While I appreciate that you all know what makes a great forum (and I do take the comments to heart), I also think you may have missed the mark if you think a forum is here merely for your entertainment of slamming other people, and putting them down, making them feel worthless, to the point they no longer come to the forums (thus removing what you call fun in the end, as it's just a couple of trolls clubbing each other over the head). While this does occur in the majority of forums due to the nature of people to let their mouths run wild while hiding behind a computer, it isn't the only way for a forum to be entertaining, and in general not the best received way.
Once upon a time (and you notice it more at the beginning of a world), forums were active with PnP. People actually slinging the agendas of their tribes / accounts on the forums, and trying to sway the opinions of the world, in hopes to survive another day/month/year, to help them win this war, or the next. (and yes a lot of dribble, but somewhere in the dribble was content..) There was a battle going on in the forums, simultaneously with the battles going on in the world, a way for people of the world to connect to one another, or to distance themselves as the case sometimes is. As worlds grow older, and personalities start to disappear, you find that forums tend to degrade into a more slanderous type of flaming, which runs the rest of the people off as they no longer find interesting content to view.
It’s kind of funny that you argue the forums are all about trolling Dylan, because your one of those people who I feel does show a decent amount of decorum/thought when posting, using stats/literacy to back up your arguments, and help win your side of a debate. And while you do bend the line on occasion, I rarely see you jumping over it face first, nor would I call what you do blatant trolling (though it is sometimes the underlying tone of your posts) You are someone who fosters a lot of debate on the forums (good and bad), it’s those types of personalities that keeps things entertaining here, people wanting to know what you’re going to say next, and thus keep coming back for more. While you may do some mudslinging it’s generally done within the context of the game in mind, or with an end goal in sight, not just out of a general dislike of someone else. In fact, I agree whole heartedly with this statement, it sums up what I’m trying to say in more ways than one, as this is politics in a nutshell:
The forums are used as platforms for braggarts, trolls, liars and manipulators to indoctrinate the public into buying into lies about their tribe or other tribes or just for their own sadistic entertainment
I have no issue with people coming to the forums, to slam a tribe, a person, for their in game strategies, to manipulate, lie to get what they need out of the world, to debate a topic to death until the other side gives up even when they are wrong, or to out a person for being caught lying, backstabbing another… it’s all politics, and part of the game, and the forums. . But when the conversation turns from world related topics, to personal trash talking, insulting, and general dribble, that’s when I take issue. My point wasn’t to make people bff’s here, I have no right in telling anyone who they can/cannot be friends/enemies with, nor would I want to. I am merely stating that IF the personal insults/flaming continue in a way that does not relate to game play, or this world at all, then players will begin to receive infractions, and see their privilege to post removed.
tl;dr: Think before you post......
