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why I quit posting in the boiler room...


lamuella

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I'm sure none of you care about this. I'm certainly not asking you to care about this. If you don't, feel free to stop reading any time you like, and have a full and productive life unburdened by the need to tell me you don't care why I quit posting in the boiler room.

OK, here's the broadest reason: I don't really care about this game any more. More than that, I don't really care about this community any more. I'm sure a lot of you are fine people, but this is a game not quite boring enough to quit and not quite interesting enough to play properly. There was a point (before GOONS came back) where the only reason I kept a nation was to keep posting in the boiler room. Now, I think I keep playing so I can hang out on IRC with people.

Which brings me to the second point: the game community isn't a dynamic community. With the exception of invasion alliances, we aren't getting that many new people joining, and as a result we aren't getting that many new people on the forums.

Which means that the vast majority of people on the forums (and by extension in the boiler room) have been there forever. I've heard everyone's opinion on just about everything, and the community isn't going to change much. What's more, I'm not going to change anyone's mind. Not because I'm bad at debating (although I'm sure some of you think I am) but because beyond a certain level of cosmetic change, people's minds don't shift to dramatically new positions without huge amounts of effort.

I could post here on every subject, debate everything I disagree with, and it wouldn't change derwood's mind one iota.

I could talk to GVChamp for 6 months straight about the economy and we still wouldn't agree, not because one of us is stubbornly wrong but because our ideologies are different.

Detlev isn't going to get smarter, or more right about anything.

I noticed, in the spring and summer, that I was stopping really trying. I'd default to being snarky and sarcastic, posting for my own amusement rather than to actually and honestly debate a point, because I knew it would make no difference. When I noticed I was doing that, I walked away. I haven't posted in the boiler room since August, and I don't really intend to again.

I went back in there today, took a look at the titles of the threads, and hit the back button. If I'd stayed there and debated things, I'd have got angry and I'd have made people angry. I don't want to do that any more. So instead, I'm going to try posting places where there is a steadier flow of people, where I can communicate about ideas without it being de facto a fight, and where I don't automatically know what everyone's position is going to be on every issue before I even open the thread.

You don't need me in the boiler room. Just imagine what a sarcastic democratic socialist jerk would say about any given issue and that's pretty close to what I would probably have said.

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As someone who moderated/posted walls o' text on the current affairs section of a forum for two awful years: nothing good ever comes from arguing politics on the Internet. Well, the snark can be worthwhile, but the exchange-of-ideas thing not so much.

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I always found you to be a level headed reasonable poster who from time to time was able to pursuade me to adjust my libertarian point of view. Sadly, you often teetered on foolishness as most liberal minded people do. For instance, creating a blog post with cavaets:

"I don't really care about this game any more. More than that, I don't really care about this community any more."

yet your posting in the context of the game and its community, which is it sport?

You're a decent person, move on and let go you can do better then CN.

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New people post on the OWF all the time, they're just ignored by the "elite" of the political lot. And that's if they're lucky. More often than not they're shouted down for their naivete. Hardly a welcoming atmosphere.

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They don't get shouted down for their naivete. That's why they leave. No, they receive rough treatment on the OWF because their uninformed opinions (most of which can't really be held against them) wind up making their input seem ridiculous to long-time players.

That's all.

The BR will be a poorer place without you, Lam, I always enjoyed reading your posts.

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As someone who moderated/posted walls o' text on the current affairs section of a forum for two awful years: nothing good ever comes from arguing politics on the Internet. Well, the snark can be worthwhile, but the exchange-of-ideas thing not so much.

This man is unbelievably correct.

(Unless it's exchange of ideas between me and Schad. :awesome: )

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