In the same way that you know picking a healing scab is wrong yet you still go ahead and do it, defying your own common sense and all those things your mother told you, I had a moment of weakness I recently dipped my toe back into the frothy waters of internet forums. I think it’s turned septic.
I left forums some time back for a number of reasons. One of the reasons was that I was tired of attempting to explain myself to an audience that was absolutely determined not to get the point. Usually, I was pointing out holes in their arguments or errors in their way of thinking or presenting themselves. So long as the audience persists in acting as though they don’t understand what I’m talking about they can comfortably convince themselves that they are free of criticism. It amounts to those simple magic tricks that depend on misdirection and distraction than genuine skill. Psychologists see this behaviour a great deal and it’s summed up by stating that until the individual admits there’s a need to change then they’ll never change. Typically, a person would speak to a psychologist and explain how the world doesn’t understand them. The psychologist will explain that the world is as it is – if things are to improve it’s the person who must change, not the rest of the world. I am, of course, over generalising the situation but, hey, I’m trying to make a point.
My recent contributions to a particular forum topic have left me feeling as if I’ve personally re-lived a scene from a certain movie:
Lloyd: What are the chances of a guy like you and a girl like me… ending up together?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: Not good like one in a hundred?
Mary: I’d say more like one in a million.
Lloyd: ……….So you’re telling me there’s a chance?
The scene is funny because, we, the audience are smarter than Lloyd and we can both laugh at his idiocy and empathise with his misplaced optimism. At the end of the day though, the poor sap just isn’t getting the point because his desire to believe something eclipses his grip on the facts of the situation.
I like that movie. It’s dumb fun. But I wouldn’t want to LIVE that movie and I certainly wouldn’t want to live out that scene ten times a day for weeks on end. It’d exasperate me to the point where I’d have to switch off and never watch the movie again. Fortunately for me, I switched off in time for me to keep my sanity and leave the Harry and Lloyds of the internet doing stuff like this:
Lloyd: You’re it.
Harry: You’re it.
Lloyd: You’re it, quitsies!
Harry: Anti-quitsies, you’re it, quitsies, no anti-quitsies, no startsies!
Lloyd: You can’t do that!
Harry: Can too!
Lloyd: Cannot, stamp it!
Harry: Can too, double stamp it, no erasies!
Lloyd: Cannot, triple stamp, no erasies, Touch blue make it true.
Harry: No, you can’t do that… you can’t triple stamp a double stamp, you can’t triple stamp a double stamp! Lloyd!
Lloyd: [hands over ears] LA LA LA LA LA LA!
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not against humour. I even enjoy watching some slapstick. But I don’t want to swim in a sea of idiocy. It’s a shame as the forum I refer to does have a great sense of commnity. Unfortunately it just comes accross me now as a really well organised clown convention. I’m sure it’s fantastic fun if clowns are your thing. If you can’t get enough of flowers that squirt water and garish characters tripping up over their own feet then I’m sure it’d be your idea of Nirvana. The thing is, I don’t find clowns funny any more – maybe when I was 6, but not now.
Also, I realised that clowns have no sense of humour. You ever tried to tell a clown that they’re not funny? It just doesn’t register. How dumb can you get?
Reading some of your comments in that thread leads me to believe that you missed the whole undertone of those posts.
Undertone? Well, Retroid, your contributions in that thread show a complete disregard for the rules of the forum as laid down by the people that run it. Those are pretty clear to anyone that isn’t so full of themselves to suggest that admins are wrong or not allowed to do things depending on your whims.
They’re in charge, not you. Accept it and move on.
And, with your blatant display of ‘not getting the point’ you can come here and attempt to tell me that I don’t get the ‘undertone’ of that topic?
There is no undertone – an admin makes a rule, you all cry about it and don’t listen to what he says. The only hint of an undertone is how astoundingly dumb you all are not to understand the obvious and how selfish you all are to insist that your views are more important than theirs.
Seriously, you’re a smart guy Retroid, but you need to take a few steps back and look at the situation objectively. It’s an absolute farce.
Well, the way I see it is everybody is equal no matter how much power they have under their belt. I don’t believe my views more important then theirs at all, they’re equal.
I disagree with his rule but I would have respected it ten times more if he didn’t say the whole “I will allow picture threads if Holly posts his picture”. As that tells me how serious he takes his own rule.
As it happens like you said as Shatner, it is a dictatorship and I can’t do anything directly about it. Thanks to that I decided to do something constructive and within the rules which will be shown very shortly.
Koffdrop- I must say that in some instances I agree.
However I do feel you were overtly harsh in some of your posts, especially in reference to the TGN??? comment. Several of us disagreed with you that you can call a whole community something, and then when pointing out that this is a horrible generalisation to say this, you tell us that this is in our own foolishness, that our conscience is telling us that you are referring to certain people, and that this is both understanble without change in mood or tone. It is liking me saying, for example: All (insert racial minority here) are thieves??? and then when challenged, say what you said. If your audience does not understand you then it is not them who are wrong, it is you. You are the problem not them. The world is as it is – if things are to improve its the person who must change, not the rest of the world.??? Oh, look at that.
I understand now what you were saying, and, I will be fair, I should probably have grasped the situation better, in fact it was a great pity I did not. I did not think as well as my ability entails, and for my reaction, I apologise. In hindsight it should have been guessed that you refered to only certain members, but it is a little difficult to comprehend that fact when in black and white, in front of you, you are called a hypocritical fool, as it seemed to be the case when you first posted, and this is what caused my rather knee jerk reactive post. I try my best, but, as T. S Elliot once said, sometimes even the most intelligent will be the fool, however the fool will never be the most intelligent.???, and this case I reacted rather idiotically. However your next response was rather harsh, and partronising people is hardly the way to go, whatever your intelligence, and apparant status of intellectual compacity.
I will say however, that thread was TGN at its absolute worse. How one pathetic arguement could have turned into that is beyond my comprehension.
I made a clown cry once. I challenged his perception of humour, and indeed the human races perception of humour as a whole. What is funny? Why do we laugh? Is it a subconscious reaction somewhere in our brains that connects two variables, or is it a more concerted, conscious effort to seek appraisal from someone else?
My mum said I was missing the point.
We never went to the circus again.
Retroid
Regardless of ‘how things should be’ you need to start accepting how things ARE. If you’re the boss of TGN you can set it according to idealogy that you think is correct. If you’re not you just have to put up with it or leave.
James’ treatment of the issue in light of whether Holly ever decides to diffuse it only serves to highlight the fact that, rational or not, he’s in charge and you’re not.
If you dislike The System that much do what other people do – start your own site where you’re the boss. If you don’t want to do that then accept the rules of your chosen society and get on with things. Nothing is going to change whilst you sit there feeling hard done by.
Frasier
Firstly, you need a little more self confidence. Your manner, thoughtfulness and self awareness are far higher than the typical level of the average TGNer. When I’m ranting it doesn’t normally include you.
I appreciate your concerns and feedback and sympathise with the position you’re in and the way you feel. But I can’t tell you what to think or how to behave. It’s really up to you whether you feel deliberately vague criticisms are intended for you or not – that’s most of the point.
Finally, you have to realise that what TGNers think of me is of absolutely no concern to me. I don’t seek affirmation to my actions and I have full confidence in what I do or say. When I don’t I normally keep schtum.
If they like me, fine. If they hate me, fine. I’m not part of TGN. TGN’s persistance that everyone, including me, must be seeking some sort of approval from them doesn’t apply to me in the slightest. It does rather show how good TGN is at overstating its own importance.
When I want someone’s approval on something I say or do, I’ll ask for it – and I’ll ask someone who’s opinion is professional, relevant and mature.
TGN can keep on demonstrating it’s narrow view of “Everything according to TGN” and, in doing so, they’ll just give my words more meaning. On the other hand, I don’t need to care or understand TGN as my association with it isn’t half as important to me as it is to TGN.
I hope I’ve made myself clear.
Sorry that you have had such a bad time at TGN, Koff dude theres not much I can do but say sorry for all our ignorances to your opinions. But cheer up, you don’t have to visit TGN.
[IMG]http://www.ballsdrop.com/?p=101#comments[/IMG]
come to digital share guys. us clowns over there need some more members.not even gonna get into this guy cause he threatened to sue us 😛 watch this get deleted.
I’m happy to approve that comment for a few reasons.
1) In a really childish way, you dared me to delete it, so I didn’t delete it. Ner ner.
2) I didn’t threaten to sue you. I told you to comply with your forum’s licence agreement about not reproducing work without permission. Sites that break their agreements with their hosts tend to vanish.
3) Your sense of wit and humour demonstrates precisely why I describe your site as immature. You never got that whole “action and consequences” thing did you? Such a shame.
4) It also shows that, even after an agreement between all of us not to dredge this up again you don’t have the courtesy, decency or maturity to let things be. I’m only too happy to publish your comment to show that, once again, you refuse to keep to your word.
5) Making such a post isn’t an effective way of gaining members. Frasier, a reader of this site, joined Digital Share and he was told to ‘fuck off and suck Koffdrop’s dick’ almost immediately.
I will add that the only parts of further inflammatory comments from your purile membership that I’ll post will be I.P. addresses of the commentators.
68.149.221.177
Have a nice day.
Koffdrop,
Are you really looking for a fight here? There was nothing in our agreement of you posting ANYONE’s personal details.
I apologise for Meesle’s post, though it is also apparant to me that the agreement contained nothing with regards to posting comments on your site. If you see flaming.. then DON’T PUBLISH IT.
I reckon, from the amount of biased information you’ve published into this blog, you’ll be sure to receive regular amounts of flaming anyway, so why post Meesle’s?
Nobody told Frasier to fuck off, in fact he was rather welcomed and actually returned afterwards to participate in further discussions.
Please remove Meesle’s IP from your above post, it is a pointless and childish act to punish others by revealing their personal information.
Remove his IP, or I swear, all your internet details will appear on the internet for everyone to see. Besides from Digital Share, my blog receives over a hundred viewers daily, and most of them are common Nintendo gamers like me. I’m sure they’ll love to know of your details, the “anti Nintendo industry expert”…
Don’t even CONSIDER dobbing my blog to blogspot, either, seeing as you’ve committed the very crime on koffdrop.com.
And yeah, I know your details, I’ve even shown them to you.
dude, fighting on the internet is pretty retarded. you posted my ip. oh no. deleted a link to our site because you dont want regular people going there. in my opinion you are as bad as any of us. at least we admit it though.
frasier was flamed because we thought he was you. after he noted that he wasnt a total idiot like you we didnt mind him as much.
and you want to know something even more childish? making a whole blog entry about a site that bitch slapped your little narrow minded ways (and admitted they flamed a bit)
good day to you sir, for i hope that a piano falls on you when and if you decide to leave your house and go get a real job, and leave video games to teens kids and younfg adults.
Koffdrop, I want no trouble. We made an agreement
Meesle, shut the hell up now before you make yourself look like an idot (but ny Koffdrops words, you al;ready are). We made a deal, don’t cause trouble, leave him alone, and he will leave us alone, simple enough. I don’t wan toyu posting anything on this blog unless it is about his topic.
That is all.
BTW, I really like this movie, you got good taste in movies. And Meesle, if you think he was talking about our long argument I don’t think he was talking about TGN. I am not sure, he coulda been talking about us, I dunno and I really don’t care.
Koffdrop, you do not have to keep this since you validate all comments before they go into public. I just want to let you know I am trying to stop this and I am talking to Meesle to tell him to calm down and stop advertising here and to stop flaming you (if that is a rule of yours).
And if you think I am acting like an idiot and posting by IP I belive it will end up being in some public place in the world that is not my home so don’t try and trace me back or post it up cause this is not my real IP, its not eve my old one.
You know, I don’t think your aloud to just post peoples I.P. addresses like that Koffdrop.
two can play that game koffdrop. i also forgot to note that you seem to have taken to threats when you seem to be losing a internet arguement (lets leave it at you should go and try and get some freinds)
Dear readers,
The last 6 comments all arrived within 24 hours of me speaking to a Digital Share (DS) member on MSN about how I was disappointed with DS for
1) Making more topics about me on their forum after they’d agreed not to
2) Flaming this site*
3) Being so childish as to have an admin edit my profile on that forum so that my signature contained a silly image.
These were all things DS member did, I just pointed them out to one guy. Now, 24 hours later, they appear to have taken offence to my observations of their behaviour and submitted many comments to this post.
I can only say this reinforces the stance that DS, as a forum and as people, are stunningly immature. To take offence at someone merely pointing out their own actions and to respond by throwing more insults is like a baby having a tantrum. I suggest if DS don’t like having their actions talked about then the best course of action is to NOT ACT LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
This appears to be another example of children enjoying acting like fools and then getting very upset when somebody calls them a fool.
What’s most telling is that during this MSN conversation I didn’t even express anger or criticism – I simply stated the facts of my findings – just like I have done so above.
I will be more than happy to post further comments from DS members as, it seems, every time they open their mouths they show how childish, dishonourable and irresponsible they are.
The next set of posts will feature IP addresses. I can publish what I like as, being on a private server rather than somewhere like a free host such as blogspot.com or Invision Free, I am not bound by terms and conditions relating to the content of this site. Therefore, I don’t break any rules.
Those wishing to publish my material or details on sites that ARE inhibited by such rules (typically any free hosting site on the internet) break the rules of their agreements at their own risk. The most common side effect of breaking the rules you agreed to when you set up your free site is for your generous host to close your site.
Digital Share folk need to start thinking about honouring the agreements they make with people and site hosts. 😐
*far more than 6 comments were recieved from DS members. Only the 6 above were anything more than 1-line flames.
Alright, first of all, you did not honor our agreement when you posted this in the first place you dumbass. You said we should drop this whole arguement, but look what you did, you posted this thing on your blog pretty much insulting our forum (inderectly). Then Meesle was an idiot for commenting on here because I knew you would get all pissy. Also, we did not start another topic about you after the topic “Koffdrop 2.” So shut the hell up.
Alright, Koffdrop, I had not one single flame in my post towards you. There were towards Meesle, all of ym post was directed at Meesle telling him to shut up.
From now on, I don’t want any DS member posting on Koffdrops blog unless it is contributiing to the article, post, comments. I don’t want Koffdrop posting at DS unless it concerns him or contributiing to the forums (which he is doing anyway). Meesle, SI, drop it. Just forget it and forget him. Koffdrop, if you don’t like us, then don’t let our comments go out into the public.
I seuggest you astart taking down Meesle’s IP while you still can. I have access to your IP (even though you won’t show it out in public, it is 12.345.6.78) SI can do the samething to you (or threatened to do so) so i suggest taking down Meesles IP before your IP goes up as well.
I am sorry that our members cannot leave you alone. I amt trying to convince them to just drop it. But, you can help us by not posting our IP’s (which he have not done to you) and deleting our comments. I dont not expcet this to go through (err, all of it to go through) but at least I know you read it before it gets out in public.
Oh if you keep your promise about posting our IP’s, trace mine and you will end up in Germany, so don’t try it.
Thank you
Kevin,
This particular article that you are responding to concerns events on a totally different gaming forum to yours.
However, Digital Share forum members ONCE AGAIN prove that they have no regard for the facts of the situation or even bothering to read things properly before flinging their accusations about.
As for no new ‘Koffdrop’ topics on DS? There’s two new ones – on from SirenCS reproducing a PRIVATE message I sent him. Another called “Koffdrop – opinion” which has been mysteriously deleted sometime in the last 10 hours.
Once again, you’re either not checking your facts or your simply lying through your teeth. Either way, it’s not particularly impressive or persuasive.
Drazzle, I appreciate your attempts to mediate the situation. However, if people come to MY site then they’re subject to MY rules – just like you expect me to be subject to the rules of DS if I were to post there.
The big difference for you is that I’m on a paid, private server. I can publish what I choose – such as IP addresses. I haven’t made any agreements like the ones you will have made with Invision Free or Blogspot about the sort of content that can be published. As such, bold as it may be, posting IPs on your forum will almost certainly break the terms of the agreement you made with your forum host.
So, let’s recap:
I’ve not broken any agreement with DS.
DS members *assume* I’ve talked about them in my article when, in fact, I hadn’t
DS members broke their agreement and created additional topics about me on their site
DS members flamed my site, modified my DS profile and are now trying to claim the moral high ground.
DS members are bound by their agreement with their forum host that would most definitely cover the publicising of personal IP addresses
My private host has no such agreements – thereby permitting me to publish what I like, how I like.
I really would advise DS members to stop harassing me like this. I’d also advise them to double check the agreements they made when they registered at DS (or blogspot for that matter) and, most importantly, I suggest the read things properly before throwing accusations around.
Alright, I am dropping this. We are not to disuccss this anymore, if I see another DS member posting here that is not contributing to his blog they will here from me and Siren.
All the points Koffdrop made were correct, Meesle, if I can read correctly, he was talking about TGN forums, not ours, don’t jump the gun next time k?
Yes you guys came here flamed, I am trying not to flame and I tell you what, its hard as hell but I am holding back my flaming, you guys have to hold it back also.
The one thing I don’t understand about Koffdrops points was that we made yet another thread about Koffdrop, we problaby did but I don’t remember that and I am sorry for that Koffdrop.
Guys from DS, stop editing his profile, flmaing him on his own blog (even thoguh he did it to us we are ending this and I don’t care what you guys say) and just drop it. If you guys are so pised at him why put gas on the fire and make yourselves so frustrated by talking to him more, we know its not gonna do anything.
Just drop it, sorry bothering your blog Koffdrop I am trying to end it, not contribute to it we already had are share of arguing.
Ahh now I remember the thread, you are correct, the Koffdrop opinion thread was made by Chris84 just explaining on he hated you and how he thought you were full of BS. I am pretty sure Meesle deleted it because we were trying to get rid of all Koffdrop threads to end it (ironi thing is he started another argument) but I cannot gurantee. I can try and find out if one of the mods did, thats it.
DS, just drop it…
Look can we please drop this. Koffdrop i thought we had this all worked out. I removed your work off of our site and you were suppose to drop it. Yes you did threaten “legal action”. I can copy and post the message if you wish. There are a lot of people on our forums who take nintendo very seriously and when something bad is said against them they get angry. I try to keep that fanboy talk out of our forums. We work to have a place where people can post and talk about information. This is regarding microsoft, sony and nintendo. Anyone is welcome.
Yes SirenCS, I thought we had this all worked out. That was, until I decided to check – and then found, to my disappointment, that more topics about me, childish editing of my profile and now flames to my website had appeared.
Had I not kept to my agreement? Where’s all these new posts I made on DS? Wheres the articles about DS that I’ve made on my site? In fact, my only direct references to DS are as responses to DS members who’ve come to my site to point the finger and insult me. I have not started any of this – yet people are telling me to lay off?
Perhaps you guys need to practice what you preach. Lead by example and all that.
As for the ‘legal action’ – I never did or implied any such thing. I made constant references to a the Invision Free hosting agreement that DS is bound by (a link to it exists on every page of your forum). I made it clear (or so I thought) that, traditionally, people who break agreements with their hosts tend to get their sites closed by that host. THAT is the ‘legality’ of your actions that I was referring to.
Yet, as ever, DS doesn’t pay attention or read things in full or care to understand them before responding agressively and accusing me of preparing to sue them.
The best way to end it would be to do my example and simply NOT perpetuate the situation by coming here and adding comment after comment. For one thing, I can assure you, you will NOT get the last word and every comment that has been made has managed to demonstrate how childish, immature and ignorant DS members can be.
As a deterrent to future commentary from DS members I return my pledge to publish just the IP of each commentator.
If you don’t like this idea then I suggest you DO NOT COMMENT. Your comment will NOT be displayed, just your personal details.
This is over.