This is an official goodbye; I am leaving these Discussion Boards.

It is not a decision easily taken; but a fact is that I’ve finally run out of patience. I used to enjoy this site a lot in the past, both the articles and the boards. However, in the last 2-3 years there has been a steadily down-going spiral. The latest flame thread, about the pope, was one of too many examples, and yet not a low-water mark; there have been several others worse than that.

And now Medievia, a mud known to be making money from stolen Diku code, has been allowed back on the site, and is already spamming the review section. 15 ‘reviews’ in less days, which look more like staff-written promotions than anything else, gives a hint of what to expect in the future. And as a direct consequence there is another flame thread starting, induced, as so many times before, by the_logos, who finds it appropriate to welcome the code stealers to the site, knowing well enough the opinions of most posters on this subject.

'Professional courtesy' he calls it, and then in almost the same sentence tells one of the nicest posters on the board  to '**** off'. How very courteous, and how extremely professional.

I just don’t have the patience for yet another flame war. I have actually been thinking about leaving for quite some time - this is just the last straw.

No doubt some posters will rejoice in my leaving. Others might miss me a bit, just like I am going to miss them. Just for the record I will state my main reasons for leaving, for those that are interested. The rest of you can stop reading here. Don’t bother responding either, I won’t be here to reply.

My first reason for leaving is my distaste for the unbridled and shameless commercialism that seems to invade almost every corner of the internet nowadays, and also has taken over this site. Spam mail, blinking and flashing banners, pop-up pages, misleading or false advertising and unethical promotion methods are all equally irritating. The blatant, aggressive, repetitive and – in my opinion – often unethical ways some mudowners use to promote their games are getting severely on my nerves.

This site once used to be a great place, where Mud players and administrators could share problems and experience and get input and advice in return. I used to contribute quite a bit myself in the old days, both with articles and posts, since I believe in sharing. But gradually I find my own motivation wearing thin, and I don’t seem to be alone in this. The articles have dwindled to almost nothing and the same thing applies to the discussions. Most of the threads nowadays are either flame-wars or blatant adverts - (usually for the same group of commercial games, who keep the threads on top of the listing by adding meaningless comments to them as soon as they are about to drop out of sight). Even the sparse threads that show an initial potential of becoming interesting are either pushed off the recent topics list by this spam, or go up in flames too as soon as certain posters enter the discussion.

Which leads me to my second reason for leaving. There are some frequent posters here, who I have come to dislike intensely. This has nothing to do with the muds they run, as they no doubt will try to claim. My dislike is personal, and it is firmly grounded on several years of observation of posting patterns and general attitude, on this and other discussion boards. One of them in particular, the_logos, is habitually either condescending, chest-thumping, rude or downright insulting, and frequently posts things that are offensive to a large number of people. His habit of dismissing all arguments that doesn’t suit him with insinuations that the opponents are just ‘bitter kids’ or jealous of his ‘success’ doesn’t make him any more endearing, it just makes him look cheap.

I find my dislike for this poster steadily growing, to an extent where I sometimes cannot resist taking a pot-shot at him, whenever he posts something I find particularly stupid and/or offensive – which is a bit too often. This is of course disruptive to the discussions. I admit to being at fault here, and I am taking the consequences of not being able to control my dislike, by leaving the boards. As they say in the Wild West; ‘This town ain’t big enough for the two of us’.

But apparently I am not alone in my sentiments, since several other posters seem to react in a similar way. You might argue that he is the innocent party, since he is the target of the flames, but it isn’t as simple as that. When even normally polite and balanced posters like Valg and Angie attack him, there is a reason behind it. And the reason is the large number of obnoxious and offensive posts that he has made in the past, and is still making, on this board as well as others. The TMC thread that Tyche linked to in the Pope thread is just one example, there are several more.

There are posters on the boards here whose opinions I respect, even when I don’t agree with them. There are others whose posts I generally enjoy reading. I am going to miss those posters. However, those that I like and respect seem to enter less and less in any serious discussions here. Perhaps they, like me, have given up this site and only linger here out of old habit.

Once I used to enjoy coming to this site. Now I find myself getting in a bad mood just by reading the list of recent discussions, which too often is spammed by the poster that I dislike the most and his cronies. In my opinion this poster is allowed too much of a free rein by the list Admin. This may be another manifestation of commercialism (or  ‘professionalism’ or whatever you label it), since you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. This is probably the reason why a mud like Medievia was allowed back on the list too, in spite of the fact that it is offensive to a majority of the posters.

I know that the list owner makes his own decisions and that, as a guest on the boards, there is little or nothing I can do to influence these. So I am taking the only option left to mudders that stopped enjoying a game any more – I vote with my feet, by leaving the place.

So have fun, y’all. I intend to seek my own fun elsewhere from now on.

It's sad to see you go, but luckily, leaving this forum is not the same as leaving the community - so instead of saying goodbye, I'll say, "See you around."

Take care, Molly!

I may do likewise - my tolerance level for shysters isn't particularly high these days in the real world, let alone a hobby I spend my free time on. I suppose I'll wait to see how bad it gets.

Yeah, nothing like people who do things like support the mud sites with advertising dollars and create jobs in the field of muds! They're all scum! The people really growing the community are the people running 10 person muds with stolen IP and attacking other muds left and right! Yeah!

--matt

I only see one mud on this site running stolen IP - and as far as I can see, you're the only one supporting them.

So yes, I think 'scum' sums you up pretty well.

Me too.
Hope the rest of you enjoy viewing the gay Mercthievia banners that will be sure to follow, and and the dimwitted banter of Slutress the II, and the band of merry retards and sockpuppets that will follow.

See you elsewhere. No not on Mudmagic, not on TMC but on a site that's immune to sucking commercial c o c k s.

Well, I'll take your word for it, although I imagine it's hard to see much at all from where your head's currently located...

Ms O'Hara, you will be missed. Your thoughtful & respectful posts gave some class to this site, unlike the_idiotlogos. Oops... gee I insulted the schmuck... oops did it again, gosh you think he might try to get be banned???

Just tell him that you're in the process of ripping off someone else's codebase to run as a commercial mud, and he'll soon be... polishing your shoes, etc.

It's sad to see two of my favourite people leave in one day. I admit I had a very similar knee jerk reaction... but if all the decent people on here should leave, it would only help those who drove them away. Maybe that's the point, but so far they haven't managed to usurp the whole site for themselves. So far...

While I realize Molly has already left, I felt that responding to her post was the best course.

Although I have nothing against the_logos (though his stance in the matter, frankly, floors me), I cannot abide muds such as Medievia, or websites that welcome them.

A bad business decision, I'm sure, but I am pulling our advertising dollars from TMS (pittance that they are) and have asked Adam to remove both of our banners. Also, I am removing my own MUD from TMS.

I will miss TMS, flames and all. Adam has always been professional and courteous, and my decision to leave TMS is in no way a reflection of my opinions of him.


--
Rhuarc
MudDrake Hosting &
Tarmon Gaidon

Well I thought i would support the effort and annouce I too will not be visiting here anymore. Many of you do not know me but i've always been a lurker, well for many years. And as someone who runs a Mud resource site who has cleansed his site from all references to sites that support muds running stolen codebases. I'd like to welcome anyone wanting to join the protest and maybe TMS will hear our voices.

I think you give him way too much credit. Having failed to run his own mud discussion forums, I'm sure he's more than happy to make TMS his private little playground.

Good luck, Faggy McFagwich. It's not that I disagree with this guy, but I like making fun of people who can't retaliate.

Who cares if O'Hara leaves.  Though, if I recall, she and some other particular forum-goers did engage in quite a few of their OWN flamewars, with none of Mihaly's malarky.

Entertaining indeed...

The sinewy, brown-haired young man sits back, rooting for KaVir.

Okay. Nauseating. They're trying hard to make this forum insufferable for anybody who does not opt for permanent brain damage.

I'd like to hear an official answer to one question, before I decide whether to join those who left or are leaving:

Is this just a passing phase, or a direction TMS wants to take?

Will those who stay really have to put up with:

-- thieves and liars laughing in our face
-- useless trolls, ****bears and other annoying pets spamming the crap out of the forums with pure noise, with no moderation anywhere
-- smartasses who stir flames at every chance, then yell: "It wasn't me!" and play the innocent victim?

Yes, I hate being at the receiving end of the "official answer, please" request, and I don't envy Adam this situation he's in... but I'd still appreciate a reply.