Poisoning the well of discourse
Oct. 30th, 2003 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaSomeone on rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe recently posted an article entitled "Why do so many people have a problem with Marvel?" In the first paragraph, in part, he says:
Not completely coincidentally, novelist and game designer Bruce Baugh addressed this subject on his weblog recently, in the context of a new product he was the lead designer on.
The game was a new version of the 1980 "classic" Gamma World. After a post about some positive feedback, he talks about the other side:
<http://homepage.mac.com/bbaugh/iblog/c720713518/e1363837581/index.html>
Bruce is a very smart cookie.
My immediate reaction was a censor's reaction: "This is what you get when you don't moderate forums." Then I realized that, while Usenet is unmoderated (for the most part; r.a.c.m.u is unmoderated), there are a lot of people volunteering to line up to kick, say, Windbag100's ass whenever he spews false nonsense about "the NuMarvel". I wonder why there aren't such people on the more moderated forums like Pyramid, RPG Net, and Sword & Sorcery. I suspect part of it is what Bruce correctly identifies as focus--most of the goblins (they're like trolls, but less dangerous) on r.a.c.m.u are attacking Marvel as a whole, which there are a lot of people willing to defend. If someone were to follow up every post about, say, Alias (one of Marvel's best titles) with a long screed about how god-awful it is, there'd be fewer people willing and able to defend it, and in the long run the goblins would be more likely to "win", which is to say, succeed in making reasonable discourse on the subject impossible.
There are other problems. It often takes more time and effort to counter the posts of a goblin or a troll than it takes the goblin or troll to write them. I know that I've been in Usenet arguments in which several rounds of untangling unstated assumptions, clarifications of positions, and other teeth-pulling are required to get the goblin properly situated for clear refutation. In a moderated forum, the moderators might not put up with the several rounds of back-and-forth which are vital to the complete unravelling of a spewer's spew. One would hope, though, that in a moderated forum. the moderator would take steps to curtail the goblinations. But maybe not.
All of this is just some chewing on the problems we all face as global reach completely reinvents the ideas of conversation. Talk amongst yourselves.
In the last month I've spent over $100 easily getting new issues and catching up on a few stories from the preceding months. . . . But in reading some of the posts here, it seems that many people are greatly disliking the Marvel stories currently being told. Why? I have my problems here and there but for the most part, I have been greatly entertained.
Not completely coincidentally, novelist and game designer Bruce Baugh addressed this subject on his weblog recently, in the context of a new product he was the lead designer on.
The game was a new version of the 1980 "classic" Gamma World. After a post about some positive feedback, he talks about the other side:
There are a handful of ranters right now, like Sidhain on Pyramid Online, Kevin Mowery there and on RPG Net, and Buzz on RPG Net and the Sword & Sorcery forum, who post and post and POST and POST. Let anyone express satisfaction, and they're in there to explain why that's all wrong; given the absence of new targets, they go into bonus rounds of congratulating each other, maligning me and/or White Wolf and/or Wizards of the Coast, and otherwise beating the conceptual meat. So the hostility is always there, and usually renewed at that, while any expression of pleasure is generally a one-shot sort of thing. There are some exceptions to this latter, but not enough.
Focus goes along with this. The happy customers aren't primarily interested in the net discussion: they're primarily interested in the game, reading and if possible playing it. For the folks who hate the game, on the other hand, the forum is what they've got.
<http://homepage.mac.com/bbaugh/iblog/c720713518/e1363837581/index.html>
Bruce is a very smart cookie.
My immediate reaction was a censor's reaction: "This is what you get when you don't moderate forums." Then I realized that, while Usenet is unmoderated (for the most part; r.a.c.m.u is unmoderated), there are a lot of people volunteering to line up to kick, say, Windbag100's ass whenever he spews false nonsense about "the NuMarvel". I wonder why there aren't such people on the more moderated forums like Pyramid, RPG Net, and Sword & Sorcery. I suspect part of it is what Bruce correctly identifies as focus--most of the goblins (they're like trolls, but less dangerous) on r.a.c.m.u are attacking Marvel as a whole, which there are a lot of people willing to defend. If someone were to follow up every post about, say, Alias (one of Marvel's best titles) with a long screed about how god-awful it is, there'd be fewer people willing and able to defend it, and in the long run the goblins would be more likely to "win", which is to say, succeed in making reasonable discourse on the subject impossible.
There are other problems. It often takes more time and effort to counter the posts of a goblin or a troll than it takes the goblin or troll to write them. I know that I've been in Usenet arguments in which several rounds of untangling unstated assumptions, clarifications of positions, and other teeth-pulling are required to get the goblin properly situated for clear refutation. In a moderated forum, the moderators might not put up with the several rounds of back-and-forth which are vital to the complete unravelling of a spewer's spew. One would hope, though, that in a moderated forum. the moderator would take steps to curtail the goblinations. But maybe not.
All of this is just some chewing on the problems we all face as global reach completely reinvents the ideas of conversation. Talk amongst yourselves.
