OK. A need for some clarity here then. It is important in a list such as
this that you read all the mails in a sensitive thread if you're going to
treat people fairly when entering the debate yourself.
If the list is to be moderated, it's important that the moderator also,
considers the whole thread very carefully, especially if he is going to
adjudicate on an allegation of flaming. In this instance it seems that
only one person (he who alleged it) thought that there was a flame. The
word "flame" is an inflammatory (ho ho) one in e-mail groups, so in my
opinion Clint should have rejected it outright unless he agreed that's what
it was.
Flaming is generally defined as harshly, and over heavily demolishing, a
point of view that was put forward in good faith by an individual. So it's
an inaccurate usage in this case any way. You might want to allege that
what was said was "untrue", "libel" or "name calling" but it wasn't flaming
by any usual Internet definition.
Secondly, you need to make sure you are quoting the correct person when
responding. A couple of people have now referred to the use of the term
"crazed activist" giving the impression that it was I who first used
it. It was not. I quite carefully put it in quotation marks, as I was
responding to a post, and referring back to the earlier post which that
writer was answering, in which the term was first used.
The original assertion was that there is a crazed activist on the board who
is deliberately wrecking a game in order to make a point. By quoting the
alias which someone dubbed him, I am not necessarily supporting the
original allegation in full.
_My_ assertion was that that person would like others to believe, that
games with Neutrals problems were failing because of the Player Rating
System. I stand by my assertion.
Neither the first writer's assertion, nor mine are flames. They are
serious concerns, made by people who care about the game, regarding in the
first case, perceived ungentlemanly play, and in the second, a sustained
campaign to undermine the PRS which was brought about by majority assent,
and a lot of hard work, and which almost everyone agreed, would need a long
time to evaluate.
Clint needs to be careful not to simply issue the "Cool it Guys, somebody's
upset" response when what has happened is one person has complained
direct - it's the allegation that there was a flame which was the false
one. The reason that he needs to be careful, is that there appear to be a
number of casual readers of the list, who read everything the GM writes,
but perhaps only skim the posts of others. The impression given therefore,
when the GM warns people to "cool it" under a subject line of "Flaming?" is
that flaming is taking place, and the list is a big scary place. The
newbies and "tender hearts" (look there's quote marks again - it's not my
phrase originally!) will flee, and a serious discussion on an important
issue risks being quashed.
mefacesmo.gif
Laurence G.Tilley
http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
···
At 15:10 13/05/2004, dilipdavid@aol.com wrote:
I know I missed the original emails, so I'm curious if there was any
identifier as to who the "crazed activist" is supposed to be?
What do I base that on - just general experience of running games for years now.