RUFFHAUS 8 wrote:

geojanes wrote:Although I've never met him face to face, Steve's a pretty affable guy; one-on-one, funny, witty, a good dipper on either side of an alliance, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the posts he's made lately. Lots of anger, almost no humor, some things that are pretty edgy. It's probably a good thing for him to take a break.

I think that this attitude is part of the problem, George. You're looking at one side of the equation, and ignoring the fact that one person is intentionally antagonizing others here with the specific intent of driving them off.

I don't think Dan intentionally drove Steve off. In fact, I think he probably regrets that Steve has left because activity here had dropped off quite a bit. And agree with him or no, Steve usually had something to say, and that's what this forum is about.

But I will say this, for perspective. What we saw here between Steve and Dan was nothing compared to what these boards saw in the past. Not too many people remain from the old days, but those that do might remember Redscape's other Randy and his constant prodding on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the idea that no Jews were killed in the attacks of 9/11, and the responses generated to those posts. In comparison, the banter between Steve and Dan was mild and shouldn't have under typical circumstances driven anyone off, in my opinion.

We all have things competing for our time and trolling these boards is probably not a good use of those limited minutes for any of us and I understand people going another way, and for many that's not a bad thing. More time with the family, building your career, making dinner one evening, whatever, we can all think of 100 things that we need to do when we're posting in these forums.

Oh boy..

very quickly:

I did not intend to drive Steve off. I did not agree that I am a total jerk and a bully (if you can't tell the difference between that and saying I can be a jerk at times, I despair).

If Min X is a socialist, then I'll eat my hat. Social liberal, yes. Atheist, sure. Darwinist and accepter of some aspects of global warming, I think so. But he's also a pretty pro-capitalism guy, a republican voter for about 4 decades and a consistent opponent on Redscape of the woolly liberalism/ weak socialism of Democrats.

I can get my fill of political debate in both places, and I don't think I've been behaving badly on threads about the republican nomination, or about Libya/Egypt, or whatever here before or since Steve left.

I didn't bring up your Civil War debate as a deflection (and while I mentioned the reprisal in the RG forum, it was the original argument over the extent to which slavery played a part I meant), but to point out that there has been more than just the me-Steve thing going on recently. It wasn't that long ago that you and Steve were making 'snide' remarks about Russell being an atheist (which he confirmed is not the case) or unChristian because he disagreed over some point or other. But hey, keep telling me, and yourself, that it's just me whose the bad guy.

RG is just finding its feet, as far as I can see. We are just finishing the second round of games - as in the last half of the first season, and are yet to see the intended setup of two divisional ladders in operation. I hope it works because it's a great idea, but it is not yet fully established.

Like I said, I'll start up a game if it's made clear about how to do it, and how we get a forum arranged, etc. The reason for the condition is because I think if we can get the forum gaming at least back to the way it was on the old site design, we have a better chance of keeping Redscape going as a gaming community. As long as the means to do it are obscure, it suggests to newcomers that Otto is the only game in town for Dip. I like Otto, for gunboat or white-press, but it's not why I liked the old Redscape.

Personally I think that as the membership started to diminish the remaining members of the politics forum started to get increasingly caught up in their irritation with the way other members behave. The politics forum here has always been a rather unusual community in that there's a very small number of regular contributors, most of whom tend to be adherents to fairly firmly held and diametrically opposing beliefs. That needn't be a problem, but when you get the exact same arguments constantly reappearing in different form over and over again and the exact same refusal to accept the opposing PoV re-occurring in every thread then inevitably people are going to start to chafe. What happened over time was that the moderate voices just shut up and then left and we were left with a small, festering pool of personality clashes. I gave up on this forum a while ago for exactly this reason, but I still swing by from time to time and I'm very disappointed to see a thread like this. There's really no need for these dramas among adults.

As for the future of the forum, I agree that we need more forum games. OTTO caught my interest for a brief period but it's simply not the same and I haven't played a game there for quite a while now, whereas I'm still enjoying my hopeless position in the current RG game. You just don't get to know people when you're communicating through the software, and you also have less reason to swing by the forums to keep them alive.

I agree that these forums have long since stopped being worth the time, largely, IMHO, because we lost the underlying tone of mutual respect and civility that underlay our discussions in the early years of Redscape. I'll point no fingers as to who contributed to the change other than to say I probably had as much to do with it as anyone. In any case, I don't find it the same pleasant place for a friendly discussion with a bunch of smart friends of widely varying viewpoints, so I've largely stopped coming 'round. It's a shame, though. Was a great little forum once upon a time.

I want to make clear, these are my standards, my choices, my rules.

What I will not do:
1. I will not respond to anyone who is intentionally defamatory or dishonest, other than to say, in one way or another, “That strikes me as intentionally defamatory” or “That strikes me as intentionally dishonest,” or to ask clarifying questions in an attempt to sort out motive.
2. I will not post in any single sub-forum more than once a day.
3. I will not respond to repetitious arguments except to say “That is a repetition of a previous argument.”
4. I will not post in response to anyone here who I believe has engaged in smears. I will not engage with someone who has even dragged my professional life into a forum in which it had no bearing and then declined to even apologize for that. To me, whatever other (off-site) forums he/she may be invited to participate in with whatever luminaries, that person has intentionally and personally insulted me and voluntarily severed whatever ties are implied in a loose-knit community like this. I have blocked the posts of those whose primary mission seems to be non-constructive. That is, of course, subjective. However, I think if some of the names were changed, even those engaging in said behavior would come to recognize it.

What I will do:
1. Respond in non-defamatory and honest ways. To me, it is fine that not everyone agrees with me. What is not acceptable, however, is to be drawn into mud-slinging fights. I recognize it is my own fault for responding to these and descending into the mire. In my opinion, some have made a point of trying to start such things. I will not, nor will I respond.
2. Provide new information in my posts. If I’ve nothing to add, I won’t post. In particular, I will look for helpful links to buttress my contentions.
3. Try to take constructive criticism in stride. If it is indeed constructive, great! I have not arrived.
4. If you find me in violation of any of these and rightly point them out, I will simply apologize and seek forgiveness.
5. Forgive those who genuinely seek forgiveness.

Those seem like reasonable rules to me. Welcome back.