"Is it better to have words left unsaid, or words misunderstood?"

(quote from one of my favorite Cowboy Junkies songs)

This is in regards to my first thread here @ EN World, "I mailed back my 3.5 D&D books for a refund today", in the General RPG Discussion section, which was recently closed by a mod after a lightning 60 responses, hijacks and flaming retorts. Since this all happened within the *6 hours* after I'd gone to bed I didn't even get a chance to respond to anyone's reactions, or add anythng further there.

[Just a quick comment to moderator Henry re: the rapid locking. Please remember that not all of us have the desire or capability to monitor and respond to these boards 24/7. Obviously a lot of people here are somehow able to afford the time to read, post and respond even in the time between breakfast and second breakfast, but not all of us have that luxury. In fact, when I finally woke up I got called back into work on my day off so this is the first chance I've had to respond to the thread I started a mere day ago, and now it's closed so it's too late. After reading all the responses I don't feel that the thread was actually burning enough to deserve a lockout, but that's your call. I would only ask that in the future you allow enough time for a reasonable person to be able to return to a thread they've begun to try and steer it back to the discussion initiated. More than 6 hours, perhaps? Thanks.]

I now feel a bit like Michael Moore after his Bowling For Colombine Oscar speech: a perfectly acceptable expression of opinion, just made in the wrong venue/time/manner. I do want to thank Psion, just_al and Flexor the Mighty for performing their "aid another" actions while I was asleep. I'm glad someone respected my opinion enough to respond to it and not just have a knee-jerk reaction to the topic.

I do want to apoligize if the tone and misplaced attempt at being humerously sarcastic in my 2 brief posts made it look like I was being "trollish." This was not my intention at all. I had just finished a loooong exhausting work week, and was probably too tired for trying to be funny while expressing an opinion on something that I felt strongly about. As you will see in my future postings, I usually add at *least* 2d4 supporting rationalizing paragraphs when I try to make an important point.

I will also admit to having a lot of built-up anti-WotC hostility seething inside over their recent fiasco over @ the Magic: the Gathering Online v2.doh 8th Edition launch. (Another great property this company is mishandling...) Those kinds of feelings tend to color all your posts when you're really tired.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have opened a new thread on my happiness at having retrieved my money from my mistaken 3.5 D&D preorder. I suppose that sentiment could just as easily have been a post in one of the many "So why don't you like 3.5 poll" threads here. But I didn't expect there to be such a negative reaction since I wasn't posting on the official Wizards of the Coast messageboards, where there shouldn't have been as many "3.5 - it's the New Coke. Yummy. Love it!" apologists. And since this "edition" of our beloved game has been released for a while now, I figured people should have expunged most of their emotional reactions to it's divisionary nature, much as the 3.0 reaction curve went.

I guess the 3.0/3.5 debate will be a sore spot for some time. (Thanks WotC, for splitting us up again..."Divide & cash-in" I guess.) As one poster noted, this has split the D&D gaming community into two for now. I have to add that I personally am actually going on a third path instead (as probably others are with other hobbies/systems). I won't be playing 3.5 or 3.0 anymore. We vote with our feet, and my dollars will be walking along the Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed route for a while. (So, no, I don't need to ever buy a 3.5 D&D supplement. Thank the Goddess for the 3rd-party publishing community!)

So did I make my stabilization check here, or am I still at a "reputationally dying" status @EN World boards? (I suppose that if I were actually a true troll I wouldn't care about this at all, I would just keep laying "flame bait" threads until I was banned and then regenerate under a new screen name.)

I hope that this post shows that this is not my intention for participating in the EN World forums.

See you all in the d20 System & OGL Games sections...

Hey WW. Welcome to the boards and all, but understand there are a couple forces at work here that you might not be aware of.

1) Please don't reopen a closed topic. The best bet is to let the subject sit about a week and then try for a complete new take.

2) Your first thread on the boards was very negative in tone. Negativity seems to breed negativity.

3) I agree about the 3.0 vs. 3.5 edition wars being a sore spot, and likely to remain so for a while. In the meantime, avoid criticizing the motives and simple opinions of people that like one edition or the other. I would expect that you'll be unlikely to find any messageboard that discusses D&D to be without a fanboy presence for each particular ruleset, so you might carry that forward if you hit other boards, too.

4) I'll be with you in that other forum, being apparently a fanboy of 3 competing rulesets. *shrug*

One other thought. WW, your absence wasn't responsible for that thread getting locked; it degenerated, a moderator reminded folks that insults weren't permitted, and a member persisted. Klunk went the thread. When such things occur, it's the job of our moderators to use their best judgment as to when to close a topic. We seldom if ever wait for the original post starter to weigh in and re-steer the thread if they haven't already.

And 60 posts isn't a fast closing! 1 Post is a fast closing.

Seriously, welcome to the boards; we're pleased to have you. Go have fun, and please feel free to email a moderator or post here in Meta if you have any questions.