Batboy has been keeping Batboy’s eye on the various dramas popping up on the board, and Batboy is ashamed of this whole mess. For the first time, Batboy believes everyone should heed the calls that Wordforge has lost Wordforge’s way. Now, Batboy was going to take this opportunity to call out all those who Batboy sees as responsible for these problems, and offer Batboy’s thoughts on how said people could shape up. For example, Batboy was going to point out to Garamet that Garamet is quite possibly the single biggest hinderance to reasonable discussion on the board, and that Garamet could assist in fixing the problem by disappearing and taking Garamet’s passive aggressive victim act troll bullshit with Garamet. Batboy also planned to point out that the better option would be for Garamet to drop the act, rise above the nonsense, and act like the intelligent and thoughtful adult Garamet can be when Garamet wants to. But then Batboy rethought Batboy’s approach, as Batboy suspected that such a thread would simply descend into further bullshit and bickering. So, Batboy will simply say this. Batboy believes that everyone, including Batboy, is responsible for this mess. A board is only as good as the content generated by the users, and in this regard, the users have failed miserably recently. Batboy has given this some thought, and considered the various comments posted throughout the various drama threads. Based on these considerations, Batboy would like to offer some thoughts on possible ways to turn things around. 1. Batboy does not want to see any new rules or any messing with board features. Batboy does not believe that there is any problem with the board itself or the philosophy behind it. In other words, Batboy says leave rep alone and shut up about it already! 2. Batboy has noticed that the board has basically broken down into a small left camp and a small right camp, with a large group of cheerleaders on each side, and a small number of innocent bystanders caught in the shitstorm. Batboy would like to see a truce between these camps. In other words, stop bitching at each other like under-medicated ADHD brats for five fucking minutes, and stop encouraging the stupidity. 3. All that being said, Batboy thinks the board needs to actively work to generate content. One thing Batboy loves about Wordforge is that Wordforge has a vast array of talented posters, which diverse interests and knowledge to offer. Batboy would like to see these individuals step up. Batboy envisions a Wordforge where members generate content based on those members individual talents. Batboy could see something like the old portal, where “articles” for lack of a better term would be posted, with links to the board for purposes of discussion. Elwood could generate law enforcement articles. Async could generate articles related to religion if someone could convince Async to post more than three words at a time. MAOHS could generate content based on weapons, cookies, or the combination thereof. Dan could post photographs. Marso could generate aviation content. Sokar could post about music. Garamet could generate literary content. The possibilities are endless. 4. Generating content in this manner would take effort by members. Batboy hopes the commitment is here. Batboy envisions using this content to draw new members. The “articles” would act as bait, via tags, search engines, etc., to draw new posters to the board. Batboy thinks this could work if the effort is made. 5. Batboy also would like to see members who don’t want to deal with the trolling and nonsense simply ignore the muck. Those members could post interesting news or topics. With luck, this would happen enough to push the garbage off the front page. Again, Batboy thinks this would require effort by the the membership, and Batboy hopes the effort would be here. Batboy does not think the board will die anytime soon. Batboy does see the board losing what makes the board special, however, if the effort is not made to cut though the crap. Batboy thinks everyone needs to take responsibility for this effort, but that the staff needs to lead the way. Batboy hopes Lanzman will consider all suggestions from the membership, and institute efforts to encourage content, without taking away any of the things that make the board unique. Oh, and in closing, Batboy thinks Startard should skydive into a wood chipper without a parachute. Batboy thinks this would significantly improve the board.
apostle83 thinks Batboy is wise. 1. I agree with this. 2. I agree with this. 3. I agree with this. Why do I not get to talk about weapons though? 4. Good SEO. 5. Yes.
locustinferno disagrees: In accordance with your new asshole policy, I will enact a policy of me own: I will for no reason neg rep your posts from now on. You're dealing with the wrong guy if you I think I care. Feel free to waste all your rep if you want.
Agreed on all points. There are probably a total of about 10 "worst offenders" who bitch at each other and fill up 80% of the red room content. Although, I should mention that I've been making an effort to write good content in techforge/press start when I have the free time. If anyone has any specific topics they'd like info on, ask away!
Batboy like to touch on one thing Batboy forgot to mention. Batboy has traveled the tubes of the interweb for many years. In all of Batboy's travels, Batboy has never found another place where left and right, theist and atheist, communist and fascist, intellectual and idiot, yuppy and redneck, young and old, black and white, cat and dog, surf and turf, etc. can mix and mingle without staff/administrative interference resulting in dominance of one over the other. Batboy thinks this would be a huge draw if only this place wasn't such a well-kept secret. Batboy thinks everyone should consider ways to get the message out. Batboy notes that in a matter of months, someone was able to generate nearly a million Facebook fans for the simple concept of "Not being on fire." Batboy thinks the creative minds at Wordforge can do even better if properly motivated.
Much as we gamers love our games there just isn't much to talk about. I enjoyed your breakdowns of the TF2 updates, I heard a new one is coming up soon.
Yes, that was me. I made a decent amount of progress on it since the board reset and the discussion on it was erased. I never got around to restarting a thread about it (kinda wanted to wait until I had another big feature to show off). Anyway recently I've been more busy and unable to work on it. However, I haven't abandoned it, and I even bought a domain/webhost for it for when it's done, we can all play.
It's out already. They released the Sniper and Spy updates simultaneously and they released a new "Meet the.." video with Meet the Spy.
We should get together for a TF2 evening. I don't play the game much, but it would still be fun. Or, if we get enough interest, maybe start up our own server?
He's like the mysterious and wise owl that goes into hiding and never shows his face until it's time for us to look at ourselves and see how idiotic and dramatic we've been and how we could do so much better. I feel like I'm being watched.
I actually have some ideas for threads with content, and the current drama on WordForge is not what has kept me from doing so. I know this may sound strange, but there is this mysterious thing called "real life," which may or may not be nothing more than a hallucinatory dream caused by some sort of mental illness, but it is intruding on my WF time lately. June is a bad month for me (term papers, preparations for scout camp, etc.) and July is when I'm completely gone every year, so I can play around a bit but actually following through on a long, serious discussion is harder. I did it a while ago, in a thread on objective morality, and it was great. Diacanu, especially, really participated in the thread and, even though we didn't agree, I enjoyed that immensely. It was a real discussion, with a number of us actually addressing the issue, and it brought out a bunch of interesting aspects of the subject. But unfortunately I just don't always have time for it, and now is one of the times I don't.
I didn't know you were in college. Actually...i think i did, but I forgot....how old are you anyways? I would have guessed older than college age.
Yes, I am "in college," but on the other side of the desk. I teach some classes on various subjects (quite a few of them "human sciences" like psychology, dynamics of history, and other such boring material). When I speak of final exams, it is not about taking them, but about correcting them. Which is even worse...
I never wrote an update since they had the new shitty unlock system, there was no way to work towards specific items, they'd just randomly appeared. They've fixed it though, maybe I should go back and write about the new stuff.
