[Toups]

[Toups]

[slipstream]

To clarify, it's not you that I'm upset with, it's the people that say "it's Toup's site/forum/money/whatever so go someplace else if you don't like it"

Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate the money that you spend on the site, but it's also not some cross to bear. I know I would be willing to chip in for the upkeep of the site, anway.
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[Toups]

[SplashBeats]

you guys should go post on the tuckermax forums if you think toups is a dictator. i got banned from there for, uh, disagreeing with a moderator's political views on socialized health care (i'm all for it and that place is ran by raving libertarians of the I DON'T WANT ANY TAXES variety)

i mean, jesus, guys, he's permabanned one person. some dude posted pictures of another forum poster in her underwear and he only banned him for a week. things are not that oppressive here.



also, i would be the guy stealing the pizza in blackface. that would be sidesplitting.

[slipstream]

I have the occasional disagreement about the way Toups does some things, but nothing worth actually writing about. I like the way things are done here. a lot. It's just that when people pull out the love it or leave it argument for a site that costs 50 bucks a year, come on. The community could easily be supported by donations from members, so it's not like Toups is spending his food money for axe threads.

But, I like the way things are going. Better than insert credit, anyway.
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[SplashBeats]

some people just have a love it or leave it mentality to everything, though.

i don't see the point of spending time with something you hate. why do you think i stopped posting for a couple weeks?

different perspectives and all that.

i'm pretty sure that making fun of aderack's, uh, tastes, doesn't foster a friendly community either :D

[haircute]

[negativedge]

I think he was talking about aderack's sexual kinks

well, probably not

but that's more amusing

also, antitype pretty much got it right about James. Dude, see a fucking doctor, 'cause the forum axe ain't it.

[slipstream]

[Quick Shot II Turbo]

A good way to improve the standards of discourse would be to stop ignoring random inflammatory BS like this:

[haircute]

[Toups]

[slipstream]

sorry but saying this place isn't "serious" enough and is too "gamery" coming from someone that did post furry porn doesn't jive. Let's talk about monochrome gameboy games being lonely some more.
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[haircute]

[Toups]

[Quick Shot II Turbo]

[slipstream]

[Toups]

[slipstream]

[negativedge]

[rf]

It's strange to assume that "IC at its best" (Waugh's phrase) means "that the smug rambling that IC became notorious for" (slipstream's phrase).

[Intentionally Wrong]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go on record saying that it was the smug, pretentious rambling that got me interested in IC in the first place. I would absolutely prefer that to yet more "gamer" oriented discussion. I think there's probably room for both, though!

I'm sorry my tolerance for wacky hijinx is so low.

And I'm sure that people besides James have been destructive to the community, but he's the only one who ever really fucked up the threads I was interested in.
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[Quick Shot II Turbo]

[aderack]

I'm not sure if any porn is innately funny anymore. Damn you, Internet.

To note: I wasn't even talking about videogame discussion; just about a certain mindset that people get into when they can't put enough distance between themselves and the things that interest them to feel comfortable in questioning what it is that makes those things interesting.

We could be talking about guitars or French cinema. It'd be the same idea.

[slipstream]

placeholder post for my serious thoughts on insert credit and its place in select button
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[Intentionally Wrong]

I'm looking forward to it, slipstream. After reading dhex's report in the other thread, I've been eager to hear more about other peoples' perspective on this place.
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[stotelheim]

I don't think I mind the lack of whatever the golden age IC had, it might be why I came to the site, but it sure as hell isn't why I stuck around.

Intelligent people with interesting tastes talking about the things they love or the things they hate, or just hanging out. I think I'm here mostly for the latter, to be honest. I'm not sure I care all that much about videogames as a serious, artistic medium anymore. But good people? Oh yeah, I care me just the hell out of those dudes or dames.

I've made some good friends on this place, and I think I could make some more. So I hope it stays around, because I honestly can't think of any other place where I like as many people as I do here.

SB, you're a class act. Keep that shit happening, yeah?
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go away extralife

[DonMarco]

It's too early in the morning for this.

Bah.
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Still alive.

[rf]

Re: The "pretentious" issue. (After reading Dhex's paper, I realize I'm like the millionth person weighing in on this, so I apologize if this is tedious.)

One of the things that originally attracted me to IC was that the communal tone strikes a very good balance about art appreciation. People tend to go too far in either one direction or the other: either they're in a quasi-childlike phase where the things they like are awesome ^_^ for largely unexamined reasons and that cartoon about love and robots that they like to watch is totally great literature!!!1--or they've debunked that, but they're so wrapped up in that discovery that spend all their time trivializing people's interests, as if everyone should divide their time firmly between intense readings of the canon and purely unthinking fun, with no cross-pollution. (If you read that sentence straight through, uh, congratulations.) This divide is heightened on the internet, where there's lots of anonymity, so the latter group is (understandably) quick to assume people belong to the former, because so many people do in the first place.

The great thing about IC is that people are able to have that spell-breaking revelation, and still bring its insights along into a life that isn't so dogmatic about keeping your Seriousness from mixing with your Fun. If all the serious meditations on games-as-art were just from the childlike type--probably because they spend a lot of their time gaming, so hey, "gaming must be important"--they would indeed be "pretentious." On IC, people take up this attitude essentially because it's fun and because there's nothing wrong it, within limits. But they still realize the problems it'd have without limits. Ironically, this is a more mature and intellectually sensible way to act than the "maturity police" tend to, with their dismal reminders that THIS IS GAMING/THE INTERNET (and therefore it must be boring, apparently).

Essentially, I did come to IC for the "pretentiousness" here. But that's because I can get it here when it's a conscious decision, knowing its nakedness like Adam and Eve, which makes its supposed "pretentious" character a lot less important.
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[DJ]

And here I just found IC because I like videogames. :(

Also, SB is IC under a new name and an owner who actively participates. Book closed. No giant metamorphosis occurred from one end to the other except that the people who wanted out used the void in between the two to escape without feeling guilty. Community's almost exactly the same, far as I can tell.
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[Takashi]

Erm... One thing that bothers me about SB, is that it feels like a bubble born out of the IC forums, frozen in the particular space-time leading it it's demise. There's no momentum to advance or achive anything, just in keeping things as they were. What is fine, I suppose, but doesn't make visiting it as inspiring as it was visiting the "old" IC before.

At the same time, IC had served it's purpose way before it's fallacy, so saying I'd want it to return to the the way it was is useless. What I mean is... a forum works much better if it has a vision or purpose other than being a hang-out spot, and SB lacks that.
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[Predator Goose]

This thread (stotelheim aside) makes me feel like I belong on a different forum.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[boojiboy7]

You know what is wrong with SB? Dracko.

Read the movie thread. All he posts are insults and one paragraph reactions to movies he has seen.

[diplo]

can we please be a bit more negative

perhaps i wasn't at IC long enough to tell the difference between it and here, besides (again) guardian's threads.

people i am not fond of are ignored. toups' moderation is incredibly lax. the lack of warning bans, at the least, is surprising, though, at the same time, it's not an issue for me.

honestly, these considerations don't enter my head unless such a thread arises, and even then it's difficult to complain. SB is really my "internet home," unhealthy as that sounds - yet, i think it's validated by the wealth of great people.

[Toups]

[aderack]

[another god]

When SB was first made there was a hope I had that the forums would become a place where really great, intelligent discussions would arise among the more casual discussions. It didn't really happen that way, and yeah, for the most part this is the IC forums. Well, the IC forums with a tinge of fear. It's like the forum is a foster child who was kicked out of one home for misbehavior and is trying really hard to be good.

I don't know what you want. I think you're doing a great job, and these forums are doing better than IC was for a while. And I don't think it's a bad thing to stay the same course. I would still visit the forums. I just might be an optimist and still think these forums could do more good other than be the same as they were. Maybe if we added new forums? I liked the idea of an Online Multi Player/Meetup/Gametrade Forum. We have a good community, and a focus on community would be good. I also had an idea for a really tightly moderated forum to encourage front page material. Sort of like a super ego to the Axe's id and KoP's ego*.

*Did I just rape some Freud?
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interdimensional

[rf]

Maybe there could be some kind of stronger interplay between the forums and "official" site content? I dunno, I'm being vague here, but some (semi-)formal way in which interesting threads or posts can get turned into articles if there's interest. This sounds like could create more bitchiness, of course ("SB won't 'officiate' my ideas because they don't fit in," or whatever), but it could also inspire people to posit more ideas rather than just standing back and criticizing. And counter the "this is the internet, who cares?" attitude through some vague ethos of creating a respectable face for the outside world to see.

Just an idea. The devil would be in the details, and for all I know this has been tried to disasterous effect or something.
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[Tokyo Rude]

Oh hey, the forum ate my post. I can't remember what I said. Let's say I'd like the error pages to stop. I would also like it if we could stop kicking sandcastles? There's big difference between popping into a thread filled with people having fun with say Halo 3, and saying "Man I fucking hate Halo!" And saying, I've been playing the demo and have issues with X, Y, and Z. Or saying I've always found Halo boring, and this didn't change the formula enough for me to to think otherwise.

I mean I hate Halo is boring (I like that bad structure of words), but I'm not going to jump in every thread about Halo to proclaim it. Hell I might start a different thread a week later! (In this case I'd just link to the IC archives thread.)

But those off the cuff impressions are OK in say the Starcraft thread where we are all on a completely level field just throwing out what we think.

I also echo Takashi's sentiment that we've been around for six months, now let's start thinking about what we can do with a forum run site. The weekly column things are a good idea! Maybe we should put someone (JohnMc?) in charge of doing a weekly game club.

I'm curious why Brandon still doesn't link us though.

[slipstream]