Personally I would find it impossible to have a discussion on games with someone who’s personally contributed to the current state of things in the country by means of their political writing/propaganda bullshit. So I would agree that it’s hard in this day and age to wall it all off like that.
Jeez, @wumpus, I guess I knew you had strong feelings about this (meaning the topic at hand in general, plus a certain other poster), but I didn’t know your negative feelings toward these topics had risen to this level.
I just spotted this topic now, and it gave me quite an unexpected jolt.
If there is anything any of us can do to change your mind, please say something.
Otherwise, my best wishes. I’ll genuinely miss your presence.
Unreal, man.
@wumpus, I’d rather have you stay. You’re a part of Qt3 and I’d hate to see you go. Of course, if that’s your choice, I wish you well, but I’ll still hope you reconsider.
Second, I’m worried about what this will mean for Qt3. First, there’s the reduced income for Tom, which might be a big problem by itself. But there’s also the costs for hosting this site in its new form, which are probably not insignificant at all. When we switched, there was this fear that depending so much on you would be a problem. I’d hate to see those fears materialized now, and I’d hate even more if Qt3 ceases existing because of that.
So I guess we wait to see what @tomchick has to say, and what we can do to help.
I’m of the same opinion, @wumpus. I do wish you would stay, but respect your position if it means you need to move on, either permanently or for some time. Life changes, but most of us remain who we are without significant effort. That’s isn’t to say that is good or bad, but just being here on Earth with everyone else, you absolutely MUST come to terms with people as they are, because applying what you wish them to be will end up with you being disappointed in nearly everyone you become close with.
Or as @Lantz summarized it much better …
Concur. I’d be happier if the ideological struggle sessions were limited to P & R as well.
I like you, @Jason_Becker!
@wumpus I’ve disagreed with you a couple of times because you are both stubborn, egotistical, and opinionated. I’ve also enjoyed your contributions to the discussion because you are passionate, opinionated, and have a good heart. Best of luck and feel free to drop back in from time to time when things might have cooled off.
The hosting change is for the best. I hope he sticks around too, and suspect he’ll find it less mentally stressful as a participant rather than a sponsor of the site.
Hosting costs are pretty minimal, don’t worry about that. Patreon income I have no clue about, but hosting costs in 2018 are no biggie.
Yes, this. The people that made the site run for years before are still around.
Glad to hear that. Well, I’m a web developer, so let me know if you ever need help with that.
I always thought it was kind of neat that one of the co creators of Stackoverflow was here. In fact he was here long before Stackoverflow. Anyway, I’ll miss having him around but of course it’s his call to make.
Since there have been a few worried posts about this, it’s maybe worth noting that wumpus already reduced the Patreon donations from “insanely generous” to “mere mortal” levels a couple of years ago. It was at a $5/month now. Source:
When I was growing up, Religion was a big deal. If you dated outside of your faith, you became persona non-grata in certain circles. I remember one of my friends, who happened to be Jewish, dating a girl who happened to be Catholic. Love was love and knew no boundaries, but then when push came to shove, he asked her if she believed he was going to hell when he died. Grudgingly, she said yes, unless he converted. He said he couldn’t date someone who believed that, and called it off.
Politics was a weirder thing at the time. We were the kids of those who were teens and 20-somethings during the Civil Rights Movement. Certain assumptions were made, and basically it was never talked about by most of us. We held “mock” elections in schools, and I remember Reagan vs. Carter only resulted in a few glances around the room, and was then forgotten. No cliques were shattered, no friendships lost. But my goodness, did they ever exist for our parents. PTA meetings were battlegrounds (I’d get dragged to them, and while I was made to stay outside, shouting could always be heard).
Race was weirder still. This was post-segregation, but it still existed quite strongly in social circles. My mother was a flower child who believed in love for everyone (okay, she still IS a flower child, but in a slightly toned-down and grandmotherly way). When I was in elementary school, I invited people to my birthdays because I liked them, and only afterwards did one of my best friends explain to me he’d never been to a birthday party for a white kid before. I was stunned.
Anyway, my point in sharing all this is we create these borders which wall us off from one another, and we always have. If one is broken down, we seem to manufacture others. Maybe it’s a way to manage our Dunbar number or something, but it has seemed to be a pretty consistent behavior throughout history.
The real question to me is whether that behavior should be thought of as a good, useful thing or a destructive artifact to overcome. Reflexively, I’d say the latter, but I can see the other side of the argument. In a society were behaviors can’t be regulated, inclusion and exclusion are tools of influence. If someone’s being an ass and nobody invites them to a party, perhaps they’ll be more likely rethink their behaviors. On the flipside, if someone is invited to a party, they gain more normative influences in the process and this hopefully leads to them being more productive members of society in the future.
Exclusion seems a cruel, uncaring tool to implement. Yet I acknowledge uncaring tools are sometimes necessary; soldiers don’t fire tickle bullets, after all. But is this a day and time where our social weapons should be fully brought to bear? They do certainly seem to be making an impact. While I’m hopeful, I have a hard time seeing them really winning the cultural war. If anything, I expect a pyrrhic victory. Then again, it’s a hell of a lot better than losing.
And before anyone says it, FFS, I’m not saying “be civil.” I’m just wondering if there’s a real solution to be found.
In a time where tolerance is seen as intolerance and allowing something to be said is the same thing as supporting it, i’m not sure if there is ever a way to square this circle.
Well, thanks for the forum software, I really do like it more than vBulletin at this point. You turned me around. I don’t think you will ever turn me around on “likes” though. Especially with the rapid downturn of social media’s discourse, which I think is partly to blame on likes.
Good luck in your future endeavors.
Best of luck in your future endeavors. Can’t wait for the Ignore function. :)
I was mostly kidding, it sucks when a long time forum member gets so mad they leave. I’ve been there and just didn’t post for a week and cooled off.
However, there have been some attempted doxing incidents and accusations of reading private messages that I’m not cool with. They have not really been addressed but Tom has tried to call them out in public. My guess is they had some private exchanges that soured things. I think wumpus should take a break, step down as a mod or whatever he is, and come back.
But it’s his decision of course. It’s his time and money.
That is where we have come to.
I do wonder how much the GMan story has to do with this decision. But also it sounds like Wumpus forgot something that most of us know very well, that this is Tom’s place and we are just visitors.
I do not believe he was ever a mod.
Wumpus, you are a bright spot here at QT3 and with your penchant to dish it out & do some active trolling yourself, I’m surprised that you are letting go because of one bad apple. Yes, it’s a horrible, disastrous bad apple, but still you are a large part of this site. To leave, you’re just admitting he won. And you really don’t want that, do you?
Why leave all your friendships and acquaintances that you’ve built up over a decade because of one person?
While I agree with your synopsis that it would be better to have group moderation, with everything you’ve accomplished and have yet to accomplish, I’d sure like to read about it here first instead of finding out about it somewhere else (gasp twitter).
Please reconsider. Take a break, but come back!