D&D 4E Why is this board so down on 4E critics?

I can personally state that thus far I have not been impressed by 4e and seriously have no desires to move to this edition. (I have even stopped supporting companies moving to it)

However...

As a person who does not care for 4e I do not feel the need to get in a 4e positive thread and post things I do not care about, it doesn't deal with or effect me personally so why bother? To correct someone's comment that "I am on the losing side", I am not because I still enjoy 3.5e today as I did yesterday. I find it all funny actually, if you were around during the change over/marketing issues in Dragon for 2e to 3e many of the very same comments made then are being made now...
 

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Some of the moderators here are very heavy handed (and I have emailed one to complain, though his action wasn't directed at me) even by ENW standards, but as I understand it the justification is not that they seek to prevent criticism of 4e, but that they seek to prevent inflammatory posts causing flamewars etc. The problem is that praising something is rarely considered inflammatory (excluding Nazis, FATAL and RAHOWA) but criticising it often is, especially in a place dedicated to that topic. Criticising 1e AD&D in the Dragonsfoot 1e forum would not get you a warm welcome from the mods there - ENW is much more liberal than there in this regard, though less liberal than eg RPGnet's d20 forum.
 

Shazman said:
As soon as people started airing WotC's dirty laundry about their "If you can't say anythign good about 4E, don't say nothing at all." e-mail, the thread got shut down. Has ENWorld been paid off by WOtC or what? Does anyone have a good explanation for this?

I have yet to see any proof of this beyond the say-so of some Paizo posters. It may be true. I could even believe its true. I won't even knock WotC for it if it is because I could see the legitimate business reason for doing it. But I have yet to see any actual proof that this faux controversy is anything other than an internet hoax.

In one month over 1000 gamers will get to play 4e in a public forum. Do you honestly think there is some massive conspiracy to give us a crappy game? The future of D&D and the livelihood of all the designers and developers rides on them giving us a good quality product. It will be pretty hard to keep people subscribing to the DDI and to sell books every year if 4e sucks.

Look at it this way, if WotC/Hasbro really is a greedy corporation, then would they stand to make more money by trying to trick us all on June 6 by giving us a bad game that results in one time sales before everyone stops buying, or would they stand to make more money by giving us a game that everyone wants to play and thus results in continuous sales and subscriptions to DDI?
 

Shazman said:
I'm not the only who has this impression of ENWorld. I've heard enough people comment about it, that I think it's safe to say that it has the reputation of being rabidly, blatantly pro-4e with little tolerance for anti-4E posts. I have personally seen someone get suspended for a fairly mild anti-4E comment with no warning. It was a disgusting display of a moderator's abuse of power. So you can see how I formed this opinion of ENWorld.

Considering there a few moderators who are very leery of 4E I think this is a subjective interpretation, not objective. As has been mentioned, it is not the 4E detraction that gets people banned, it is the violation of board behavior, (i.e. No personal attacks, no religion, no politics) The moderation on ENWorld is a pretty even handed thing with plenty of warnings given out before the Ban-hammer comes out, IME. There is also plenty of evidence to check out since the threads where people have been banned/moderated are still in existence.
 

grimslade said:
Considering there a few moderators who are very leery of 4E I think this is a subjective interpretation, not objective.

The moderators vary a lot. I have only seen one moderator whose behaviour I consider objectionable, and I thought he was a bad mod long before 4e was ever announced.
 

Speaking as one of the aforementioned power-abusing, heavy-handed moderators, allow me a couple of comments:

Even though I think that folks here have done a pretty good job with refuting some of your allegations, Shaz, you stated them in a way that was not terribly rude. No need to discipline you for that. So long as you maintain your cool and politeness and everybody else in this thread does as well (consider that a general warning) then this thread is perfectly fine.

What I find amusing is the assertion that the moderators are scouring the boards looking for any outbreaks of anti-4e sentiment to stomp out. We really just don't have that kind of time. Nor do we have the inclination. I actually think that slightly more than half of us don't even like what we've seen of 4e. I know that nearly all of us have a much more "wait and see" attitude than most folks that post in the 4e forum. Speaking only for myself for a moment, I only recently went from "completely ambivalent" to "more positive than not".

We've heard this criticism more than once and I'm sure we'll hear it again. But we also, just as often if not moreso, get criticized for letting too many anti-4e folks troll the forums. I guess we figure if we're pissing off both sides about the same then we must be maintaining some level of neutrality.

As always, if you have questions or issues about specific bits of moderation or moderation in general, you know where to e-mail us. Enjoy (in a polite and respectful manner) the rest of your thread.
 

S'mon said:
The moderators vary a lot. I have only seen one moderator whose behaviour I consider objectionable, and I thought he was a bad mod long before 4e was ever announced.

Is it me? I hope it's me!
 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1032102 said:
The Contrarian Troll. A sophisticated breed, Contrarian Trolls frequent boards whose predominant opinions are contrary to their own. A forum dominated by those who support firearms and knife rights, for example, will invariably be visited by Contrarian Trolls espousing their beliefs in the benefits of gun control. It is important to distinguish between dissenters and actual Contrarian Trolls, however; the Contrarian is not categorized as a troll because of his or her dissenting opinions, but due to the manner in which he or she behaves:

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number One: The most important indicator of a poster's Contrarian Troll status is his constant use of subtle and not-so-subtle insults, a technique intended to make people angry. Contrarians will resist the urge to be insulting at first, but as their post count increases, they become more and more abusive of those with whom they disagree. Most often they initiate the insults in the course of what has been a civil, if heated, debate to that point.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Two: Constant references to the forum membership as monolithic. "You guys are all just [descriptor]." "You're a lynch mob." "You all just want to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you."

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Three: Intellectual dishonesty. This is only a mild indicator that is not limited to trolls, but Contrarians display it to a high degree. They will lie about things they've said, pull posts out of context in a manner that changes their meanings significantly, and generally ignore any points for which they have no ready answers.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Four: Accusing the accusers. When confronted with their trolling, trolls immediately respond that it is the accusers who are trolls (see Natural Predators below). Often the Contrarian will single out his most vocal opponent and claim that while he can respect his other opponents, this one in particular is beneath his notice.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Five: Attempts to condescend. The Contrarian will seek refuge in condescending remarks that repeatedly scorn his or her critics as beneath notice – all the while continuing to respond to them.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Six: One distinctive mark of Contrarian Trolls is that every thread in which they dissent quickly devolves into a debate about who is trolling whom. In the course of such a debate the Contrarian will display many of the other Warning Signs mentioned above.
1: The above.
2: The fact that the above doesn't technically violate forum rules makes people want to take matters into their own hands.
 

Cadfan said:
2: The fact that the above doesn't technically violate forum rules makes people want to take matters into their own hands.

Of course it does. And what should they do? As many of the following as they would like:

1) Put that poster on Ignore.
2) Report the post in question including any prior references to when you think this person was trolling.
3) Skip threads like that entirely.
4) DON'T post in the thread accusing the person of being a troll.

This will result in:

1) You having a more pleasant day henceforth unburdened by seeing more posts by somebody you think is a troll.
2) The moderators being aware of the posting habits of this supposed troll and making decisions about what should be done about it.
3) If enough people do this the troll with either wander off or escalate things until they get banned. Either way you're rid of them.
4) You won't get disciplined or banned.
 

Shazman said:
As soon as people started airing WotC's dirty laundry about their "If you can't say anythign good about 4E, don't say nothing at all." e-mail, the thread got shut down. Has ENWorld been paid off by WOtC or what? Does anyone have a good explanation for this?

The alleged e-mail discussion began yesterday on page 8 at 7:06pm; the thread was closed today on page 10 at 5:24 am. That hardly counts as "as soon as" the alleged e-mail was being discussed. The problem was the thread had veered way off course. Some of the discussion was valid and interesting [but ultimately off-topic] discussion of this rumor, and some had become EnWorld vs. Paizo... comparison.

I would bet if you started a thread with the sole purpose of discussing the NDA rumor, it would stay open barring an outbreak of flames or the like.

Thaumaturge.
 

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