While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Thlayli]

And here I was bracing for a no-holds barred assault on every possible logical facet of my arguments. I'm almost disappointed.

 

[Symphony D.]

Your arguments are scarcely worth tearing down. It's Overgeneralization: The Post: The Movie. You go into rabid EoE defender fanboy mode when I wasn't even criticizing it and make a whole bunch of generalizations about its story-posts and this thread's short posts as if those are the only two kinds of posts made in either, and as if either of those things applies monolithically to Ideas or other threads (which they don't).

You of all people applying "engagement time" as an argument is sort of hilarious. You're also making a lot of unstated assumptions about how engaged everyone else is (or isn't) in the content as well. You're abusing the McDonald's vs. steakhouse analogy, which is about quality, to make an argument about quantity, when an individual McDonald's franchise and an individual good steakhouse probably have comparable throughputs of consumers and so the analogy is totally meaningless.

Lastly, turnout and interest in this thread as of late is pretty low. I've been artificially pushing it along since I noticed the trend just to drive up the numbers. The fact that these frankly terrible discussions get like 6x the views of a given NES is still indicative of something and that something is bad, so even if what you're saying has merit with regard to EoE, it's still an exception and your post is still bad.

e: Another way of visualizing it: this thread got more views in 5 weeks than 65.5 of the 69 pages of threads in the NES subforum got in their entire runs.

 

[Lord of Elves]

This "decline of NESing" narrative is overplayed, in much the same way that the "decline of America" narrative is overplayed. We need to devote more attention to the "whining in WWW linked to erectile dysfunction" narrative.

 

[Symphony D.]

Yeah, overplayed.

Except for the fact that America has declined tremendously relative to both the high water mark of its power (1962) and even the unipolar moment (1991), and NES has basically rested on two games run by two moderators (NK and EQ) for quite some time now (~2+ years), with a smattering of things that flare up and die beneath their feet, which wasn't always the case.

Other than that there's no validity to either narrative. Thank you for your contribution.

 

[North King]

I actually completely agree with Symphony.

Which is a weird feeling.

 

[Kozmos]

The Clinton years were glorious though.

 

[Crezth]

Welcome to the Symf-Club: We Are Right.

Better than the Lord Of Elves Club: Literally the Smug Emoticon, and the Crezth Club: Still Butt-hurt About 2012.

 

[Symphony D.]

Better than the Lord Of Elves Club: Literally the Smug Emoticon Let Me Tell You About How Worldly and Wise the High School Experience Made Me

Fixed.

 

[Symphony D.]

Great, now Russia is full of Confederates too.

 

[Crezth]

I've read that neo-Nazis in Europe, since the swastika is like illegal over there or whatever, use the Confederate battle flag in its place.

 

[Symphony D.]

The reason it has no stars is there are no Confederate states left standing. :usa:

 

[Lord_Iggy]

NESLife VI is updated, and I done gone extincted a lot o' stuff.

 

[Grandkhan]

It's the flag of the Federal State of Novorossiya, which both the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics are part of.

It's supposedly based off the Russian naval jack.

 

[Kozmos]

I've read that neo-Nazis in Europe, since the swastika is like illegal over there or whatever, use the Confederate battle flag in its place.

It is illegal but it doesn't stop them much. They do carry the Confederate one when they drink outside.

 

[DC123456789]

Isn't that the Novorussian flag, actually?

 

[Symphony D.]

It's the flag of the Federal State of Novorossiya

Isn't that the Novorussian flag, actually?

 

[Shadowbound]

The East will Rise again!

 

[Thlayli]

Your arguments are scarcely worth tearing down. It's Overgeneralization: The Post: The Movie. You go into rabid EoE defender fanboy mode when I wasn't even criticizing it and make a whole bunch of generalizations about its story-posts and this thread's short posts as if those are the only two kinds of posts made in either, and as if either of those things applies monolithically to Ideas or other threads (which they don't).

You of all people applying "engagement time" as an argument is sort of hilarious. You're also making a lot of unstated assumptions about how engaged everyone else is (or isn't) in the content as well. You're abusing the McDonald's vs. steakhouse analogy, which is about quality, to make an argument about quantity, when an individual McDonald's franchise and an individual good steakhouse probably have comparable throughputs of consumers and so the analogy is totally meaningless.

Lastly, turnout and interest in this thread as of late is pretty low. I've been artificially pushing it along since I noticed the trend just to drive up the numbers. The fact that these frankly terrible discussions get like 6x the views of a given NES is still indicative of something and that something is bad, so even if what you're saying has merit with regard to EoE, it's still an exception and your post is still bad.

e: Another way of visualizing it: this thread got more views in 5 weeks than 65.5 of the 69 pages of threads in the NES subforum got in their entire runs.

Yeah, but the real problem is that, while I agree with you that there is an activity problem (which you're doing nothing to help resolve and totally *could* despite your claims of being a bad content organizer, which I think are BS), the ratio of WWW:NES Thread views doesn't have any bearing on it.

Say we boosted viewcount and postcount 10x across the board without changing the ratios. Then we'd have a healthier forum and WWW would still be more active than individual NES threads.

If you want to zero in on a more relevant metric, I'd say post frequency, and the declining number of simultaneously "active" threads since 2008. But EQ and NK have already done all that work.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Hardeehar, you guys.

Regardless of the fact that my arguments are evidently easily dismissed because, "hurrdurr loe youre in the high schools," I think the time period of my joining the NES forum around February of 2010 was at the beginning of a far more significant slump than the forum is currently experiencing or has experienced since then. I do not recall an extant, functioning NES lasting over the entirety of the summer of 2010. We have now, at the very least, a number of flashes in the pan that have diverted attention from the much maligned festering and decaying the forum is supposedly doing.

Short version: the present is always more awful than the rose-tinted past and this is a hobby with a significant degree of moderator burnout and other causes of high turn-over. Most NESes die early on, I challenge the forum luminaries to provide evidence that this has not been the case Since Like, Forever.

 

[North King]

Well, for one thing, evidence HAS been provided, and though it's disputable, you've done nothing to dispute it (man, I hate lazy debating). Also, if I remember a previous Symphony post as well as I think I do, I believe he doesn't actually like the status quo, mostly because the number of available [competent] players makes hosting a modern NES basically impossible. Not to mention the lack of a dedicated mod to work on the project makes it even more impossible.