[Rant]Anyone else annoyed to hell with Wizards "no novel discussion in our boards"

[BryonD]

Regardless - censhorship is a bad, bad, evil thing. History teaches that - for those of us who care about history anyway. However, whenever the authorities grow to a certain size, they become so paranoid that they just completely block out everything that composes the barest hint of a potential threat.

History teaches that there is a difference between censorship and establishing rules for a private and voluntary system. Failure to make that important distinction undermines resistance to true censorship.

 

[Vocenoctum]

well, the dragonlance novel boards were the model of good discussion and friendliness, and when they shut us down, there was a lot of uproar, at least till DL.com picked up the slack.

However, it seems that the rules have been loosened a little, as a handful of novel threads have been allowed to exist this past month, including a few blatently baiting the anti novel ban. I think that as long as people keep it clean, its ok (at least on the DL boards)

I didn't even know there WAS a novel ban discussion. I posted the thread about novels & DL and there was no problem.

 

[jaerdaph]

Honestly, I avoid posting and interacting the WotC boards, and mostly check in to see what errata etc. the designers post. I just can't relate to the crowd that hangs out there. I read somewhere once that the average poster at WotC was something like 14 years old, but perhaps that's due to the Magic cards following. Still, it's not quite the cesspool that RPGNet is. Not yet anyway.

No offense to the younger generation intended.

 

[Pants]

If it's specifically Forgotten Realms novel discussion you want then the party has moved to candlekeep.com, the authors post there often. Flames and trolls don't last long over there. At least that's been my experience.

It seems to me that the WotC boards attract the whiniest most pedantic and unhappy crowd of RPGers I've ever seen. Seriously, some of the garbage that goes on there on a daily basis I've never seen happen here. This is including 90% of the boards, not just the novel discussions.

Well, those rules I quoted basically said "Don't criticize the novels", not "Don't stalk the authors". This tells me that the problem was more about thin skin than authors being threatened.

I think they went a little too far in banning novel discussions, but seriously, a lot of the people posting about them were grade-A jackasses. I liked going there to read the posts by the few authors that graced the boards, but I had wade through miles of childish flames and insults.

 

[Mystery Man]

I didn't even know there WAS a novel ban discussion. I posted the thread about novels & DL and there was no problem.

Most likely the DL board admin isn't big sister. She's like the lady of pain, you just don't mess with her. She frightens me.


Only kidding really. I didn't realize until just recently the Wizos get paid. Like minimum wage or something.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I'm not annoyed with Wizards banning novel discussion on their forums because I almost never go to WotC's FR forums. They're filled with trolls, flamers, and rabid elf fanboys. Still, from what I've heard of the whole "no discussing novels" deal, it was started because the authors who visited the forums were thin-skinned and didn't know how to ignore flamers.

Of course, not all WotC forums are like that. I sometimes visit their forum devoted to D&D rules to read about the powerful character builds and the like. There's some interesting threads there.

 

[takyris]

No, I pretty much completely agree with Numion there.

I was with him when it came to discussions of the books. When it came to discussions of the person, I was so-so. When it came to actual threats, I can see WotC's point.

If you wanna diss my work, that's fine -- well, it sucks, and I'd probably try to have a dialogue, but there's no real problem there. If you wanna diss me personally, that's lame, and while the dark half of Tacky will happily wade in there and start discussing people's mamas, the better angels of my nature would probably suggest that I leave the board in question. But if you wanna make threats against me, that's, uh, bad. I don't know whether you're a 13-year-old who's just mouthing off because the Doom-3 server is full and he's got nobody to yell at right now, or whether you're a very impassioned reader who thinks threats against the author are the best way to make a point, or what. Regardless, I'd leave that forum in a Eberron minute -- or, if I had the power and pull, I'd get those discussions forbidden.

A few idiots with poor social skills can indeed ruin everything for the rest of us. I don't see an author who has their day ruined because they went to the discussion forum for their work and found someone threatening their life as "thin-skinned".

 

[akchf]

I have to admit it was the policies like this and the large amount of flaming on WotC's boards that got me looking for other forums, where I eventually found out about ENWorld. Most discussions here seem to be more productive and interesting to me at least.

 

[Dark Jezter]

A few idiots with poor social skills can indeed ruin everything for the rest of us. I don't see an author who has their day ruined because they went to the discussion forum for their work and found someone threatening their life as "thin-skinned".

Getting upset because you're getting death threats isn't thin-skinned. Getting upset because a bunch of impossible-to-please geeks are saying things like "My favorite character would never do that! You suck!" in regards to one of your novels is thin-skinned.

 

[takyris]

Jezter: Agreed. As I didn't see the posts myself, I'm just going by what people said. And what people said was that the flames included threats. That's the information my post was based on.