Rimbo
2841
Far be it from me to get into this absolutely asinine discussion about a thread and an issue I’ve barely even read, but at least one of MattG’s trolls was in fact a case of MattG being completely mistaken about what he was viewing (the contenst of a UI element – and this was about the time Tom started getting pissed at him). Hardly an “obvious game flaw.” He didn’t appear to care if what he pointed out was legitimate or not; he was just going to keep throwing shit against the wall to to see what stuck.
I’m not picking on you alone, Perkins; you’re just one of many on both sides of this idiotic discussion who seem to be attempting to re-frame the facts to try and manipulate people’s perceptions of what happened.
It’s pretty obvious what Matt was doing and why his account was shut down, just as it has been for everyone else’s who’s ever had theirs shut down. Don’t be obtuse.
Come now, it doesn’t really sound as if this is much of a concern.
First off, thank you for addressing what I’ve actually said instead of insulting me with ludicrous accusations.
I disagree. I disagree for a couple reasons.
Firstly and most importantly, it just plain drags the level of discourse down. People disagree. This is a fact of life. I have friends and relatives who hold political views that I consider utterly odious. Some of those same people are, taken on the whole, better people than I am–their lives have by any measure improved the world better than mine has. A person is not composed solely of their political views, and does not become worthless by virtue of holding views that run contrary to mine.
When everyone manages to get along in spite of holding different views, we all benefit. That doesn’t mean abandoning your opinions or standing silent when someone else insults you; it just means treating other people with basic civility so long as they do the same for you.
Secondly, as a practical matter, dragging politics into unrelated discussions never ends well. You declare that Brad is “anti-country”. Some other person comes in and defends him. The whole thing turns into a giant argument, spills over into entirely unrelated threads, and everything goes to shit.
Remember Derek Smart and comp.sys.ibm.pc.space-sim? The entire newsgroup became one giant mass of “Taco commander” jokes and similar frothing. And, of course, most of the people involved were firmly convinced that they were defending the world from someone being Wrong on the Internet. That kind of shit is why we’re all posting here instead of still hanging out on Usenet.
However, that all said, the world isn’t going to come to an end if you show up in an Elemental thread, politely declare that you’re regretfully unable to buy the game because of the company CEO’s politics, and depart. So long as you depart, and don’t sit around stinking up the place as other people try to conduct a conversation.
tromik
2846
It’s pretty obvious that Matt G. = Josef K. and Tom is the examining magistrate.
Sorry, I just read it and I’m seeing the parallels in everything now.
It was clear to a lot of us that Matt didn’t give a rat’s ass about Elemental and he was in the thread just to fuck it up as much as possible.
Why is it so hard to be civil? You’re not playing the game and you never will, but your dislike of someone justifies shitting up a thread?
Always my goal. I may not be great at it sometimes, but I’m aiming for nothing else most times. I say most times because I did take a pot shot at Wardell in the Elemental thread. ;)
Let’s say you do the minimum possible and stop into a thread to say “This looks like a fantastic game, but I won’t be buying it because I don’t like the policies your company stands for.” What’s your purpose? Is it to simply let the head of the company know of a lost sale in the hopes that somehow this will change their behavior? Is it the desire to let others know of the political issues that you feel are important? In either case, is that something that you feel is best served by posting in the games forum instead of, say, a personal letter (on paper and all) to the CEO or a more in-depth post outlining the history of your concerns in P&R?
Maybe the games forum shouldn’t be overrun with that sort of thing, but keeping it completely clean of everything but game talk doesn’t really serve my purpose…to get Wardell to wisen up and keep his politics out of his company decisions. I’d like to try Elemental, once they finish it, but will not be doing so because of previously stated complaints.
If you bring it up in the games forum and then don’t push it, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But, I don’t make the rules here, so I don’t know.
Yes, calling an entire view point anti-country may be over stating it, and it is Glenn Beck we’re talking about. Maybe he does have some views that are good for the country, I just haven’t heard them. I have the same problem with people using Fox News as a source and pretending it’s real news. We know they lie. Not sometimes, but often. They aren’t news, but instead an agenda. I put Beck squarely in that same corner.
I think this is a great point. We can disagree without it being the end of the world. And we can point out things about companies without needing to harp on them continiously…at least in the games forum.
But a hell of a 120th post.
Well yeah, me too. I was just trying to make the new guy feel good about himself, little pat on the back. I sure hope he doesn’t read this post.
Wait a sec, was the Sideways pic edited in? Or did Octo just actually get banned for that?
Cubit
2856
Actually, I think the guy just has PMs turned off in his control panel. He isn’t banned, just trolling.
This was my exact thought when I heard that Matt Gallant was banned. He was unrelenting in his trolling of the Borderlands thread.
I’ve been keeping up on that Elemental thread and nothing Matt posted seemed all that bad to me. It was easily ignored anyway. I’m sort of wondering if Brad’s “I’m gonna take my ball and go home” post (in response to very measured and reasonable criticism from Ben Sones and Jason Lutes, not Matt Gallant, by the way) made Tom act harshly with regard to Matt.
Raife
2858
Or it might just be that Tom realized Matt wasn’t going to stop doing it.
Some times you have to go out swinging.
Kebooo
2860
I laughed when I scrolled down to the comments on http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/08/elemental_hey_whered_that_come.php and saw Matthew Gallant’s name there.
