Taking a Break

[Branduil]

This thread is a real scrob-woobler.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

<snip> Also be assured that, while we're going through a rough patch, this is not the new status quo. There are some discussions going on behind the scenes as to what can be done to make ENW the friendly, civil, informative place that we all know it can be.
<snip>

Rel, please tell me these discussions don't include yet another round of draconian censorship rules.

I agree this place has changed, and I think it is owing to the heavyhanded and unnecessary moderation. What happened to free flowing discussion?

I know this is an unpopular view but someone has to voice it. I'm not sniping at anyone, but myself and a few others are growing uncomfortable with the stifling of ideas and discussion.

 

[racoffin]

Rel, please tell me these discussions don't include yet another round of draconian censorship rules.

I agree this place has changed, and I think it is owing to the heavyhanded and unnecessary moderation. What happened to free flowing discussion?

I know this is an unpopular view but someone has to voice it. I'm not sniping at anyone, but myself and a few others are growing uncomfortable with the stifling of ideas and discussion.

I may be looking in the wrong threads, but I have not seen anything draconian or heavy-handed in the moderation around here. In fact, I'd suggest that the mods are being pretty level-headed; I know there have been strings of comments that are little more than namecalling and backbiting that has gone for pages before a mod finally has to step in and remind people to settle down.

I do not think any sort of free-flowing discussion is stifled by requesting that people try and limit their attacks, moderate their own tone, and in general act like they are talking to other human beings that simply don't agree rather than their worst enemy in the world.

If there is a concern about the moderators having to step in, perhaps all parties should step back and take an honest look at what they are putting up on the boards, their own words and others, and consider if there was a better, perhaps more civil, way of stating their opinions.

A final note: one poster remarked in a thread recently to the effect that they aren't looking to make friends and are just stating their opinion in the most honest or bluntest manner. That sounds really nifty, but in reality it comes across as you are trying to explain why you are being offensive. While others are not saying the same thing, they are sure acting like it. That might be one of the reasons that many people are taking a step away from ENWorld: it is starting to have the same sort of ill-tempered posts as WOTC's boards.

Food for thought.

 

[Maggan]

I do not think any sort of free-flowing discussion is stifled

I agree, and also believe that the moderation that created a posting climate that has attracted over 70 000 registered users, is very good, by any standards.

/M

 

[Fifth Element]

This is actually the point. While "[a] game published under the name D&D" may be an objective definition (insofar as one is possible), it is not in fact, the objective meaning of the term D&D, which is a product of subjective valuation.

How do you derive an objective meaning from subjective valuations? Wouldn't that be the subjective meaning? My point is that when a term has an objective meaning (which in this case it does, despite your protestations), you cannot compare its use to terms that are completely subjective (videogamey being the chief culprit here).

Even this "objective" definition is extremely questionable. If I published a game under the name "D&D" (regardless of what legal action WotC would then take), would it be D&D?

You're taking my comment to an absurd level of literality. Of course it wouldn't be D&D. If I take a Zenith DVD player and write Sony on the top, does that make it a Sony DVD player? Of course it doesn't. That's ridiculous. Reductio ad absurdum, I believe.

 

[rounser]

A computer game cannot do it on the fly. It takes months or years of programming and graphic works to get the computer game up and running.

Duh. I'm taking that into account. Once the work is done, it may as well be on the fly. The degree of randomly generated versus status quo material differs from software to software.

A DM cannot equal the effort of a programming design team (or if he can, he's an incredibly rare bird), nor can he recall all that information and process it in the way a computer can. It's just the way it is.

Even given a large page count, a PnP adventure comes nowhere near the scope of your average CRPG, and probably railroads you all the way.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What happened to free flowing discussion?

It's on usenet. I wouldn't recommend going there. The only decent thread I saw was on alt.shut.the.hell.up.geek which was literally two geeks telling one another to shut the hell up. Hilarious. Until a third geek arrived asking why they were telling one another to shut the hell up. That really spoiled it for me.

 

[Harlekin]

rpg.net is friendlier than enword these days

I have to belatedly agree with the OP as well. These days, if I want to read a friendly, constructive and inspiring discussion about D&D, I go to rpg.net.

This is the place to go to watch fans tear at each other about which way one should go about pretending to be an elf.

As a short time solution, the only way to recreate some level of civility is more moderator activity. In my mind, way to many posters do not consider how their post will be read, but just post out of some initial passion.

Maybe the best long-time solution for the problems here would be than EN World repositions itself either as the Dragonsfoot of 3rd ed. or as a 4th ed website.

 

[Raven Crowking]

How do you derive an objective meaning from subjective valuations?

My point exactly. Despite your protestations, no term has an objective meaning. It is part of the very nature of language that every term has only subjective meaning, based upon subjective valuations.

While you think I am taking your comment "to an absurd level of literality" you must surely be aware that there are some folks who believe that what WotC has done with the D&D name (either in 3rd, or in 4th edition, or both) corresponds exactly to the same absurdity that makes you say "Of course it wouldn't be D&D."

If I take a Zenith DVD player and write Sony on the top, does that make it a Sony DVD player? Of course it doesn't. Likewise, if I take any game system and write D&D on the top, it obviously doesn't make it D&D. Even if I am WotC.

While I personally accept that 3e and 4e are D&D, I fully understand why some others do not. They believe it is a Zenith DVD player with Sony written on the top.

Which illustrates the problem when one begins to censor on the basis of "vagueness". Any term is "vague", and the degree of "vagueness" is more often than not based not on inability to understand what is meant, but unwillingness to do so. This is not censorship to make communication clearer, but censorship to repress specific ideas that the would-be censor doesn't like.

IMHO, of course. YMMV.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Even given a large page count, a PnP adventure comes nowhere near the scope of your average CRPG, and probably railroads you all the way.

Your PnP experiences must differ very much from my own.


RC