Flame Wars needs to go!

[stringybeany]

...I have seen them outargued, however.

I've seen a lot of flawed arguments flow by on this board. I dunno. Flame tastes a lot better when the content has a rational basis.

Flame is like a fine spice, also. You don't want to over do it and ruin the stew.

[Aerial Attack]

The existence of the flame forum encourages trolling and flames throughout the site. As capable as I am of long tirades I'll simply quote the poll. It has outlived its usefulness.

No, sorry. We at Dancing Mustard Enterprises do not simply accept bald assertions that are not supported by some kind of evidence. How does FW promote trolling throughout the site? Can you prove that, or even show some supporting evidence? You're a clever guy Coleman, but I'm not just going to take your word for it simply because you say I should. If you want to call FW a negative influence, then I'd like to see some evidence of your proposition, because I for one don't like to go around deleting several people's favourite bit of CC without some hard empirically proveable facts.

I'm afraid that quoting the poll doesn't help you either. Just because a lot of stupid people all say the same thing doesn't make their opinion valid (Smoking must be good! Millions of people do it and say it's cool! Wheee!). If they could come up with an argument backed by evidence then it might, Just because those stupid people recorded their opinions in a poll doesn't help them out one bit. I'm afraid you're going to have to rely on something else before the opposition take you seriously.

Basically, for all your collective whinging about how bad FW makes the forums, nobody has demonstrated it yet. Given how much action you're demanding and how loudly you're shouting I'd have expected a bit more... there's 45 of you apparently, why don't you put your heads together and find us a few links that demonstrate FW ruining the other forums in a significant enough fashion to warrant its removal.

We'll be waiting right here for you when you finally manage it.

1) Typically people who enter a Flame Forum on any site are either less civilized than or lacking the maturity of [due to a variety of reasons: age; stress; dice; etc.] other posters.

I say this because civility dictates a certain modicum of "decency." The quoted word being the most important, yet also the most difficult to define. I don't go in Flame Wars that often and when I do I find the following: some extremely funny stuff; some inane useless arguing; some steam venting; and some stuff that definitely crosses the forum standards.

Only 50% of the possible things to find there could be considered "useful" or additions to the site. Alas, the other 50% of the possible probably makes up closer to 80% of the actual.

2) Just the fact that people will respond negatively by "trolling" in other forums if Flame Wars is removed or more closely monitored, belies the maturity of those posting therein. Do we really want/need their "contributions" to the site?

3) Maybe if Flame Wars was revamped to something like "Vent Some Steam" ... As for really funny stuff, as long as you stay within the forum guidelines, there's no reason it couldn't go in The Clubhouse.

4) I have definitely noticed an attitude in many of the Suggestions/General Discussion posts towards "noobs." Remember, they are here for many of the same reasons you are: to play Global Domination (or Risk); to share ideas relating to Global Domination; to meet new people who share a passion for Global Domination; to improve this site where possible; etc.

Whist many a new player will ask the same frustratingly stupid or inane question OR suggest an ages old rejected idea OR declare a bug that isn't OR ..., you have to try not to lose patience with other potentially valuable members of the community.

5) If you are really annoyed by something someone has done, leave them feedback and add them to your ignore list. There is no reason to flame them. Now, trash talk is something completely different. If you want to trash talk someone, do it appropriately. It should only be done by a) players who have previously played each other [something like "I own you" or "I'm gonna get revenge on you"]; b) players who know each other in Real Life or are doubles partners; and c) players in the same tournament [here it should be more of brag upon yourself - like "I prayed to the dice gods, and they have promised me victory"].

[RobinJ]

I'VE GOT A FANTASTIC IDEA!

Why not remove/lock all of Flame Wars for a trial period (say a week) and then everyone will see just how much it is needed when all the dickheads from in there spew all their vulgarity over the other forums!

I think it has already been argued well enough why Flame Wars should stay: helps to control the decency of the other forums, entering it is voluntary, etc, blah blah blah... so I will not add more.

Personally, I find Flame Wars quite amusing and very rarely actually that offensive, even though I rarely post there. Best that it stays

[Aerial Attack]

I'VE GOT A FANTASTIC IDEA!

Why not remove/lock all of Flame Wars for a trial period (say a week) and then everyone will see just how much it is needed when all the immature people from in there spew all their vulgarity over the other forums!

RobinJ,

This is a fantastic idea.

If after a period of 1 week, the level of trollishness and other issues has considerably lessened - then maybe Flame Wars could be re-opened. Let's see if they actually know how to behave? If so, then they'll appreciate it being reopened and will follow the stricter guidelines for Flame Wars and maintain decorum in the other areas of Conquer Club.

Otherwise, when they do spew their vulgarity - what will actually be seen isn't the need for Flame Wars, but the need for the immature people to become more civilized.

[neoni]

what will actually be seen isn't the need for Flame Wars, but the need for the immature people to become more civilized.

or the need for pseudo-intellectuals to be able to draw the line between the internet and anything that matters

[NESconqueror]

If you've seen what passes for trash (let alone truly intelligent thought) on there recently you know what I mean.

I agree. The flame zone is to go!
*Throws flame board into garbage can and stands on the garbage can*

[jiminski]

I don't understand all this moral outrage. hehe i am tempted to sit out and be outraged at the outrage but privately and with maturity.

I chose public immaturity instead.

Why? because i have watched the snowballing of this issue by the anti FlameWars lobby group for a while now. hehe sounds ridiculous doesn't it!? but that's what we have. A bunch of people who go to flamewars with the express purpose of seeing how offensive it is to them! Come on guys! it's like going to a strip-joint so you can complain about the adverse impact of female nakedness on your psyche.

Well not once have I been to the Map foundry (thank you for your great work guys!) because i don't make maps and i imagine it would be mind numbingly boring to me.
The point is i avoid the place... more i don't even consider going there. Why do some people feel it is their responsibility to hamper others actions when it has no direct affect on them?

Well flame wars has a tonal affect on the whole site! Cobblers!
Taking this very issue as a point in case: In the main the debate has been held with eloquence and humility. There has been very little spilling over of Flame type language into inappropriate, non-sanctioned areas; Proof, i would imagine, that FW has no festering, latent influence on the entirety of this place.
Unless the cage is rattled... if there have been some frustrated sorties into foreign territory, that is through frustration at an unprovoked attack.


I have watched this issue gain momentum until it threatens to now have some genuine affect and if the irrational and in my opinion rather spiteful attempt to infringe upon peoples pastimes goes unchecked it feels like an interesting place may be lost.. or perhaps changed to the point of holding no intrinsic value.

I visit there, i make the odd contribution and probably they are not truly flames but i enjoy the atmosphere and freedom of the place.. yes some threads are better than others but that's life isn't it! most conversations in life are about the bloody weather for crying out loud..... but some are about the nature of life itself, some hold resonance so profound as to make life worth living.

So why do i visit Flame wars? I don't particularly swear and i am probably a very poor flamer... but i enjoy the verve and the creativity caused by adversity. I enjoy the down-right silliness of the place!

Do i enjoy witnessing racism in there? of course not but this type of behaviour is in the main pilloried, belittled and shown up for what it is. This reinforces others views, it does not weaken them. Anyway Racism is not tolerated and nor should it be.

Flame wars serves no purpose? Aside from the point already made that it gives the mods a place to move discussions which have become heated, why should it serve a purpose other than people enjoy it?
What purpose does any of this site serve? grown men waging pretend war sitting in front of a screen, rolling pretend dice in between visits to Redtube. It's all pointless!

If the argument is that the initial reason for a flame forum has been lost .. i in some way concede but endless Threads on dice or Dancing mustard being a bad player and a poopy-head can prove tiresome to even the simplest of minds.

Perhaps the function of the forum could be changed to a General Flame Forum then the lines would not be so blurred and greater creativity could be encouraged!

By all means improve Flame wars... but delete it? I have heard no compelling argument to do so.
I have perused a few intellectual bullies flexing cortex's; calling for the kids ball to be confiscated because they might break one of their windows but i feel it's just a little mean spirited.

[HayesA]

You know, I've found this all very interesting. Not the topic at hand, but rather the discussion. Or to be more precise, why this community feels so threatened by a bunch of people who have done nothing to them except yell obscene words at them. Swearing is, yes, immature; taking offense to spoken word, in my opinion, is a lot less mature. It's only words guys. Chill out!

[jiminski]

You know, I've found this all very interesting. Not the topic at hand, but rather the discussion. Or to be more precise, why this community feels so threatened by a bunch of people who have done nothing to them except yell obscene words at them. Swearing is, yes, immature; taking offense to spoken word, in my opinion, is a lot less mature. It's only words guys. Chill out!

I agree with the sentiment almost entirely.
I do not necessarily agree that swearing is a sign of immaturity.

You don't make the point but I also don't agree that it is a sign of stupidity or a lack of vocabulary. I have a good vocabulary and love words in whatever form they take but often in speech i swear like a drunken Irishman who just caught his todger in his fly.
A good swear can be marvelous! far from putting up barriers and being aggressive it can be endearing and an ice-breaker.

[Russianfire8371]

How about you all live your live, and I live mine.

If you dont like something, do take part in it.

If I want to be stupid and immature, then thats my problem. NOT YOURS.

How about the anti-flamers stop trying to boss around how the forums should be run, and allow the people who run this thing handle it the way they want. You are here because you want to. This is Lack's website, not yours. If you don't like it here, leave.

[Herakilla]

You know, I've found this all very interesting. Not the topic at hand, but rather the discussion. Or to be more precise, why this community feels so threatened by a bunch of people who have done nothing to them except yell obscene words at them. Swearing is, yes, immature; taking offense to spoken word, in my opinion, is a lot less mature. It's only words guys. Chill out!

I agree with the sentiment almost entirely.
I do not necessarily agree that swearing is a sign of immaturity.

You don't make the point but I also don't agree that it is a sign of stupidity or a lack of vocabulary. I have a good vocabulary and love words in whatever form they take but often in speech i swear like a drunken Irishman who just caught his todger in his fly.
A good swear can be marvelous! far from putting up barriers and being aggressive it can be endearing and an ice-breaker.

ok... if swearing isnt a sign of immaturity then it is a sign of a person with a very small vocabulary and has to resort to age old and burned out insults rather than making up his or her own creative ones. so all in all, your an idiot if you have to attack people with swear words. from ym experiences at school, the best insults are those that dont include swear words since they hurt the most! every gotdang lunch hour you will hear everyone screaming over some insult that was thrown out, its like a zoo in there

[Visaoni]

You know, I've found this all very interesting. Not the topic at hand, but rather the discussion. Or to be more precise, why this community feels so threatened by a bunch of people who have done nothing to them except yell obscene words at them. Swearing is, yes, immature; taking offense to spoken word, in my opinion, is a lot less mature. It's only words guys. Chill out!

I agree with the sentiment almost entirely.
I do not necessarily agree that swearing is a sign of immaturity.

You don't make the point but I also don't agree that it is a sign of stupidity or a lack of vocabulary. I have a good vocabulary and love words in whatever form they take but often in speech i swear like a drunken Irishman who just caught his todger in his fly.
A good swear can be marvelous! far from putting up barriers and being aggressive it can be endearing and an ice-breaker.

ok... if swearing isnt a sign of immaturity then it is a sign of a person with a very small vocabulary and has to resort to age old and burned out insults rather than making up his or her own creative ones. so all in all, your an idiot if you have to attack people with swear words. from ym experiences at school, the best insults are those that dont include swear words since they hurt the most! every gotdang lunch hour you will hear everyone screaming over some insult that was thrown out, its like a zoo in there

I don't think he was talking about insults to a person. There are many ways to use swear words that aren't just "f*** you" etc. and I think he has a good point.

Although as far as insults go, yes you are often correct.

[HayesA]

The point is is that swears are just words. It takes a bigger man/women to simply ignore them. Words are words. In the end, you have the control to simply ignore those words. Insults are no different; it still takes a bigger man/women to ignore an insult.

[Aerial Attack]

The problem with your idea to ignore is that here in the forum you can't actually do that.

You can choose not to play a certain player. You can choose to ignore their chat (in-game). However, you still see the swear words typed in PMs or posted in a forum. Whilst, I do my fair share of abbreviated short-hand swearing in games (ranting about the dice). *Doh* I think I just busted myself for semi-violation of the guidelines!

Swear words are not supposed to be used on the site. In-game chat is slightly more reactionary and "heat of the moment," but still covered by the guidelines. Whilst people may spend no more thought on what they post in the forums, they should. It affects a far broader audience - potentially the entire site vs 5 other players (or 112 in BR).

P.S. my abbreviations could well be interpreted as "gosh darn my failing dice" - right? Yeah, that's what I mean when I type it.

[jiminski]

I just don't see Flames spilling into other Forums.. maybe i don't get around enough!? I visit the Clubhouse .. General.. Suggestions and Bug, Cheating and abuse, Callouts, Tournaments.. and all the sub forums (yes i spend far too much time here!)
Now unless those rowdy Cartographers are the ones with all the blue language I've not seen high levels of swearing out of the FlameWars. The odd bit but it's really not that prolific.

What are you really asking for here?
A total ban on all swearing everywhere?
Here we see it again! The pushing of another agenda in a conversation on FlameWars.
Leading to a baseless statement on the dark influence of the black-sheep forum and it's subtraction being a panacea for all the ills of the site.

[stringybeany]

It's all about content and impact, not word choice. Certain words are normally reserved for high-impact statements. When those words are over used, they lose impact.

When flame degrades to an exercise in packing the maximum number of high impact words into minimum space, then you are left with nothing but noise that's empty of any real content.

[jiminski]

It's all about content and impact, not word choice. Certain words are normally reserved for high-impact statements. When those words are over used, they lose impact.

When flame degrades to an exercise in packing the maximum number of high impact words into minimum space, then you are left with nothing but noise that's empty of any real content.

I could not agree more String!

So the deletion of whole Forum is being called for due to it being empty of any real content.
I would say that if a sentence has no content it has no impact!
To be honest that is almost the point of flamewars.

the Forum toys with the ridiculousness of offense. It's made in some cases of a jumble of the most offensive words so to make it inoffensive. Those who get offended by these hollow exercises in expletive entirely miss the point. (this is not exclusively what is there.)

I have no problem with differences of opinions on what is offensive. I would not for example go to my grandmothers house and spout out, what would be to her, offensive language! Nor would she go to a working mens club and expect not to be exposed to colourful linguistic structure.

I respect peoples space, i truly do! but i sometimes ask that my space also be respected.

[DAZMCFC]

Jiminski has put some good points together in his last few post. now i visit FW quite a lot, but i also visit the Tourney forum and the Club House. now in them forums i don`t swear or hurl abuse at anyone and i don`t expect it to be thrown in my direction(except in Norse`s Football Hooligan tourney ).

now most flamers i know, like DM,Norse,RK and even BK Barunt do not swear or use abusive,rascist or homophobic language in the Club House, because they know that FW is the place to do that sort of thing. so please all you non-flamers that are against FW, i will say again. if you don`t like it don`t go there and you will not be offended. it`s as simple as that.

[Dancing Mustard]

The problem with your idea to ignore is that here in the forum you can't actually do that.

Yes you can, it's called not going to FW unless you want to participate in what you know goes on there.

You can choose not to play a certain player. You can choose to ignore their chat (in-game). However, you still see the swear words typed in PMs or posted in a forum.

Only if you actually choose to go to the place you know swearing is happening.

This is a lot like complaining that you keep getting wet whenever you go swimming. Please try to come up with a different argument, because the one you've repeated twice so far is utterly ridiculous.

The concept you're looking for is called 'voting with your feet', if you don't like FW, then don't go there... problem solved. That is the 'ignore' feature that you're searching for.

Swear words are not supposed to be used on the site.

O RLY??????
See now, I don't see anything prohibiting swearing, why don't you go read the forum guidelines and find me something that backs up your statement. Find me one rule there that prohibits swearing in any way.

What's that? You can't find any such provision? Of course you can't, that's because your proposition was a load of rubbish. You just made it up.

Indeed, there's evidence to suggest that swearing is intended to be allowed here, so long as you don't say 'f*ck'. See, it gets edited, that means lack doesn't want it used.

On the other hand there's no guidelines or filters here that stop me from calling you a cunt.... You're a cunt..... see..... cunt, cunt, cunt. Get it yet? Swearing here therefore appears to be perfectly acceptable, nothing says not to in the guidelines, and nothing prevents it in the filter... therefore we have to presume that it's allowed. Got any empirically demonstrable counter-arguments to that? No? Then I'm right and you're wrong, get used to it. It appears to be a recurring theme so far as your posts here are concerned.

Now Mr 'Aerial Attack' next time you try your hand at debating perhaps you should go find some 'evidence' to back up your opinions... I hear that helps. It's especially useful when you're trying to get something on the site deleted just because you arbitrarily think it would be nice.

[The1exile]

Indeed, there's evidence to suggest that swearing is intended to be allowed here, so long as you don't say 'f*ck'. See, it gets edited, that means lack doesn't want it used.

Quite aside from the entire post (which I wholeheartedly agree with; mad props to DM for being the voice of reason for the generally disregarded as intelligence deficient mob) I'm pretty sure some mod (maybe wicked?) once told me that lack didn't want that censored and rejected propositions to censor other words because of it.

Can't be bothered to search for such a generic statement though.

[wrestler1ump]

I voted to get rid of Flame Wars. There's too much disrespecting of good moderators going on there. Some of the stuff they say there is really slandering as well. Somone on there called me "a self confessed pedophile", when I said nothing of the sort. Obviously this imbecile did this to make it easier to diss me. It was a cheap shot from a cheap individual. That kind of thing I would like to see not happen anymore here, so let's get rid of the flame wars.

[Norse]

Meh...I couldn't beat out a flying spunk ball whether it goes or not.

No-ones going to stop me having my fun.

[The1exile]

There's too much disrespecting of good moderators going on there.

Such as yourself?

[jiminski]

I voted to get rid of Flame Wars. There's too much disrespecting of good moderators going on there. Some of the stuff they say there is really slandering as well. Somone on there called me "a self confessed pedophile", when I said nothing of the sort. Obviously this imbecile did this to make it easier to diss me. It was a cheap shot from a cheap individual. That kind of thing I would like to see not happen anymore here, so let's get rid of the flame wars.

I am not making any judgement on the language used W'ump but don't you go to FlameWars with the express purpose of getting people banned?

If you go into an area set aside for language which is taboo elsewhere and you report its members to mods... you are inviting outlandish banter.

[RobinJ]

Meh...I couldn't beat out a flying spunk ball whether it goes or not.

No-ones going to stop me having my fun.

My point exactly... I think it would be dangerous if people like Norse were forced to leave Flame Wars or the Clubhouse for too long, given what I've seen in some of his posts...