[Tokyo Rude]

Should we start using post-modernism again? Even though after studying it I believe it to be a completely bullshit philosophic idea?

[aderack]

That's an interesting idea: putting the weekly game thing front and center, as a draw for the site.

As for hot air: yeah, that was mostly a later phenomenon. A forced attempt to find something intelligent to talk about, whereas earlier it just kind of spontaneously happened. Now that you mention it, I think the flimsiness and frequency of those discussions might explain a part of the backlash.

SB does feel a lot more welcoming to in-depth discussion than it used to. I'm probably still reverberating with some of the earlier tension. For a while I wasn't sure if I would even make an account here. After I did, it took a few months for me to really post anything.

[smartblue]

I'll bring the idea up to John to get him talking here. If he gets involved in this idea well I certainly would be easy to attach anywhere in the process what with me living the man. I think we may know more of what could and would be in store if we did this in just a few more days.
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[Felix]

i just want to point out that even ging has been a totally worthwhile poster lately, so long as he stays far far away from the axe.

[Ebrey]

I don't see why people think of IC as NOT being about individual game discussions. Most people were drawn to the site by either Tim's NGJ writings about Super Mario Bros 3 or Metal Gear Solid 2, or Eric-Jon's reviews of the Phantasy Stars and King of Fighters. Individual games. The Troops's review of Half-Life 2 was more "classic IC" than anything from the last couple years of IC.

[stotelheim]

[SplashBeats]

aderack, those kinds of discussions would come if people actually started them and fostered their development. i mean, guardian tried this, but all of his threads were pointlessly self-indulgent "game ideas" that didn't make sense to anyone but him.

there's a difference between pretension and intelligent discussion. guardian threads fall under the first, and a bulk of the old IC stuff falls under the second. i think some people are afraid to post left-of-center, oddball threads and opinions, as well as discussing games as ideas and concepts instead of things because we're so fast to shout down things as pretentious. unfortunately, there's no way you can really change this with administration, as it greatly lowers the freedom of discussion and will probably turn a lot of people off. it's just something the community is going to have to stop doing on it's own. it might, maybe! probably not, though.

also, slipstream, if you don't see something wrong with harassing someone for their legal, healthy, consensual, non-harmful sexual tastes, then you should probably re-evaluate your views on those sorts of things. there's a difference between "furries are weird lol" and "your opinion is invalid because you are a furry." it's pretty much pure bigotry and a man who fancies himself as a progressive thinker shouldn't have any room for it in his worldview.

i mean, rya being a pedophile causes net harm to society and the people around him, where aderack liking drawings of tails might enrage some somethingawful goons but won't ruin anyone's life.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

at first I thought this thread was "how are you doing" and I thought "that's nice, people talking about their lives and perhaps being honest and open".

then I opened the thread!

oops!

I don't know what else I'm going to say yet. I'm going to wait until I'm a little more positive, so I can hopefully read through this thread - and eventually form some thoughtful replies - without wincing, flinching or groaning every five posts.

(this is me being a quiet jerk)
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[slipstream]

[chompers po pable]

i find aderacks posts interesting, whether they're funny or thoughtful. i think that it would be nice if you were funny or thoughtful at times slipstream :)

[Toups]

[BenoitRen]

I voted "good on its good days". It's nice that the message board seems to have calmed down in recent weeks. We have some insightful discussions from time to time, but I'd like to see more of them. It's those kind of discussions that I enjoyed the most. I also enjoyed Guardian's threads, to be honest.
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Get Xenoblade Chronicles!

[taidan]

I'll admit I feel the same way I did back in IC - I read everyday. I post every week or month, because I still feel like a lot of the folks here will completely outclass me in gaming knowledge or just in simple debate.

so yes, I guess its the same ol' for me.

[kf]

Everything is going just [winkeroption.] So! Hi tim.

[shrugtheironteacup]

I wasn't really involved at all at IC, and around here I mostly stick to general/the axe because my television is broken and my computer is old and I just don't feel like I have much to say about games that's particularly insightful. Still, I read damn near everything and try to chime in when I can.

I don't demand much from an Internet Community, so this being a pleasant place to hang out in the off hours filled with reasonably interesting people is plenty for me. More in depth Game Content would indeed be interesting, and possibly inspire me to actually talk about video games more often, but I take no offense to the current status quo.

...

So overall thumbs up would browse again.

Right.
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[Mr Mustache]

I think game clubs for older, under appreciated/unique games is a good idea, they always seemed like the best part of insertcredit.

For whatever reason, a large number of posters on this site end up being indistinguishable. Not really much one can do about this, but it bothers me. A glut of long, uninspired, overly defensive posts about nothing quickly turn a thread into an impenetrable bore.
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The people are like wool to me

[negativedge]

[quote="Mister Toups"]

[SplashBeats]

almost banned him? i was an axemod, dude, he didn't even post in the axe. i had about as much effect on guardian than i do on the axe right now (none)

i really didn't have a problem with people trolling his threads though. they didn't facilitate discussion so much as they were pure ego masturbation.

[Predator Goose]

[Ebrey]

[parkbench]

I had always wanted to delve into a deeper gaming community like this, but never had the wherewithal to do so with IC. Plus, it just seemed like a mess. SB was a nice fresh start where I could establish myself, and it's the only forum I go to now (unless you count quasi-forums like ask metafilter and very rarely now tgq), so that's saying something. I do come back pretty much every day.

[Renfrew]

I enjoyed reading Gaurdian's posts, and I always felt sorry for the guy when everybody shouted him down.

SB restored my faith in forums. When I was younger, I posted a lot on the KQIX forums, but eventually my experiences there lead me to believe that forums were just juvenile cesspools of masturbation ( I have nothing against masturbation, just internet masturbation). I gave up on contributing to forums but I still lurked in different places from time to time. Tim's MGS2 article brought me to Insert Credit, and I made an account, but never contributed much. Its probably because I did not know (and to a lesser extent now) how to properly contribute to a forum. Contributing still makes me nervous, but after the move to SB, I decided to try harder.

Lately, I haven't been in much of a posting mood. I have been reading a lot of threads and discussions, but I can hardly bring myself to really contribute. Like, the "death in video games" thread. I would like to add something, but all I can thing of right now is, "Yeah, I like Prince of Persia, too." I had to try pretty hard to bring myself to add to this thread.

Maybe in a week or two I'll be in more of an intelligently contributing mood.

[Toups]

[slipstream]

was it here or another place his custom title was 'not breast fed'
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[Toups]

[sawtooth]

[internisus]

Alright, look. I've tried to refrain from posting GUARDIAN THREADS because of how they usually turn out, which, yes, I recognize as being due to my general failings as a writer. I also realize that I'm self-conscious about this and tend to react poorly to resulting banter and become too defensive. Also humor doesn't always register. Also I am really really cool and sometimes that gets in the way too.

Anyway, I think things have been pretty good here, though I find myself only interested in 4 or 5 threads outside of Force Feedback at any given time. I'd like to see more of the general/abstract/theoretical/GUARDIAN topics, of course, but it is also true that expecting to find such discussions popping up frequently, even with so many great minds bubbling in one place, is unrealistic and perhaps a little foolhardy when the site/community overall has no overt purpose or mission.

A long time ago, I raised a stink about how all of these interesting ideas came out of insert credit, but they inevitably sank into oblivion over time. Some kernels here and there may have been picked up by individuals for their own, private examination, but what I wanted was to see some effort at organizing the results of the group. Would a collected book of insert credit theories and observations carefully edited and organized and presented as something greater than the sum of its parts have been so hard to believe in or to push towards? Isn't that somewhat how TGQ works? Isn't that something that communities have done before? It's not far from SB's current model of turning successful threads into rough blog posts; truly worthwhile threads can be taken one step further and cleaned up from a group discussion into something more singly voiced.

But it seems to me that, regardless of the eventual outcome or format, a collective understanding that we're actually working towards something just by talking to each other like we have been would create a lasting boom in discussion. Without that kind of communal inspiration, most of what we'll see is pretty mundane game conversation. That's fine, but it's not what I want, and I seem to have company in this.

Well. That's that. Since GUARDIAN THREADS are remembered so fondly, I'll try to contribute more frequently once again. I'd like to say "I'll try to do a better job than I used to" or "I'll try not to be a whiny shit again" but I'm not sure how realistic that would be.

Also, Toups, sorry about that time with the robust emo. Reading your reasons for banning James has given me some appreciation for the difficult pragmatic and moral decisions involved in moderating a diverse community's behavior.

Final note: Whatever we've got and not got, guys, remember that this is still amazingly great. Thanks for being this forum.

[gooktime]

As an infrequent/probably awful poster who only really saw much of IC in its final year, I really enjoy SB and visit most days.

While there is sometimes a little elitism it's really kinda reigned in these days, I mean it isn't like Something Awful where every post is an attempt at one-upmanship or belittling other posters.

A forum for matchmaking and big multiplayer events like the Halo 3 beta would be a good addition.

[Ebrey]

[Hot Stott Bot]

[winkerwatson]

[Corinth]

[Intentionally Wrong]

[negativedge]

[Predator Goose]

[boojiboy7]

yes, my idea is growing. gaining power. soon, it will rise to dominate the WORLD!!!

[wpham]

I'm new here and I like the place so far.
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last.fm

[smartblue]

[SplashBeats]

there are a lot of fuckin words in this thread

[gooktime]

Sure, it is a possibility it might flop and go underused, but we could totally try!

I think GAF users are probably too busy looking at sales figures and what not, in honesty.

[Koji]

Why not put Game Club threads in the front page? Of course, they should be laid out a little differently. Might be interesting.