I'm also not at all happy with some of the responses I've seen to it ... especially Kyle's (a.k.a. JimBob's) immediate "Don't be a cocksmock!" response and consistent pattern of attributing weakness and malice to Levi rather than accepting the decision as a a difference of opinion.
I didn't say he was malicious. Where did I say that? Levi has about as much malice as your average startled puppy.
I did say he should just tell RPGPundit to go fuck himself, or ignore him. There are a thousand other posters here. If one of them annoys you, then there are a heap of others you can read who won't. You don't throw out the whole bag of dice because one has the numbers rubbed off.
I think that you're very comfortable with the idea that Pundit isn't making any impact on people ... because he doesn't make any impact on you, and so you figure everyone else should just choose to feel the same way.
I didn't say he didn't make an impact on people, or on me. Remember when I had a go at RPGPundit for driving away Cessna?
I said we should pay no attention to posters who annoyed us, or we should tell them to wind their heads in. Many times I have said that this Swine War bollocks discourages new posters. I've also asked, "but how many new posters do we want? When is it enough?"
It looks an awful lot like you're trying to demonize Levi, rather than question that notion.
Again, you're not reading what I'm writing, or only reading part of it.
RPGPundit should turn the volume down on his rants, AND posters should toughen up, and give it back to him equally, or better yet pay him no mind. We
all need to change for the better.
folks have privately emailed me to talk about the site. Several of those have, as part of their talking, expressed their intention never to visit again. Levi's just the first to do so in the public eye.
And people quit rpg.net, and Animalball, and SJGames, and story-games, and the Forge, and so on - yet all those sites live on.
Forums lose and gain posters all the time. What's important is that they have enough active posters who post interesting, useful and funny stuff. This or that poster is not important.
Yes, that means that RPGPundit as an individual poster is not important to the site as a whole. But it means that Levi isn't important either. Nor me, nor TonyLB, nor anyone else. If any of us leave for good, others come and replace us, and the site goes on.
For my part, I will miss Levi's contributions to the site. His posts are interesting, useful and sometimes funny. You know how you can hit "New Posts" and then you glance down and see the name of the person who's most recently posted to a thread? Sometimes you see a name and say, "oh, that guy. Yeah well I can look at it another time, not worth a click that guy." And sometimes you see a name and say, "ooh! I wonder what that one has to say." Levi's one of the second group for me, and I think for many other posters.
I mean, one possible solution to this would be that, outside of my own forum, I would not go on anti-swine rants spontaneously; and in exchange, outside my own forum, all discussion of Swine Topics and Jargon (including any discussion of the Forge, GNS, Storygaming, etc) would be forbidden. But I don't think anyone really wants to go that route.
I'd be delighted to go that route. It's called "putting threads into the right subforum." GNS belongs in the Game Design subforum, US domestic politics belongs in Off Topic, Amber belongs in the Amber subforum, and the Swine War belongs in RPGPundit's subforum.
Of course there are always going to be passing mentions of this or that, so what. But if a thread begins as or turns into one mainly about topic X, it should be put into the subforum of topic X.
In the end, I just think that vigorous debate is the price of freedom, and anyone who doesn't like that kind of vigorous debate (and lacks the discrimination to be able to just ignore it) should just realize this might not be the site for them.
There's vigorous debate, and then there's ranting and raving. And better than debate is discussion. Discussion lets us understand people, debate just lets us try to smash someone down. Even a Swine Warrior should want discussion, becase "know thy enemy, and win one hundred battles". If you discuss and know your enemy, then you can keep your attacks for their weak points and weak times. That's more effective than constant random bombardment, especially since the bombardment is causing friendly fire casualties.
Turn the volume down. That's my sincere request. Just keep the topics in their right subforums. Keep the attacks for when they matter.
But
at the same time, people should toughen up a bit. As soon as you log onto the internet, you are bound to see something that annoys, offends or disturbs you. When it comes to a discussion forum, remember that one poster remains one poster. So that means that in the scheme of things, RPGPundit is not that important - but neither are any of us. The site goes on, with lively discussions.
He goes further then just this and he adds that 1 in 30 is not good esp when dealing with people's perception of this place.
And I go further than that, still, and say that the cure for this is to hope that the one will be put in the right subforum, or better yet never get written - but to post lots of threads.
I remember a while back RPGPundit mentioned that one of the things he thought was an indicator of the forum being active enough to be proud of was that he could look at the Roleplaying subforum, and see all the threads bolded and new, all with activity from today. We can take that a step further again and say that at least half of them should be new threads, threads started today.
I think I could probably find some topic to start a thread on each day. That's been my idea with Saturday Subpoena and the coming Free PDF Friday. I'm trying to think of a few others like that. It's a bit lame and silly but it keeps things lively, keeps people reading, and gives them something to respond to. And I hope it'll provoke further threads as topics spin off.
Start threads on things which interest you, and which will interest others. Create content. Forget about whoever's in charge. Write stuff. This swamps the stuff you dislike, and produces more good content which attracts new members. You think that Poster X scares people off? Okay then, create so many new threads that people have to
go looking for Poster X's rants.
This is
exactly what I said to people "leaving rpg.net in protest" at my banning, or the tone of the place, or whatever. A forum is its threads its content, what you make it. Not what the admins and mods make it.
Post threads about stuff which interests you, and which you think will create interesting discussions. Reply to other people's threads. Contribute, participate.