Will the members of the jury be required to have a working knowledge of English? You know, things like knowing the difference between “who’s” and “whose,” or how a period differs from a comma, or English word order?
Paul O’Brian’s Earth and Sky series had two award-winning games in a three-game total.
(runs away)
Yes, Jacek, well done, you’ve spotted that this non-English person hasn’t a perfect grasp of what is to him a foreign language. Have a biscuit. Go munch it in the corner now, quietly, while the grown-ups are talking.
Fuck. My marketing guys messed this up. Fired. [emote]:)[/emote]
I think the source of the miscommunication between me and you (plural) is that for me interactive fiction is an artform while for you lot it is a cross between a Stitch 'n Bitch group and a dating service. Unlike Cadre and the Short woman, I’m not into this to gain friends or get laid. This is not Fat Camp where you get a medal for trying. This is a loose network of artists where competence is the order of the day and excellence is expected. Pretending Marco is fit to write English fiction merely perpetuates the culture of mediocrity that is already deeply entrenched in this community. No one gains anything from it, least of all Marco.
Enough’s enough. When Jacek posts one of his terrible reviews, he quickly becomes target practice. Nobody cares. But now he is actively disrupting people’s projects. If you guys are not going to delete his account, please then delete his posts in threads like these.
I don’t think all y’all understand why this forum is here. We didn’t all just get suddenly sick of Usenet after 15 years. Usenet was being disrupted by Steve Breslin (seems to have twatted off), Poster (probably out growing his own food and building his own infrastructure) and Pudlo. So we moved to web forums. The problem is that the mods here are GOOD GUYS. Men I have enjoyed knowing and whose work I respect. We all like you guys. I’ve never seen a community that was on such good terms with the moderators. Therefore, nobody wants to be the person to say, “You gotta get rid of this clown” but you guys, you gotta get rid of this clown. How much time did James put into his opening post? It’s all wasted now, because Pudlo felt it necessary to attack him and try to settle some decades-long score with people who embarrassed him back in the day.
He doesn’t respect anyone here, user and mod alike, he’s made that clear. You do not have to show him an iota of respect in return. I would encourage you to delete his posts and delete this one as well so James can have the discussion he wants.
Seconded. If the worst troll of them all can’t be banned, what’s the point of having forum moderation?
Yeah, it’s starting to seem more and more like a good idea. Is there anyone who wants to argue against getting rid of him?
How childish. If you’re so sensitive of what people think of your games, why do you release them to the public in the first place?
It’s true that I have only contempt for you lot, but I am utterly devoted to the artform, which is the reason I post reviews here. If you’re afraid of my “terrible reviews,” banning me won’t solve the problem as I’ll simply post them to raif.
I must say that all of this is terribly flattering. Do I really have that kind of influence? Of course I don’t. It’s awfully nice of you to ascribe such powers to me, but that’s just silly. If I had the kind of influence you speak of, interactive fiction wouldn’t be in its current sorry state.
Well, the only guy who is ever going to defend Jacek just posted, and he seems to be fine with getting banned. His point about posting on raif is well-taken; we can all install newsreaders again on our PCs, if there are any for 64-bit operating systems, and read his stuff there. In the meantime, Jamespking and whoever else can have threads about his project without over half the posts being Pudlovian sludge.
I decided to never talk Pudlo again (you know, the feeding the troll stuff…) but I want to thank Robb for the help and, yes, i vote for banning him. There really nothing even remotely funny in this stuff anymore.
If you delete The posts, keep maga’s.
I don’t see any point in casting out the village idiot. The real problem is the derailing of other conversations, and the derailer always has help with that from (one assumes) better-intentioned people. I move that we create a ghetto-thread for posts that deliberately derail other threads, and that we move both the derailing post and its responses there. For example, just about every response to this thread–including this one–belongs in that ghetto.
Back in another thread I said (something like) “Who has time for a sock puppet war?” That could be taken as an argument against banning Jacek, so I will clarify that.
I am not a big fan of forum moderation outside of outright spam. You may recall that I was not a big fan of moving from Usenet to a web forum, either! It’s not that I was opposed to such a move, but I didn’t see it being much help in removing toxic discussion from the community. Will banning Jacek make any difference? On the one hand, he deploys sock puppets at will, and (historically) the more attention people pay to him the more he works to disrupt discussion.
On the other hand, we do have moderation tools now, and (also historically) prudent moderation is a lot better for Internet discussion growth than no moderation. (I still read a couple of active Usenet groups, but
I skip 95% of the posts. This forum has a way better ratio.)
(Also, to tangentially address one of Jacek’s comments – yes, one person can destroy a discussion community. It only takes persistence. He has always known that, I’m sure.)
Anyhow. If this is a straw poll, I’m in favor of banning Jacek and nuking his posts. I don’t particularly believe that he will leave – the suggestion that he would voluntarily retreat to RAIF is just more of his crap. But banning will make for a better environment than letting him derail discussions freely.
(Speaking of Jacek’s bull: note that ICJ explicitly said “We don’t care about Jacek’s reviews, but now he is actively disrupting other people’s work.” Jacek immediately replied as if ICJ had been objecting to his reviews, and our only objection was oversensitivity to criticism. That sort of distortion is his lifeblood as a troll.)
Erik Temple wrote (as I was composing this message):
I would be fine with that too. It requires the same amount of work from moderators.
(More on track…)
Glad to hear that there’ll be another legacy comp!
I’d like to submit an intention to enter, but if I don’t manage to pull off the idea I have for a game would I be able to switch to Jurying instead? Basically, I’d like to be involved in some capacity.
Could you please be careful with the G word? I’m a Jew and historically… Oh, well, I’m sure an intelligent Gentile like yourself knows what I’m driving at.
You’re welcome. He has apparently decided to go out like a bitch instead of indulging in quiet dignity, but when this is resolved I hope you’ll post again and enjoy a better thread.
I was always against banning anyone. Often, the trolls just get bored and leave.
Sadly, Pudlo gives us a hiatus and then strikes again full force. And doesn’t let go. So yeah, for the first time, and possibly the only time, I say ban the guy.
The sad part is, sometimes you can actually try to reason with the guy, because sometimes he makes sense. I would very much like, for instance, to talk with him about why “caring for IF as an artform” doesn’t mean “destroying everything that doesn’t meet his highly elevated yardstick”, for a number of reasons (the biggest one being how many different yardsticks there are, and how many attempts any artform has to make in order to reach its ideal). But then - I speak from experience - he just disregards your attempts at a conversation, and if he replies to you at all it’s to demean you in some way totally unrelated to the matter at hand.
I admit I have found it amusing, but very clearly many people here - with a lot more seniority - are fed up with it. So yeah. Ban.
Okay, I’ll bite. What are the different yardsticks you speak of?
Hey guys! Jacek wants to have a [size=200]REAL CONVERSATION[/size] now! In the middle of discussions about turning off his account and banning his IP, what are the odds?! Maybe we can turn this thing around and get a whole bunch of civil responses, because he really does love IF! And just run roughshod over a guy trying to launch a collaborative multi-project work, I mean, if we have to.
I am interested in judging for the next Andromeda Comp.