Hussar
Legend
/snip
Okay, here are some assertions you can examine:
1. Older D&D is no longer in print, and those who have the means to put it back in print (in pdf form or otherwise) have pulled the plug.
2. 4e is marketted as D&D.
3. 4e is marketted as being essentially different from previous editions of D&D.
Agreed.
4. Prior to 4e, previous editions of D&D are the metric for defining the identity of D&D.
Strongly disagree. 3e was defined by its differences from 2e particularly at the time. That it was a large rewrite of most of the existing rules. It may have borrowed strongly on the flavor of older editions (back to the dungeon!) but it shared almost nothing mechanically and was not shy about telling everyone that.
5. If something is essentially different from the existing metric of identity of any term, it is not the same as that term, except by extension or reduction of that term. Even so "Everything has changed but it is still all the same!" is an oxymoronic mantra.
6. It is therefore not irrational for those who do not appreciate the attempted extension or reduction to oppose the redefinition of the term, with the caveat that
7. If the people attempting to redefine the term were inclusive of the older meaning (and kept the materials thereof available) the redefinition would seem less like co-option, and therefore make it easier to simply ignore (rather than oppose).
The only people who are trying to redefine the term are those who are doing so to exclude 4e. No one is trying to define D&D to exclude older editions. Thus the definition of D&D hasn't really changed at all.
In other words, if people would stop trying to define chocolate ice cream as the sole and only version of ice cream that can be called ice cream, we'd get along a lot better.
I don't claim that 4e is not D&D, but I can certainly understand why some might. And asking them to simply be quiet about it will change EN World from a site about D&D to a site about 4e.....in exactly the same way that Dragonsfoot isn't a site about D&D, but rather a site about TSR-D&D.
Frankly, I view that as a more divisive option than being willing to discuss it here. The mods could, of course, create a subforum for such discussion, so that it doesn't need to disturb anyone else. But removing that disucssion, IMHO, does a real disservice to the site.
RC
No one is saying that you cannot define earlier editions as D&D. That has NEVER been claimed to my knowledge. However, people have claimed numerous times that 4e is NOT D&D. How is that not an attempt to exclude 4e from D&D conversations?