rpg.net forums down

[Balbinus]

Like in the GDR.

Well, save for the slight difference that they don't imprison you or shoot you or anything, yeah, exactly like that.

I think a degree of perspective may be in order, unlike the GDR one may leave whenever one wishes if one disagrees with how things are managed.  Also, there's that whole being banned from a forum isn't quite as bad as being imprisoned or executed bit.

[Settembrini]

No, but unlike Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, the GDR of the eighties was a rather "pleasant", albeit dull and caged place.
And a whole culture grew out of "submarine criticism". That is a very pronounced element of contemporary german cultural debate. And the structures in RPG.net seem to breed a similar culture.

Really, I live 500m from the Stasi Headquarteres, don´t educate me on GDR history. Ron Edwards did that, and he got the biggest
:rolleyes:
you could ever imagine from the participants of the "Spione" promo-event.
Trust me insofar, as that my remark would have been totally on-target for a german audience.

[Balbinus]

No, but unlike Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, the GDR of the eighties was a rather "pleasant", albeit dull and caged place.
And a whole culture grew out of "submarine criticism". That is a very pronounced element of contemporary german cultural debate. And the structures in RPG.net seem to breed a similar culture.

Really, I live 500m from the Stasi Headquarteres, don´t educate me on GDR history. Ron Edwards did that, and he got the biggest
:rolleyes:
you could ever imagine from the participants of the "Spione" promo-event.
Trust me insofar, as that my remark would have been totally on-target for a german audience.

I have no doubt you know more about that history than I do, it's more that I think the impact on people's lives must be a touch greater in the case of the GDR than in the case of rpg.net.

I appreciate that in one sense it is only a question of degree, but I think that's an important question, else it becomes a bit like a reductio ad absurdum (an exempli ad absurdum?  I don't have the latin to coin the phrase).

However, I'm not German and it's not my history, so of course there may be nuances I'm missing.

[Settembrini]

To be more precise:

The skills you need to communicate are akin to the skills many people developed into an art form in the GDR in anticipation of the possibility of somebody reporting. Or the witful and clever avoidance of banned terms and the recoining of "acceptable" terms to still utter criticism. Truth to be told, in the GDR that was aimed mostly at the party. But the need for veiled communication was generated by the fear of a shamus being around.
So yes, of course are internet forae completely voluntary and irrelevant. When granting leeway and freedom to others doesn´t cost nothing, and the persons in control still refrain from doing so, I am very sceptical of their aims.

You know, if it´s all irrelevant, than you need no mind control.

But, I shall better not beat the dead horse RPG.Net anymore. I bored myself. I shall get over it.

[David R]

Trust me insofar, as that my remark would have been totally on-target for a german audience.

Maybe for a German audience but otherwise that comparison is pretty ridiculous. I could say a lot of things about tBP's policy (to be clear, I think only some folks feel like the way how some here feel about tBP), that folks around my part of the world could relate to, but even they would say - WTF , you are comparing something that goes on in a hobby forum, to the shit we went thorugh..idiot.

Regards,
David R

[Bradford C. Walker]

I think it's more akin to the "Little Dog" effect, really.  They snarl and yap viciously as long as they're safely under someone else's protection, then go back to shivering nervously.

I'm sorry.  That was cruel.

Okay, I'm not that sorry.  It's cruel, but true.

And the teapot tempests that erupt when it collapses, because it really is that fragile, remind me on a regular basis that being nice and being good are not the same thing.  It happened again today, in the merged thread about that Smith chick.

[Consonant Dude]

Oh climb down off your cross.

I missed one friggin post in a very long thread when I came late to the party.  It happens.

The "facts" you are saying I am ignoring are, in fact, simply your opinions.  

For some reason, you and others have a bug up your ass about RPG.net.  Thats fine.  I have been posting there for years and have never ONCE seen anyone banned who didn't deserve it.

But you know what?  You've found another place to post.  A place you feel more comfortable with.  Thats great, and thats whats important.  Why invest so much of your time and energy on a place that you  don't like?

Its called a life.  I suggest you get one.

I like how you suggest I get a life, when you're the one wasting time announcing Anna Nicole Smith's death on RPG.net like anyone actually care and getting bitchslapped repeatedly like a little girl by MacLennan and Curt for your trouble. That after defending that place vehemently here.

[Pierce Inverarity]

True...but that half is still very substantial and still out-traffics most pure RPG websites.

Spot on.

Edit: I'm German, it's my history, and Settembrini is so out to lunch it's not funny anymore.