hating someone is the same as loving someone in the eyes of the internet. a post is a post and a click is a click. trolls help this site generate traffic through baiting you people with outrage. take the power away from the trolls and ignore them.
Let's face it, before the Islam discussion boils over into this thread: The only reason this discussion is spilling into this thread is that New Yorker got frustrated because he kept getting schooled so he went to this thread to cry to mommy. But let's keep those discussions to the relevant threads.
Why are you shocked someone could be anti-Muslim? I put myself in that group. As an ethos, it has little to recommend itself. But if you cloak your ethos in stories and mysticism, and it's practiced by a brown minority, criticism of it becomes "bigoted".
No. No. No. None of those things are in any way anti-Muslim. Got it? Stop making up these straw man arguments. No one here is saying that is anti-muslim.
I don't think many of you even understand what bigoted means. Bigoted doesn't mean you can't criticize. I am very critical of Sharia law and the way women are treated for instance in Islamic cultures. Bigoted means you have something against Muslims for being Muslims. HUGE Difference. Why can't you see that difference?
Can you keep the Muslim discussion in the Islam threads? (And, in fact, you are the one who cannot see the difference.)
I don't think any poster here is against criticizing poor treatment of females, killing the unfaithful etc. I absolutely will criticize those things in any culture.
They know that... But it's the only way they can try to deflect the argument from their shabby logic and turn the attack on others. When that fails, the personal attacks follow.
Nihilists! **** me. I mean, say what you want about the tenants of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
Merry Festivus to the D&D from Rand Paul. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>For some reason your government spent your money to learn poop throwing chimps are better communicators. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AiringOfGrievances?src=hash">#AiringOfGrievances</a></p>— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRandPaul/status/547446585404448768">December 23, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It's been a really slow work week and the other day I went back and reread a thread from 2007 and it's shocking how much the level of actual discussion has declined. It was the Joe Horn shooting thread which had a lot of hot button issues of race, gun control, death penalty, with even some Biblical discussion thrown in. It looked like an NPR roundtable compared to what passes for Debate and Discussion these days.
If the forum was properly moderated we could easily have that level of discussion here again -- a few members seem to enjoy ruining threads and do a good job of it.
That may be true, but the level of moderation needed for that would be a full time job. The trolls who ruin the threads are pretty persistent, and once a thread goes off the rails the momentum of idiocy and trash snowballs. I miss the old days of discussion here. But it is what it is.
Know who you can have a conversation with, and know who you can't. Ignore the latter, there's just no upside trying to talk to some people.
It really wouldn't be that hard IMO. When the same repeated trolls strike, they should be banned from the forum for 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 6 months, permanently. Escalating punishment. That would eliminate the problem very quickly. Is it a matter of time or is it the philosophy here to just let things roll regardless of how bad it gets? I believe it is the latter. There is a case to be made for both views.
Thanks! I just read it again. You're right. We rarely see threads of that quality any longer in D&D. Several of the members in it no longer post down here, or almost never do. The thread didn't even catch my attention when it was started, because having lived in Austin for over 25 years at the time had me unaware of the "Quannell" character (however his named is spelled), who figured into the discussion at first. Why he did, I still haven't a clue. And Joe Horn? State Senator Wentworth, who authored the "Castle" bill used in Horn's "defense," said himself that Horn's actions were not the intent of the bill. I quoted Sen. Wentworth saying that on Austin TV and it was ignored. Horn murdered two thieves who broke into an empty neighbor's house. A few in the thread said over and over again that it was a "home invasion," and it was not. A "home invasion" occurs when someone is at home. No one was, which the unconvicted murderer, Joe Horn, knew at the time. But I digress. What's important to this thread is that we had a 30 page thread with very good discussion in it by a host of members, and we simply don't see those in D&D any longer. That's a damned shame.
