"Well-kept Gardens Die by Pacifism", did this happen to NSG?

[The Corparation]

I have never routinely participated in the ritualized e-peen swords battle of debate. So I will not presume to talk about the quality of debate. That is not my domain. I am but an occasional dabbler.

The community threads took a big hit with the F7 divide when anything social/chatty in General was stomped out. Now, that error has been substantially rectified. The influx of former F7ers to these forums is a good thing from my perspective; in the heyday of F7 I was an occasional participant there and many posters who I appreciate have come across that way. I think that the ever-stricter PG-13 stance is choking out a lot of discussions that would have been allowed to pass previously, and that is something I think impacts upon a lot of people's enjoyment of the forum since so many threads get shut down early. The biggest disappointment for me though has been the declining appreciation for satire. The amount of times I have seen something genuinely funny and then seen dozens of posters responding with "ZOMG TROLL" and the subsequent arrival of a rapid mod-lock is something I regard as a profoundly negative development. Satire threads were one of the things I really enjoyed when I first joined NSG, and to see their demise has been rather disheartening.

I can't say anything about F7 but I totally agree about the satire. It seems to be the case that people are honestly too fucking stupid to get even the most blatantly honest satire. Thus, it is shut down because...you have to be able to reach your audience and if hitting them over the head with it doesn't work, then your satire apparently 'fails'.

Satire died with Hammerrubs departure. (I think that was the guys name) Also one of the high points of the forum when he posted that note on here andpeople helped to track him down and make sure he was okay. Do hope he's gotten better.

[Norstal]

The mods should really make a new rule to stop the creation of new threads on old problems.

Good lord, what would we discuss?

Although some forums do refuse to open up certain things for debate...deciding which topics are 'off limits' because it's too fucking stupid to seriously let people discuss it would be very difficult I think.

To me it's the lack of quality in the way people debate. Good posters often have to 'coax' crappy posters into making an actual definable argument while crappy posters believe they have already won the debate.

SomethingAwful seems to have new topics to discuss about in their debate forum. And they've been around longer than NS has. Or, about the same.

Course, SA is full of graduates and PhD people running around, so, I guess it is the way people debate too.

[Hydesland]

Course, SA is full of graduates and PhD people running around, so, I guess it is the way people debate too.

There's quite a few graduates and PHD people here, Free Soviets did a poll quite recently on this I believe.

[Yootwopia]

Fass

Really? You miss Fass? I mean sure, was he witty? Yes. Was he intelligent? Yes. Was he actually good at debating, or rather, did he even bother to debate? Absolutely not. Fass is exactly the sort of poster I'm glad doesn't really exist on NSG any more.

Fass was great, because he gave dickheads a massive grievance and just kinda shrugged it off.

[The Grand World Order]

That sums up the International Incidents forum very, very nicely.

[Free Soviets]

aww, that article made me miss my usenet newsgroup opponents. i hope jameson and his gf are living the dream, working at the cato institute like they hoped way back when.

[Kiskaanak]

Fass

Really? You miss Fass? I mean sure, was he witty? Yes. Was he intelligent? Yes. Was he actually good at debating, or rather, did he even bother to debate? Absolutely not. Fass is exactly the sort of poster I'm glad doesn't really exist on NSG any more.

I...love Fass dearly, and loved it when he flat out told people they were idiots (because they usually were) but yeah. The problem is that if you let some people do that because they aren't morons, then morons start wanting the right to do the same and that leads nowhere.

A crackdown on the slimey asshole insinuations that are the norm around here would be intensely difficult, but would do a lot to make this place less about pricks 'scoring points' for their 'audience' and more about exchanging actual ideas.

So much dick waving.

[Kiskaanak]

aww, that article made me miss my usenet newsgroup opponents. i hope jameson and his gf are living the dream, working at the cato institute like they hoped way back when.

Hey! Long time no see

[Hydesland]

Really? You miss Fass? I mean sure, was he witty? Yes. Was he intelligent? Yes. Was he actually good at debating, or rather, did he even bother to debate? Absolutely not. Fass is exactly the sort of poster I'm glad doesn't really exist on NSG any more.

Fass was great, because he gave dickheads a massive grievance and just kinda shrugged it off.

He was great so long as he was on your side, in a selfish sense. On the other hand, I think overall he contributed more harm and tension than good. He may have delivered some ungodly smackdowns, but the constant flamewars just weren't worth it.

[Kiskaanak]

He was great so long as he was on your side, in a selfish sense. On the other hand, I think overall he contributed more harm and tension than good. He may have delivered some ungodly smackdowns, but the constant flamewars just weren't worth it.

No, I agree, and I had some fights with Fass before we were on friendly terms. I do miss him because it was fun...but it wasn't a constructive fun, I recognise that.

[Bitchkitten]

Fass

Really? You miss Fass? I mean sure, was he witty? Yes. Was he intelligent? Yes. Was he actually good at debating, or rather, did he even bother to debate? Absolutely not. Fass is exactly the sort of poster I'm glad doesn't really exist on NSG any more.

Boring.

At least Fass was interesting. And over twelve.

And we seem to have a bunch of thin skinned whiners. Everyone interesting gets mod slapped. And the extreme interest in keeping everything PG keeps people from having normal adult conversations.

Sometimes I'm afraid to give my real opinion in plain words because of some mods overeacting. This from someone who's never even been warned because of my behavior. So far I haven't had to self censor too much, but when I do I guess another oldtimer will be gone. Maybe that's the whole idea.

[Steel and Fire]

I think that's the most jarring difference these days, is the increasingly tight rules(Not that much more than in the past, but still pretty bad). Not to get into a back in my day rant(Because my start date can easily be trumped by much older folks), but when I joined there were some... interesting characters about to say the least. And threads as well. However, looking over some of the threads that have been closed recently I can't help but remember a time when such topics were actually allowed.

I have seen many mod rulings I'm not sure I agree with(Once again stemming from the leniency of the past), and people getting blamed for trolling simply due to a borderline opinion, and mod action being taken against them. Won't dispute the decisions they make, but I don't necessarily agree with some personally(Which counts for jack-all).

Really though, that's about it that's different.

Heh.

Back in my day there were people deleted for things that nowadays would probably earn a warning. (Which you only got one of before deletion, by the way.) And before that there weren't any mods at all and people would regularly spam the forum with goatse. We've been occupying a pretty decent middle ground ever since the One-Stop Rules Shop came about tbh.

That said, "strictness" seems to be largely a reactive thing. The mods are strict for a while, people complain about it and someone on the team says "you know, they have a point. We could just tell people to 'grow a skin'." So they loosen the rules up, people are happy for a while and then some total dickwads show up and generally make trouble while staying just barely within the rules. So eventually someone on the team -- perhaps even the same someone, actually -- says "you know, we should really be tougher on X, since someone like Poster Y ought to have been banned a long time ago." And they tighten the rules up, people are happy for a while and then... etc etc etc

Right now we're in a People Complaining About Strict Moderation phase which in turn will -- once they get organised enough -- probably bring on a Slightly More Relaxed Moderation Phase. In a year or two people will probably be complaining about that too, though.

Fass was great, because he gave dickheads a massive grievance and just kinda shrugged it off.

He was great so long as he was on your side, in a selfish sense.

I was rarely on the same side as Fass, but I found him quite entertaining nonetheless. He was an asshole who absolutely deserved his deletion, sure, but he did it with style.

Then again I often root for the bad guys in movies so whatever <_<

[Yootwopia]

He was great so long as he was on your side, in a selfish sense. On the other hand, I think overall he contributed more harm and tension than good. He may have delivered some ungodly smackdowns, but the constant flamewars just weren't worth it.

No, I agree, and I had some fights with Fass before we were on friendly terms. I do miss him because it was fun...but it wasn't a constructive fun, I recognise that.

Sometimes just hitting things with rocks is fun. We need more of that, and less of this Lego mentality that's around nowadays.

[Hydesland]

He was great so long as he was on your side, in a selfish sense. On the other hand, I think overall he contributed more harm and tension than good. He may have delivered some ungodly smackdowns, but the constant flamewars just weren't worth it.

No, I agree, and I had some fights with Fass before we were on friendly terms. I do miss him because it was fun...but it wasn't a constructive fun, I recognise that.

Yeah, there were a few posters that have the ability to say things that just touch a nerve and stress you out; the sort that actually makes you leave NSG for a week because you don't want to lie in bed awake due to frustration over inanity or unfairness of the comments they make. Fass was one of those people.

[Kiskaanak]

Sometimes just hitting things with rocks is fun. We need more of that, and less of this Lego mentality that's around nowadays.

Yup.

I mean, NSG has always been about who can be the hugest fucking asshole and not get mod-slapped for it. That certainly hasn't changed. Personal attacks are the norm, and in fact it's a 'score' for you and the 'audience' you hope is watching (as fucking if) when you diss someone and get away with it, and even better if THEY get in trouble for it. I've always fucking hated that. I've engaged in it, absolutely. At first it was a vain attempt to show people what they were doing, but when you play a game, you perpetuate the game.

Right now I don't care anymore because this place is full of pretentious twats who really think they are so much more intelligent than others, that they aren't actually engaging in debate...they are lecturing the truth to the unenlightened. That shit doesn't inspire forum growth, and I do think it could be stamped out with a cold, hard boot if there was any intention to do so.

[Free Soviets]

Course, SA is full of graduates and PhD people running around, so, I guess it is the way people debate too.

There's quite a few graduates and PHD people here, Free Soviets did a poll quite recently on this I believe.

surprisingly many, as i recall. like, significantly above what you would expect from the general public. even accounting for demographics.

its those sorts of things that keep me around - there are enough people around here who i know will have something interesting to say about some topic when it comes up.

[Bitchkitten]

Oh come on. I'd been jumped by Fass before. I lived. I didn't whine to the mods. I'm not sure, but I actually don't remember ever whining to the mods. Except when they wouldn't let me use a flame quote in my sig. It flamed me, after all.

[NERVUN]

Honestly, no.

Because the arguments I read here I read when I signed on for the very first time back on Jolt in 2005.

Only then the names were slightly changed and people were talking about how great the old forums were and so on.

I don't think NSG has changed all that much, though we've gone through various flavors, it's just the people in it went from being newbies making the mistakes you're complaining about now, to being old and jaded and complaining about the exact same mistakes, just being made by a newer class of newbies.

[Hydesland]

Right now I don't care anymore because this place is full of pretentious twats who really think they are so much more intelligent than others, that they aren't actually engaging in debate...they are lecturing the truth to the unenlightened.

Well NSG has always had people like this from my perspective.

[Yootwopia]

Perhaps you're forgetting the total ragefest of a 2008 Presidential Election Megathread, NERVUN.

Coz eh that kind of thing is not a thing that is around nowadays, for better or worse.

[Bitchkitten]

Oh, and I demand some of these people with names I don't recognize and recent join dates identify themselves if they're going to talk about way back when.

[Serrland]

Perhaps you're forgetting the total ragefest of a 2008 Presidential Election Megathread, NERVUN.

Coz eh that kind of thing is not a thing that is around nowadays, for better or worse.

I was not around then, so I have no idea what the flavor of NSG was like back then, but the thought of the upcoming presidential election and the inevitable megathread makes me shiver.

What makes the 2008 presidential election megathread stick out?

[Yootwopia]

Perhaps you're forgetting the total ragefest of a 2008 Presidential Election Megathread, NERVUN.

Coz eh that kind of thing is not a thing that is around nowadays, for better or worse.

I was not around then, so I have no idea what the flavor of NSG was like back then, but the thought of the upcoming presidential election and the inevitable megathread makes me shiver.

What makes the 2008 presidential election megathread stick out?

The Hairless Kitten and some other shit posters going at it absolutely hammer and tongs for about 900 pages like maladjusted clones of Hitler on coke or something.

[Hydesland]

Perhaps you're forgetting the total ragefest of a 2008 Presidential Election Megathread, NERVUN.

Coz eh that kind of thing is not a thing that is around nowadays, for better or worse.

I think I pretty much just filtered out that thread from my vision.

[Serrland]

I was not around then, so I have no idea what the flavor of NSG was like back then, but the thought of the upcoming presidential election and the inevitable megathread makes me shiver.

What makes the 2008 presidential election megathread stick out?

The Hairless Kitten and some other shit posters going at it absolutely hammer and tongs for about 900 pages like maladjusted clones of Hitler on coke or something.

I vaguely remember Hairless Kitten from my first months here. He kept trying to come back in different incarnations and kept getting hit by the mods, if my memory holds.