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Old 08-14-2007, 05:02 PM   #21
the_logos
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Re: Posts undeleted

I was mainly pointing out that before you get down on newbies or people who sound like newbies, understand that you may sound like them yourself to other people, and that you probably would not enjoy a patronizing attitude aimed at you either.

Newbie-ism is relative.

--matt
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Old 08-14-2007, 05:14 PM   #22
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Now we see the violence inherent in the system. Moderator,
he's calling me a noob, I'm soooo angry! Help! Help! I'm
being oppressed!

Seriously dude, that's the best you can do? Let's
take it to The IRE Connector and really duke it out.

-Crat
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Old 08-14-2007, 05:50 PM   #23
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I'm not sure what you think I'm trying to do exactly, so I'll explain a little more clearly. I'm not trying to insult you at all (nor do I think you're a newbie).

1. The newbie who posted didn't understand he sounded like a newbie in saying what he did.
2. You don't understand that you sound like a newbie when you say that you have to come down on "lazy" newbies "for their own good."
3. The newbie that was the cause of this discussion reacted poorly to a perceived patronizing attitude.
4. You are reacting poorly to a perceived patronizing attitude.

Now do you understand why the newbie reacted like he did or are you just unable to put yourself in his shoes?

--matt
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Old 08-14-2007, 06:15 PM   #24
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Heh, ok.

Of course he did. Read the thread title again.
"Noobiest noob that ever noobed"

You're just rewriting history to suit your backpedaling rhetoric.

Given that trying to come down on me to teach me a lesson is
the thing you supposedly were doing, does that mean you also
look like a noob? Or are you just doing anything you can to talk your way out
of the now valid charge of hypocrisy?

He reacted poorly. Everyone else kept their cool. As it should be.

I'm climbing out of my trollbag at being trolled by you. I can see you
don't like my reaction. Maybe you should see about taking your own
advice. My "poor reaction" is an entirely justified response at your
admitted intentional act of hassling me. I'm sorry your object lesson
backfired, champ, but you should have known better. Trolling is always
dirty, and you got down here to troll me, now you're trying to get back
on your high horse. Nice try.

-Crat
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Old 08-14-2007, 06:21 PM   #25
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Re: Posts undeleted

My bad, you are correct there.

This is exactly what I mean. You're being quite hostile because you didn't like my patronizing attitude. Why is it so surprising that the newbie didn't like that kind of attitude either?

Same.

At least two moderators disagreed so I hope you'll accept that this is subjective.


Case in point.

Later on perhaps you'll read this again and think, "Oh snap, THAT'S what he meant." If not, well, such is life.

--matt
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Old 08-14-2007, 06:44 PM   #26
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Ah, the dreaded "You'll understand when you're not hysterical" riposte.
I am done for, good game, sir.

Having intentionally trolled me to show how lame
intentional trolling is, you have indeed proven that
intentional trolling is lame.

What can I say but, bravo.

However, just out of curiosity....how does that prove anything?

That a noob gets mad at Brody somehow justifies
you trolling? My argument has been that noobs sometimes require
correcting, and it is true. Your argument is...what, I'm lame
for thinking that? That people who correct noobs look
like noobs to you?

Personally I think you didn't like how I put things
and decided to teach me a lesson. It's funny that your
mouth bought more fight than you were willing to back up,
but in the end, your point is a bit empty and silly.

Of *course* noobs don't like being corrected. I said that
myself. Proving that people can be made hostile by
trolling them is completely moot. I didn't advocate harshing out noobs.

In the process of making an obvious point, you managed to
get yourself in exactly the sort of spiteful crap that folks have
been trying to prevent.

I don't think that's a "way homer". I think you understand
that completely, right now. And my guess is that the discomfort
you feel at having been an unnecessary troll is what's making
you maneuver dishonestly to disentangle yourself from my
justified response.

-Crat
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Old 08-14-2007, 06:51 PM   #27
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Re: Posts undeleted

I'm not going to get dragged into flinging insults back and forth, sorry.

I tried to explain my point but you're still reacting to being treated like the newbie was. I guess I'm out of this thread and will just apologize to everyone for dragging this thread out apparently pointlessly.

--matt
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Old 08-14-2007, 06:55 PM   #28
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Re: Posts undeleted

This is exactly what I mean. It is either a lie, or proof you
paid as little attention to the thread as you did to its title.

Brody did not troll the noob. Period. Pretending he did is
either dishonest or foolish.

And trolling me to make the point that noobs feel bad
when trolled is therefore doubly pointless, and
yes, makes you the bad guy.

I'm sorry you lack the guts to face up to the mess you yourself made.

-Crat
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Old 08-14-2007, 09:11 PM   #29
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Re: Posts undeleted

I agree with this 100%. I think we all would like the community to grow, but I rather see a modest growth of quality posters than a large influx of people that will produce a lot of noise.

Also, the part that really bothered me about the other thread was I thought Brody DID provide useful information in his first post. Perhaps I'm pessimistic, but people who complain about help they receive on the internet generally get more annoying as time goes on, rather than less, be it on a forum, MUD, mailing list, etc.
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Old 08-14-2007, 09:39 PM   #30
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This is exactly how I view the situation.

Why does this random, petulant "newbie" get all the benefit of the doubt and not Brody? That makes no sense to me. Being new is not a free pass to be a jerk.
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Old 08-14-2007, 09:54 PM   #31
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Re: Posts undeleted

This confused me a bit. It makes it sound as if "Dawn of the Ages" may have just hopped, fully grown, onto his computer screen. He has no client, so he hasn't actually been on the mud. Did he pull it off the database here? Right now, its 39 on the list, so it has to be dug for...and when you click it, it takes you to the website. The website mentions two different ways of logging in. This makes it a bit of a mystery to me, so if someone can explain it, I'd be very grateful.

Mud isn't a term that non-mudders instinctively know. When people ask me what I do for all those hours on the computer, if I answer "I mud", they get all confused and start trying to figure out dirt and stuff. We've all been there, haven't we? So, you find there's an interesting game out there, called Dawn of Ages, and its a mud, but you aren't on any page about muds that describes what muds are and how to use them? Personally, if I accidentally tripped over a website that described an interesting sounding game, I'd probably google the name of the game, rather than "mud newbie help forum". This may reflect a personal problem though, since I never consider a forum as first stage of information. Also, I can't see the word "newbie" coming to mind at all, unless I read it on the same page (something like: "Dawn of the Ages is a mud that welcomes newbies" while refusing to give any information that would help said newbie).

My next point is that I have to agree with Cratylus about his treatment of newbies. I'm admittedly biased, since I've never been to IRE, but I've been to Dead Souls. When I say that he was surprisingly patient and helpful, I don't mean that he doesn't come across that way. What I mean is that I didn't understand a single thing going on which must have been very irritating to him. To help me with anything required him explaining something else first, which must be very frustrating. He spent a lot of time going over things that must have been extremely basic and that he had probably been over many times. In fact, during the time I spent there, he was equally patient and helpful to many other newcomers.

My final observation here is that Brody's second post was more helpful than his first, although I totally agree with the first one. To my mind, considering the response of the OP, the second post went above and beyond what I would have expected from anyone.
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Old 08-15-2007, 02:58 AM   #32
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Re: Posts undeleted

Two things bother me with this thread.

1. That many of the posters use the term 'Newbie' as a derogative.

To me, 'Newbie' just means new. It doesn't even have to mean 'new to Muds in general', it could just as well mean 'New to this particular game'.
All Newbies are not jerks. Some of them certainly are, but no more than the average percentage among all players.
A horse is an animal. An animal is not necessarily a horse.

2. That no real Newbie would label himself 'Noobiest noob that ever noobed'.

You have to have played Muds to be familiar with the term 'Newbie', let alone 'Noob'.
My theory is that the OP is not a Newbie at all, and consequently, that he probably was trolling.
If so, he certainly got the effect he was looking for.
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Old 08-15-2007, 03:08 AM   #33
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Re: Posts undeleted

I completely agree.


Not at all. Newbie and 'noob' are both used generically when speaking about internet-based activities (and even some real-life activities).

I'm reluctant to refer to Wikipedia, especially articles that are locked because of vandalism (and are thus controversial) but the zeitgeist seems to be captured here.

Note in particular that the national US tv show 'Scrubs' has a character that frequently refers to another character as 'Newbie.' (A more senior doctor referring to new doctor.)

--matt
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Old 08-15-2007, 06:58 AM   #34
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Re: Posts undeleted

And how likely do you think a new doctor would be to refer to himself as 'Noobiest noob that ever noobed', while posting a question on a general Medicin-related board about where the entrance to the hospital he was about to start work in was located? A much more liklely title would have been; 'Need some help to connect'.

I think Molly has got a point. Actually I remember having the same kind of gut-feeling when I first saw the thread. And possibly this would also accoiunt for Brody being a bit less kind and helpful than usual, while responding to it. Most of those that have followed these boards for some time would testify that Brody generally is among the nicest posters here.
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Old 08-15-2007, 08:21 AM   #35
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Actually I'm not that sure I agree. Maybe I was so
distracted by the rude assaults of matt/sarapis/thelogos/whatever
that I didn't notice, but it seemed to me that where people
used the term [noob|noobie|newb|newbie] it was in a
literal descriptive sense, rather than a deprecative,
pejorative sense.

In my mind it's only an insult when hurled as a
direct epithet, and even *then*, it's more of a
referent joke (I am mocking people who mock newbies
by pretending to be mocking you) than an actual insult.

If I am talking with a third party about a
newbie, my reference to the [noob|noobie|newb|newbie]
is typically not meant as belittlement, but as a
simple description of the person's most relevant
characteristic in the conversation at hand:
being inexperienced.

Maybe that's what matt/sarapis/thelogos/whatever
was taking umbrage at....maybe it sounded like I
was trashing new people by slapping them around
with the "noob" label. In my defense I can only say
that if you interpreted my use of the word negatively,
that's your baggage and your problem, not my
responsibility to fix.


I have to disagree here too. There are
lots of places that a person can run across that
terminology before blundering onto this forum.
If, for example, they play Half-Life 2 deathmatches
online, they will quickly learn lots of terminology
we take for granted. If on a chat program (where
one also can become familiar with basic net terms) they
are told to visit TMS because of some awesome game
they can play, that's a way of finding yourself here.

I think we may never *really* know if noob guy
was truly a noob, but in my opinion it is just
as plausible he was as he wasn't.


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think this
assumes an intentional decrement by Brody of
his nice-a-trons, and I feel this is an unwarranted characterization.

Let's look agan at what he literally said in response to
noob guy jumping up and down hollering for attention:

If folks find that less than kind or less than helpful, seriously, I
don't know where we can find common ground.
And reading hostility, or even lack-of-courtesy, into it is
an excess of imagination on the part of the reader.
IMO.

-Crat
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Old 08-15-2007, 10:11 AM   #36
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Re: Posts undeleted

I never gave the newbie much benefit of the doubt. He was wrong to respond to Brodys initial post sarcastically, after which Brody responded in a sarcastic way himself (and no-one can tell me there's no implied insult in his second post in the thread, regardless of whether it was justified) and then people started arguing. As Brodys first post was the one to cause the initial response by the new member, it got deleted along with the others which held no useful information that wasn't contained in other posts. Perhaps it would have been better to delete all the ones I did but not Brodys initial response, but either way the moderation would have happened. I'm not really interested in laying blame, and the only reason Brodys initial response has come up for such an examination is because he's an active, vocal member of the forum and also the first to reply to the thread, and since the new member appears to have wandered off again it seems pointless to argue about how he should have been less sarcastic and not called people "jerkoff" etc.

I pointed out that, to my mind having visited more forums than I care to remember, helped to run a number of them, and seen the sort of implied malice people can lace their comments with even whilst seeming innocuous, Brodys first response about this not being a chatroom could be misunderstood by us somewhat jaded individuals It was not the cause for the deletion of posts, nor was Brody solely responsible for the moderation.

I don't really see why this is still being debated, but it's interesting nonetheless.
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Old 08-15-2007, 10:23 AM   #37
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Re: Posts undeleted

No denying, my response to being told my first helpful response was anything but helpful led to a degree of snarkiness (deserved, I think) for the impatient newcomer. (There. Not noob. Not newbie. Hopefully, not at all offensive to anyone.)

In any event, I've learned my lesson about trying to be helpful in the Newbie Help forum. (Are we changing that name so it's not potentially offensive to newcomers?)

I doubt SteveStevenson was a "n00b" at all. I agree with others who suspect he was a troll from the outset. And I'm bemused that I end up being, for all intents and purposes, punished for trying to help and when that help got snark, gave a little snark back (but not nearly as much as could have been dealt).
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Old 08-15-2007, 11:18 AM   #38
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Re: Posts undeleted

At the risk of sounding too authoritarian, I think the moderation of the thread was entirely appropriate. It never ceases to amaze me how much "freedom" people on TMC, TMS, or any other MUD related forum think they're entitled to when most other forums I've been to are moderated regularly and it's considered perfectly normal.

Removing posts from a thread while maintaining its flow isn't always easy, or even possible. But if the forum is supposed to be "newbie friendly" leaving a bunch of argumentative responses that have nothing to do with the question behind for all to see doesn't do much for advancing that.

And further, when the usual suspects complain about censorship and oppression and the moderators cave in and reverse everything, it leaves people who are unfamiliar with our anarchist ways with a feeling that there's no authority in place at all. This is especially evidenced by how Cratylus challenged Matt to take the argument to TMC, where he knows "the law" doesn't exist.

That said, I agree Steve was rude and deserved what he got - but that should have been left in the hands of the moderators to put a stop to it. Not in the hands of a bunch of vigilante posters who think they're the moderators.
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Old 08-15-2007, 01:13 PM   #39
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The problem I had with it (and perhaps others had the same problem) is that there is a severe lack of consistency in the moderation on TMS. If the real goal is to maintain a sense of civility on these forums (a laudable goal), then a lot more personal attacks need to get moderated throughout the forums.

In other forums, you have outright, off topic personal attacks being left alone with the explanation "we want to let things play out and resolve themselves." Then you have this forum, where some random twit acts up and posts get moderated for simply telling the guy he needs to tone it down and stop being a nuisance.


Enforcing community standards and applying positive peer pressure is not being a vigilante. The "noob thread" poster was an immature jerk, and deserved a lot worse than the gentle instruction he received.
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Old 08-15-2007, 01:45 PM   #40
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Agreed. Moderation is a good thing, not a bad thing. Freedom of speech is a right in the public sphere (in some countries), not the private sphere.

--matt
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