Ask an OTTer

Janx said:

As a regular here, I think the modding is good. I've been on forums with mystery or crappy moderation. This site is better. If nothing else, I am compatible with the moddng style and the posting style here.

EN World gets new people all the time. They seem to integrate just fine, with only a few people who need some correction. Part of this is likely because they lurk for awhile, then the contribute to some posts, then they start new topics. They grow to fit in.

The OTTers seem to be a different animal. They have their own forum culture that they have transplanted here at EN World. I'm probably wrong, but I don't think the OTTers post anywhere than the Misc forum.

This certainly feels where the collision is. In some ways, it is not clear why the OTTers didn't just setup/sign up for their own free forum somewhere they could control the modding and do things exactly how they want. The Misc topic forum at EN probably wasn't meant to be the primary place of business that the OTTers used OTT for at WotC.

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It had been discussed, but we're all gamers. We like the gaming forums. I've been an ENWorld member for a little while now. I don't post all that often (my posts here probably outnumber all the other posts I made on EN throughout my membership) but I lurk in other forums quite a bit (and even post on occasion). I'll probably post a lot more in other forums once I have more time on my hands. Besides, in our own OTTer forum, there would be no interaction with anyone else. In the OTT, there were other people that came through and posted once in a while, they just weren't regulars. I'm sure it's the same here too.

We aren't some overly cliquish group (or at least we try not to be). We only became OTTers by frequently posting in the OTT (we could try to be Miscers but it just doesn't have the same ring to it). We are just gamers that talked to each other a lot. Even when we formed a private group to carry on some of our discussions, the group changed over time. Some people left and new people came. We didn't intentionally bring our own culture over here, it just sort of happens when an entire group of people move at once instead of one or two guys each drifting to a new forum on their own.

Honestly I've been somewhat amused and somewhat confused by the fact that we garnered this much attention as a group.

For the record, I did post in other places than the OTT on the old boards and will probably venture forth here at some point if my time allows it. I don't have all day to cruise boards anymore so I use my limited time where I have the most fun.

Bullgrit said:

It's difficult to take someone seriously when they constantly say, "Don't take me so seriously."

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More like the internet ain't that serious. No need to have egos is a virtual world where we are all anonymous.

It's difficult to believe someone is truly offended/hurt when they constantly tell others they are too easily offended and "butt hurt."

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Some are offended, some aren't. For myself I can say that double standards of a moderator, yeah, they are bottersome cause they actually interfere in conversations. Double standards of posters are also bottersome. People ask of us to be civil, but haven't been themselves.

When someone argues and argues about something that multiple people have politely explained, which is the better assumption to err on? That they are just honestly too dense to understand what everyone else has understood, or that they are a troll just trying to provoke a flame war?

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Because lots of people believe something doesn't mean they are right. And because when someone disagrees with lots of people it doesn't mean you can insult them. It seems like a double standard. You say people should be respectful, but then you insult them by calling them names.

Another question based on the OP:

Would the "OTTers" prefer to be treated and accepted as a group or as individuals? There are some new folks who have engaged in discussions here apparently as individuals, and there are some new folks who are apparently engaging threads as a tight clique.

Bullgrit

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If you have something to say to me directly, do it. Some people have lumped us together,for better or worse.

Janx said:

Coming to EN world to complain about an issue at another forum site is bad form.

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Continuing on this, there used to be a rule here, and I'm not sure if it was an unwritten rule or an actual site rule, that said no to cross-board drama. People coming here to complain about other sites got modded pretty heavily.

So just having the 'Of the WotC Forums and the OTT' thread exist and not get locked straight away seems like a pretty big step to me. Not necessarily a step forwards or backwards, but a step nevertheless.

goldomark said:

More like the internet ain't that serious. No need to have egos is a virtual world where we are all anonymous.

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That may be what you're used to, but many of us aren't anonymous. If you stick around a while, you'll realise that many of the relationships on this board extend into real life. I've made dozens of real-life friends here (some of them I only see occasionally when I cross the Atlantic to do so; others more frequently). we meet at Game Days and conventions. We visit each others' homes. Our real names, in many cases, are public knowledge, especially those who work in gaming - mine isn't exactly a secret.

Homicidal_Squirrel said:

You were doing great until you the bolded part.

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let's just chalk that up to frustration.

I'll give a recent example that is NOT you OTT guys as far as I know.

A guy pops in asking a copyright question. Having some experience with copyright/trademark/patent law, I and some other people give the same answer. Danny's not around to confirm it, which is a bummer, but the question was pretty simple, so I am confident the answer was correct.

The guy spends considerable posts challenging our answer and asking us for proofs or evidence.

At some point, it does feel like this guy is so intent on getting the answer he wants to hear, he's refusing to accept anything less than us doing to work of a lawyer and looking it up definitively and posting the respective legal sections to cover his case.

It begins to feel like we're arguing with a crazy person.

What we have is a collision. I can't change my answer to reflect what I know to be false. And the guy can't accept my answer because he just can't.

It's one of those moments where the sooner we both realize we should "just agree to disagree" the better.

What does NOT make those collisions better is when the guy expects the experts (or at least knowledgeable people) to go hunt down citations, etc. EN World isn't Westlaw's database or Wikipedia. the members aren't a legal research staff required to prove every point with documentation and references.

Once the conversation devolves into semantic bickering or show me your proof, stuffs not going well. I'm almost always going to side (or change my mind to) whatever the known experts say. I don't argue Physics with Umbran. I don't argue law with Danny. If Danny cuts out a plank from my platform by saying, "actually, that kind of thing can and will go to trial", then I'm going to stop using that as part of my position.

I'd also note that I try to argue differently. if I raise 3 points on why I think position X is correct and Danny can give me 3 plausible/reasonable negations, I am happy to consider my position disproved.

Bullgrit said:

Would the "OTTers" prefer to be treated and accepted as a group or as individuals? There are some new folks who have engaged in discussions here apparently as individuals, and there are some new folks who are apparently engaging threads as a tight clique.

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Individuals. Being treated as a group is what landed most of us here in the first place.

But seriously, we happened to come here (at least to this forum if not this site) at once, and we happened to talk with each other a lot, but we're individuals. We almost never agree with each other (at least across our group). We weren't even a group until we actually created a private group to continue discussions that had been stopped in open forums. Before that we were just random people that happened to share enough interests that we kept bumping into each other in threads over and over again.

It's no different than how ENWorld has its own overall culture but I'd hardly lump all EN posters together as a single entity.

jonesy said:

Continuing on this, there used to be a rule here, and I'm not sure if it was an unwritten rule or an actual site rule, that said no to cross-board drama. People coming here to complain about other sites got modded pretty heavily.

So just having the 'Of the WotC Forums and the OTT' thread exist and not get locked straight away seems like a pretty big step to me. Not necessarily a step forwards or backwards, but a step nevertheless.

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To be fair, that was our first thread here ever. It has seen some very recent traffic, though. Honestly, I think it's some helpful backstory about us but I also understand why it'd be frowned upon and would personally have no issue at all if Morrus chose to lock or remove that thread. That's what I'd call a perfectly reasonable rule.

Morrus said:

That may be what you're used to, but many of us aren't anonymous. If you stick around a while, you'll realise that many of the relationships on this board extend into real life. I've made dozens of real-life friends here (some of them I only see occasionally when I cross the Atlantic to do so; others more frequently). we meet at Game Days and conventions. We visit each others' homes. Our real names, in many cases, are public knowledge, especially those who work in gaming - mine isn't exactly a secret.

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Thats a really good point. And it is why we DO give credit to what a regular says, instead of assuming he's lying about his profession.

We've all been here a long time. We had like one case of a dude running a long con on who he was including faking his own coma to draw out sympathy.

Otherwise, we all pretty much trust that Morrus is who he says he is. Umbran is a Physics guy in Boston (which implies some big name places he might work at). Danny is an entertainment lawyer (not a trial lawyer) in Dallas. I'm not outing these guys. This is known "public" information within EN world. I respect these guys and their knowledge.

One of the things I like about Danny when he waxes legal, is he clarifies what he knows by general trade, or what he has or doesn't have in direct experience. If he's talking about trial law, he will point out that he is not a trial lawyer and has general lawyer-grade knowledge, but not extensive experience. I can accept his info is mostly accurate until a trial lawyer shows up to ammend/append his information.

In an ideal, respectful situation, said trial lawyer wouldn't just shout Danny down. He'd acknowledge that Danny was giving basic information "that all lawyers know" and then he'd just go into his corrections as "clarifications." I've seen Umban and some of the other resident Physics guys do this, and generally I'm impressed by the professionalism.

What usually doesn't impress me is the guy who likes Physics and obviously knows more than me, but less than the Phd's who insists on arguing about how wrong they are. these kind of things seem more like go challenges, and are really traps for the experts. Folks like Umbran will and do take the time to explain the details of something. But it really mires down a thread if they fall for an argument about some fact.

So, when I advise "don't argue with the experts", that's my personal preference to avoid dragging down a thread.

Janx said:

We had like one case of a dude running a long con on who he was including faking his own coma to draw out sympathy.

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And having a massive number of aliases here, playing it as if he was several people, all talking to each other.

That incident didn't just hurt a whole lot of people here emotionally, it got several people who had been regulars to quit the site partially or entirely. People we liked having around to talk with have not been back since, just because this guy thought it was a fun game or something.