most of them do not read every topic. Indeed, there are several players who only pay attention to topics in their subscription list, and never even notice new, different topics.
Now what do you suppose will happen if all of a sudden information is increasingly pocketed up into tiny little enclaves that require special access to view? Balkanization. Degeneration into cliques. People won't be communicating quite so much anymore. New people will not be able to view information without signing on not knowing what it is they're looking at. What does that result in? Declination in activity, declination in interpersonal communication, declination in new arrivals, declination in outside interest due to unobservability. Net result after a prolonged time: forum death. Old users get bored and drop out of games, new ones can't see them.
Now, it is true, this is assuming a worst case scenario. Maybe Thunderfall does just only grant this to you. Maybe he grants it to everybody and few people choose to use it. But people tend to behave like sheep and enjoy mimicking trends. They also like gadgets. And a lot of the time, they like secrecy too. That's why we use PMs, after all. So there's fairly decent odds that if everybody had access to this sort of thing, a fair number of them would use it. And we don't need everyone hiding information to tip us into a downward cycle of user growth. We don't even need half the people to do it. An eighth (a quarter of a half) of the people--about 5 to 7, if they were moderators--would be quite enough, considering only about that many people moderate at a given time. Maybe even half of them. So just 2 to 4.
Now maybe he just gives it to you. Just you. Says no to everybody else. Great, doomsday averted. Why can't the rest of us use it? Again, preferential treatment. I wouldn't be happy with that simply on principle. Guess who everybody would be mad at then? You and him, probably. What was that you just said about rancor and peevishness?
Do you begin to see why this is something of a bad idea? One fork leads to potential excessive compartmentalization of information. The other fork leads to a general increase in bitterness and resentment. Maybe, just maybe, some path could be taken here where microforums are implemented and neither of these happens, or only happens to a certain degree.
But why take the risk? Why expend the effort when there are simpler solutions? Why think about walking on a razor blade?
I don't generally oppose things on the possibility of abuse. I think USA PATRIOT Act is fine, and National ID Cards are OK because our government would be too incompetent to abuse them (and already has those capabilities if it really wants to have them anyway). But this one I do oppose on the possibility of abuse, because it is incompetence that would lead to that abuse. Giving somebody a gun that's too complex for them to shoot themselves with is fine. Giving somebody a gun that's exceedingly easy for them to shoot themselves with is really bad.
False analogy. Personal computers decentralize data reception and input capabilities allowing more users to participate in a network. Microforums centralize data reception and input capabilities and reduce user interaction by concealing information and tightening access to it. Different end result, comparison is invalid.
ways.
.
.
