Author Topic: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?  (Read 8374 times)

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JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #40 on: October 23, 2008, 03:48:43 AM »
Indeed, Andy and I have debated at times, and I may not have agreed with him at times, but we've never had flamewars or anything like that.

JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #41 on: October 23, 2008, 06:54:14 AM »
I have to bring it up again: Sword and Board.  Members of this board sniping at members of other forums from the Bitch Like You Have To! forum eventually comes back and bites us in the ass, whether it be creating more forum trolls or bringing down the reputation of the community/podcast.  Personally, I don't even go into that forum anymore because of all the e-peen polishing that goes on in there.

The solution to this problem best described with two new bits of Jargon: importing stupid and the Douchebonic Plague.  If you see someone "logic fail" on another forum, don't bitch about it here else you are importing the stupid of other forums, which is full of rats carrying the Douchebonic Plague.  If you see someone "logic fail" on this forum, take them into the quarantine of the DoW and leave a link in the thread sparking the DoW so that no outbreak of Douchebonic Plague can come out of the argument while, at the same time, allowing the argument to take place and for people to make their own judgments.  If one or both parties declines the DoW, then they lose their right to argue the subject and note should be made in the thread that they didn't back it up.

In other words, by participating in these Logic Fail threads, I believe that people are taking the stupid of other forums and essentially cross-posting it here, filling up this forum with senseless blathering that is anything but Brilliant Gameology.  Furthermore, something similar to the Sword and Board situation may occur in which the acts of importing stupid brought in the Douchebonic Plague which then spread across the forums, turning what are usually decent people with solid G-Fu into rabid, frothing douchebags wreaking havoc on the forum like a plague of ghouls.  What seems to have happened more recently is that someone called "logic fail" on another forum-goer from a sniping position which, consequently, pissed off said forum-goer and started an outbreak of the Douchebonic Plague that tore across the forums once again.

I think that taking the safeguards suggested above into account will do well in curbing further outbreaks of Douchebonic Plauge.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2008, 06:56:00 AM by X-Codes »

CountArioch

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #42 on: October 23, 2008, 10:49:52 AM »
Short answer:  no.

Long answer:  nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I have never agreed with this sort of thread.
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Meg

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #43 on: October 23, 2008, 10:57:14 AM »
The issue of posting PM's aside--

Look at the title of this thread!  This is again what I'm talking about when I say you guys (AJ and Uber mostly) are dragging your fighting into other threads.  The feud is migrating all over the place and that is not ok. 

Stop it.  If you want to talk about it, suggest a thread be made for that issue.  I'll move those posts back, or you can reference them from the garbage can. 

Actually, I think I want the thread to be made.  Conversation continued here:
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2372.0
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Kaelik

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #44 on: October 23, 2008, 07:10:58 PM »
Technically Meg, it's just JaronK and AndyJames hating on uber. He hasn't actually posted here since his original post. The rest is just JaronK informing us that Uber is the single worst thing to happen to BG since ever.

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #45 on: October 23, 2008, 07:38:20 PM »
I wouldn't say outright hating, at least in JaronK's case, but I am sure there is a certain amount of enmity between them, but it's mutual.

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JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #46 on: October 23, 2008, 07:42:58 PM »
Okay, the first part of this post will sound like an attack, but really, it's all very relevant and very important to whether or not we should have a thread like that.

Kaelik:  Yeah, he's totally a victim, and you didn't come over here because of reading in a similar "Fail" thread in the Den and decide to pick a fight.  To quote that fail thread (and quote uber in that thread):  


"Anybody besides Kaelik want to smite JaronK? I feel we have two bad cops and need a good cop to balance it out so JaronK will stop his drivel."  

See, that's the thing.  It's very relevant, because the "Fail" thread over there caused a heck of a lot of problems over here, most notably a few people coming over here and trying to demonstrate how much better they were than other people.  Those threads cause people's egos to overinflate and encourage them to troll (also from uber:  "Well, the tier thread is fundamentally worthless. However, it is a form of entertainment."  Same fail thread in the Den).

They also make it so that you get a bunch of people talking about how much "fail" is occuring in a thread that often most of the people reading haven't actually seen, leading to groupthink and whatnot, as you end up with telephoned versions of arguements, which was feeding a lot of the rediculousness in Uber's Tier thread, as he'd repeat back what he read in the Den's thread... for example, to quote Frank over there (who never debated here):

"Background: JaronK is saying that because Alter Self can be interpreted to grant you the "spellcasting" ability of a Sorcerer with more levels than you have hit dice through assuming the shape of a Sylph that classes who have Alter Self are vastly more powerful than other characters. And that therefore they deserve to be a higher tier. "

Now, if he'd posted that here, I could have actually talked about why that's inaccurate (hell, I've never even mentioned Sylphs, and I only once mentioned Alter Self as being able to grant spells, but that was an accident because it was late, and was thinking of Polymorph).  But instead, he says that there, Uber copies him, and puts lines about Alter Self being the most broken thing ever back in the thread.   This leads to horribly inconsistant arguements because the people in the actual thread don't realize that there's a telephone game occuring between their arguement and the return comment, and that they're arguing with multiple people's opinions coming out of one account.  Heck, if Uber had said this in a thread I could actually read: "JaronK's idea with the tier system was so that people could make groups where everyone contributed in combat relatively equally." this whole thing might have been avoided (it's simply not true, and I could have addressed that to begin with, but instead it was posted in the FAIL thread of the Den).  You can look through that thread over there and see that Uber was in fact being encouraged to troll and provide incohearent arguements and generally behave in a manner that I think any reasonable person would call "being a douche" by that thread.

Now, this is not all to say "Uber sucks."  It's to demonstrate how the recent spat of completely inappropriate behavior was in fact spawned by a "FAIL" thread over at the Den.  He just happened to be the agent of it this particular time.  And you know what?  We've caused equal things over at WotC... remember some of the things happening with Aelrynth?  That guy may have started some fights and been quite a bastard in many ways, but having a bunch of people in a different thread band together to show how much better they were than him didn't improve things at all.  Instead, it just resulted in lots of flaming against him, which does NOT improve things at all.

Do we really want to encourage such behavior?  Shouldn't these boards be about discussion, and not about showing off how superior we are?

JaronK

(Edited for direct post linking since someone told me how to do that with the Den forums).
« Last Edit: October 24, 2008, 05:44:20 AM by JaronK »

Ubernoob

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #47 on: October 23, 2008, 07:53:21 PM »
Suggestion-

Format your attacks like this:

"Uber said:
Quote from: Uber
Whole post with important bits in bold
Link
Description of how far down the page it is.


"Uber said:
Quote from: Uber
Whole post with important bits in bold
Link
Description of how far down the page it is.


"Uber said:
Quote from: Uber
Whole post with important bits in bold
Link
Description of how far down the page it is.


"Uber said:
Quote from: Uber
Whole post with important bits in bold
Link
Description of how far down the page it is.

In conclusion:
Uber did X, Y, and Z to cause A, B, and C.


Just a suggestion.  If you don't use quote tags it looks to the casual observer like you are taking stuff out of context.
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JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #48 on: October 23, 2008, 08:04:26 PM »
I gave a link after the first quote.  For those who want full context, simply type in "uber" and do a find in your browser.  All quotes are taken from a roughly 4 page spread, so they should all be easy to find.

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to link to a specific post using the Den's methods, otherwise I would have provided more direct links for each quote.  If you can show how, I'd be happy to do so.  My intention is NOT to provide anything out of context in any way.  Note that only one quote was less than a full paragraph in the post in question (the one about my thread being about combat balance) so context is hardly an issue.

JaronK

AndyJames

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #49 on: October 23, 2008, 08:13:31 PM »
Hmm... I just realised that I need to formalise my answer to the topic:

The answer is "No". We do not need a Fail thread. We should *not* have a Fail thread. Not that it is not a bad idea in general per se, but I do not think that most of this board can handle it without falling into the "we are so superior" trap. We already have a bunch of people with ego-problems, who already think they know more than everyone else. All that type of thread will do is stroke their egos.

However, that is not the real problem. The real problem, as was mentioned (by Jaron, I think), is that this will lead to groupthink, that because they are so "Good" everyone else who thinks differently are automatically "Wrong" and "Fails". Wrong-bad-fun will become the order of the day. I think that that is wrong and will ultimately turn this board into closed environment where any deviations are dealt with harshly by a group of self-appointed thought police.

Ubernoob

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #50 on: October 23, 2008, 08:20:07 PM »
However, that is not the real problem. The real problem, as was mentioned (by Jaron, I think), is that this will lead to groupthink, that because they are so "Good" everyone else who thinks differently are automatically "Wrong" and "Fails". Wrong-bad-fun will become the order of the day. I think that that is wrong and will ultimately turn this board into closed environment where any deviations are dealt with harshly by a group of self-appointed thought police.
What would happen if say, someone challenged a subset of what someone else had said that was 80% right and 20% wrong?  Is that groupthink?  No.  We need more people challenging each other, not less.
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Vidar

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #51 on: October 23, 2008, 08:47:03 PM »
I agree with both Uber and AJ on different levels here.

It's good to create discussion, it trains our grey matter and our gameology-fu, I know I learned a lot from reading the thread only.

But yes, AJ, I fear for that "superiority" trap too, when people are automatically going to assume they're right and answer only with "fail".
On the other hand, when we get to the original gist of the thread, it's also interesting and funny how, eg, Sunic helps someone on another board, gets flamed for people not understanding, Sunic going specific and showing a great deal of gameology-fu without overdoing it, people still blatantly ignoring all reason and Sunic exploding. This thread has funtion a: entertaining us, b: informing us and c: reminding us about how not to become (which I guess is a warning function). All in all the two biggest reasons of the internet combined (except porn, but that's rather a consequence than a reason).

In short: I think the thread should be kept, it's just the bickering that needs to be adressed.

AndyJames

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #52 on: October 23, 2008, 09:07:41 PM »
I agree with both Uber and AJ on different levels here.

It's good to create discussion, it trains our grey matter and our gameology-fu, I know I learned a lot from reading the thread only.

But yes, AJ, I fear for that "superiority" trap too, when people are automatically going to assume they're right and answer only with "fail".
On the other hand, when we get to the original gist of the thread, it's also interesting and funny how, eg, Sunic helps someone on another board, gets flamed for people not understanding, Sunic going specific and showing a great deal of gameology-fu without overdoing it, people still blatantly ignoring all reason and Sunic exploding. This thread has funtion a: entertaining us, b: informing us and c: reminding us about how not to become (which I guess is a warning function). All in all the two biggest reasons of the internet combined (except porn, but that's rather a consequence than a reason).

In short: I think the thread should be kept, it's just the bickering that needs to be adressed.
Note that I did not say that the thread is a bad idea, just that it is a bad idea *here*. In other words, I do think it has value, but given the kind of people we have here, I think the bad outweighs the good.

Call me a cynic ;)

JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #53 on: October 23, 2008, 09:11:27 PM »
What would happen if say, someone challenged a subset of what someone else had said that was 80% right and 20% wrong?  Is that groupthink?  No.  We need more people challenging each other, not less.

Then it should happen in the thread in question, not in a seperate thread where ideas do not get challenged nearly as much.  That's what leads to the whole groupthink phenominon... when you've got a bunch of people in general agreement with each other without proper opposition.

If you can't prove someone's wrong in the actual thread, then you just can't do it.  Going somewhere else to make your points, and summarizing the other guy's position somewhere else (where the other guy can't say "wait, that's not what I'm talking about at all") leads to having a groupthink discussion that's all based on VERY flawed foundations.  Putting that conversation back into the actual thread is beneficial... if someone's being an idiot, the strength of your arguement should prove that point to everyone but that idiot anyway, but if it turns out you've misinterpretted their idea to begin with, you'll find out quickly.

JaronK

Kaelik

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #54 on: October 24, 2008, 01:12:09 AM »
Kaelik:  Yeah, he's totally a victim, and you didn't come over here because of reading in a similar "Fail" thread in the Den and decide to pick a fight.  To quote that fail thread (and quote uber in that thread):  

"Anybody besides Kaelik want to smite JaronK? I feel we have two bad cops and need a good cop to balance it out so JaronK will stop his drivel."  From here:  http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48649&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1425

1) Didn't say he's the victim. He instigated it in this thread. But for one time in his entire history of posting Uber let something go when a moderator told him to and you rewarded him by making up most of the next two pages talking about under the alias of "that one" and how he is mentally deranged (okay, so that was another thread where you said that whatever) and his sheer presence is forcing all you good people into closets to avoid his demonic wrath.

2) When you post that quote like that, you make it seem like it is in reference to this thread, though it is not. Just a little note about how you like to manipulate your posts to give false impressions. That quote does nothing to back up your point, and serves solely to make sure all your BG cronies know that I am bad-wrong and in cahoots with Uber.

3) On the note of you manipulating, Uber likes to speak colorfully, don't talk like what he says has any actual bearing on reality. Or I'll start pointing to out of context things he has said about you.

4) I generally at least look at every thread linked in the gaming den laugh/cry threads. I received absolutely no promoting from Uber to come join, I did so anyway because what I saw from you was generally so abhorrent to my sensibilities that I had to say something. And that's pretty bad because I have still managed to avoid making a Piazo account despite the many travesties I have read there.

5) Honestly, I don't see why BG needs a thread like that. Gaming Den has one largely as a general conversation thread, and it works because Gaming Den has many fewer members and posts. BG can just split that stuff up to where it belongs.

6) JaronK, in case it was not readily apparent, I am Malkalak on WotC, or whatever the name is. Kaelik is taken by my previous account which for some reason cannot post/be migrated.

JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #55 on: October 24, 2008, 05:27:56 AM »
I'd reply to that more, but I believe we're trying to stay on topic.  The one I will talk about is the insanity... yes, before I realized that Uber was getting his arguments from different people in that thread, I thought he had lost it, because his arguments were so incohearent and he couldn't seem to back up any point he made.  I really did think he'd had a nervous breakdown or something.  Once it became appearent that he was copying from multiple other people and just typing what they said (in the fail thread over there!), it became clear what was going on... his arguments lacked cohearency because they were actually multiple voices, and he couldn't back them up because they weren't his to begin with.

So, keeping this on topic, what happened there was a fail thread causing a massive degredation of debate, for reasons stated in my earlier post on the topic.

And I did say when I was quoting that it was all about the recent thread battle, which was indeed the Tiers thread.  I'm sorry if that didn't come across as easily as I might have liked.

JaronK

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #56 on: October 24, 2008, 06:27:02 AM »
I'm loving that AJ is going on about how the boards can't handle a thread because they'll feed "our" inherent superiority complex.  Speak for yourself, bub.

Upon looking around, I find what is a quality arugment in the Uber's Tiers thread... which probably belongs in a DoW thread.  Furthermore, I see Uber stroking his e-peen in the Gaming Den alongside cohorts, which is absolutely the thing I'm talking about in my post here (even though he was technically exporting stupid, he was still spreading around the douchebonic plague by cross-posting insulting posts between this and another board).

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #57 on: October 24, 2008, 06:57:17 AM »
Quote from: Meg
Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
I don't have much to add that hasn't been said already.

So, I agree with "The thread causes groupthink", "People get swelled egos" and "It's not nice to talk behind peoples' backs"

My answer: No.
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The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

Dan2

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #58 on: October 24, 2008, 03:55:15 PM »
I covered what I thought a lot earlier in this thread, but I'd like to say that I also agree with the groupthink comment.

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Re: Should there be a "Threads that are Fail" thread?
« Reply #59 on: October 27, 2008, 07:42:28 AM »
While I would love to see a thread in the same vein as the last two (intent-wise), I have to say it's not a good idea and we really shouldn't have one. While the first one, for a long time, provided a lot of comedic value to me, and allowed me to unwind a little after work, the inclusion of people refusing to not flame/bait each other, or remove their issues to another thread because "I shouldn't have to because he X'd first".

My vote is, sadly, No.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
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In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]