Oculus Decree

[Letum]

 
meh- this war will take as long as Oculus feels this war needs to take. Like I stated in my post, there is nothing MI6 could have done to prevent this war and there is nothing we can do to end it any sooner than Oculus wants to end it. MI6 will fight til the bitter end and we will rebuild after. What Oculus does after, is entirely up to Oculus.

Given the degree to which your current predicament stems from frustration and dislike of what one might call the unique Mi6 "persona", one might argue that efforts to change it would have helped/will help on both counts.

[Shurukian]

Given the degree to which your current predicament stems from frustration and dislike of what one might call the unique Mi6 "persona", one might argue that efforts to change it would have helped/will help on both counts.

 

You're missing the part where I have spent the last 8 months doing exactly that, with some of the most intense efforts being in our embassy on your forums.

 

MI6 making an effort that wasn't accepted or wasn't 'repentative' enough is not the same as putting in no effort at all. For those of us that did try to step above MI6's reputation and begin the uphill battle, we understood the challenges that we were facing, and that many alliances wouldn't be receptive. But to characterize it as no effort at all is simply false.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Shurukian

[Devilyn Caster]

Given the degree to which your current predicament stems from frustration and dislike of what one might call the unique Mi6 "persona", one might argue that efforts to change it would have helped/will help on both counts.

 

From where I'm sitting, this unique "persona" has been on the decline for the past two years. We did learn that it could hurt us, and tried to play nice - for about an entire year now. It was you who made it about us, not the other way around. You polled the room around a year ago, set your sights on a common target with no substantial ties, and there was NOTHING anyone could do to have stopped it. So please, keep speaking down to us about how our "attitude" and "lack of change" directed this. We are convenient. That's it. The question is, when this is over what's next? 

[Letum]

You're missing the part where I have spent the last 8 months doing exactly that, with some of the most intense efforts being in our embassy on your forums.
 
MI6 making an effort that wasn't accepted or wasn't 'repentative' enough is not the same as putting in no effort at all. For those of us that did try to step above MI6's reputation and begin the uphill battle, we understood the challenges that we were facing, and that many alliances wouldn't be receptive. But to characterize it as no effort at all is simply false.

I fully aknowledge diplomatic overtures, but that isn't really the same as changing your persona - and your efforts are undermined by one only having to visit this forum to get a daily dose of hostility, petty spin and argumentativeness.

Speaking for myself I really didn't care about Mi6 one way or another until far more recently than most members of Oculus; in the end really what has made me happy to go along with this is not any feeling of anger, hatred or grudge towards your alliance - but a sheer exasperation and exhaustion at the amount of bull coming through.

And really, I'd have been one of the easiest people to win over.

But as I said before the war: my IRC chat is always open for honest advice and discussion.


  

From where I'm sitting, this unique "persona" has been on the decline for the past two years. We did learn that it could hurt us, and tried to play nice - for about an entire year now. It was you who made it about us, not the other way around. You polled the room around a year ago, set your sights on a common target with no substantial ties, and there was NOTHING anyone could do to have stopped it. So please, keep speaking down to us about how our "attitude" and "lack of change" directed this. We are convenient. That's it. The question is, when this is over what's next?

I've seen it get worse frankly. You weren't even particularly bad two years ago, and a year ago if there was a room being polled, Pacifica wasn't in it.

If I might add, one particular aspect I have noted is a high degree of self-assurance combined with a slew of accusations of variable quality regarding anything that might contrast with that self-assurance. Which, if you believe what you are saying might feel like "telling it like it is" and not something at issue, but to those that disagree with you it would appear to substitute repetitive loudness for debate - which is a mental strain.

[Rebirth]

I fully aknowledge diplomatic overtures, but that isn't really the same as changing your persona - and your efforts are undermined by one only having to visit this forum to get a daily dose of hostility, petty spin and argumentativeness.

I'm sorry our different personality and high self-assurance exasperates you so. I hope this isn't how you conduct business within your alliance, I imagine everyone having the same personality low self-esteen can get rather tiresome.

 

I offer this advice, being accepting of different opinions is healthy and beneficial. It can help you grow as a person and as an alliance. I offer no accusations of wrong doing, but instead suggest that "rolling" things that annoy you can be construed as a character flaw, just as loudness and repetition can. Maybe both sides have some faults here.

 

I'm also glad that you were one of our proponents for longer than most, but I also find your logic flawed. If you were exasperated at our "bull" before the war, our OWF presence is a lot stronger now so "rolling" likely had the opposite intended effect. I'll look you up on IRC and we can chat further.

[Auctor]

If yall are fine with the results you're getting, your methods are just perfect. If you aren't, what yall've been doing hasn't been effective.

[Vladimir Poutine]

I fully aknowledge diplomatic overtures, but that isn't really the same as changing your persona - and your efforts are undermined by one only having to visit this forum to get a daily dose of hostility, petty spin and argumentativeness.

Speaking for myself I really didn't care about Mi6 one way or another until far more recently than most members of Oculus; in the end really what has made me happy to go along with this is not any feeling of anger, hatred or grudge towards your alliance - but a sheer exasperation and exhaustion at the amount of bull coming through.

And really, I'd have been one of the easiest people to win over.

But as I said before the war: my IRC chat is always open for honest advice and discussion.


  
I've seen it get worse frankly. You weren't even particularly bad two years ago, and a year ago if there was a room being polled, Pacifica wasn't in it.

If I might add, one particular aspect I have noted is a high degree of self-assurance combined with a slew of accusations of variable quality regarding anything that might contrast with that self-assurance. Which, if you believe what you are saying might feel like "telling it like it is" and not something at issue, but to those that disagree with you it would appear to substitute repetitive loudness for debate - which is a mental strain.

I've seen worse, but this is par for the course for Pacifica posting. Entirely lies and skewing of the truth, held up by the philosophy that the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. That's how it has always been and how it always will be. So keep it up.

[Shurukian]

I fully aknowledge diplomatic overtures, but that isn't really the same as changing your persona - and your efforts are undermined by one only having to visit this forum to get a daily dose of hostility, petty spin and argumentativeness.

Speaking for myself I really didn't care about Mi6 one way or another until far more recently than most members of Oculus; in the end really what has made me happy to go along with this is not any feeling of anger, hatred or grudge towards your alliance - but a sheer exasperation and exhaustion at the amount of bull coming through.

 

I will fully acknowledge that we have some of the more prolific and polarizing players in our alliance - however, they have had that designation far before they joined MI6, and MI6 did not create that persona in them. The persona of an alliance and the persona of a handful of active posters are two very different things. I haven't been around longer than the past 10 months (and MI6 didn't exist in my previous 'go' on Bob), so I can't comment on whether it's 'better' or 'worse'. What I can say is that over the past 8 months we've tightened control on our diplomatic posting and removed many of our players from the OWF. I find it hard to believe that we've somehow become objectively worse during that period - and if we did, we clearly were quite well behaved prior. In my trips around Bob, it seems that the actions or percieved slights that permeated dislike for us among some alliances are incidences that have been cited as occuring in a period of 1-2 years ago. This is not something new. It is, however, something we've been working to overcome.

 

I see your, and many other's, comments as instructing us not to change the persona of our alliance, but to change the persona of the members within our alliance. Long-time players like IYIth, mastabadey, (even though both are not currently members, they were for a while and are part of the 'argumentativeness' you are referencing), Doch, and a few others still within our doors are not about to retire to a rocking chair and begin a hug-fest on the OWF. Being loud, argumentative, and calling out the actions they see around them that they believe deserve criticism has always been who they are as a player, and I am not about to (nor am I able to, nor would I want to) change that. I refuse to negatively impact our community to satisfy the inclinations of those external with us. Our members love our word filter - because some others dislike a 'teapot' joke, we should remove that from our community? I can do everything in my power to represent us diplomatically, to guide players on how to interact and air their greivences, but I will not snuff out or muzzle personalities that are deemed bothersome. This is an issue for us specifically because of the reputation of our members and their activity level.

 

But as I said before the war: my IRC chat is always open for honest advice and discussion.

As is mine. I enjoy making new friends, and am very frequently bored on IRC - feel free to start a chat if you're inclined.

[Xantha]

I've seen worse, but this is par for the course for Pacifica posting. Entirely lies and skewing of the truth, held up by the philosophy that the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. That's how it has always been and how it always will be. So keep it up.

I think the above is probably a good example of what Letum is talking about LOL

[Canik]

What I can say is that over the past 8 months we've tightened control on our diplomatic posting and removed many of our players from the OWF.

-snip-

...but I will not snuff out or muzzle personalities that are deemed bothersome.

I muzzled people, see we tried. btw I refuse to muzzle people, would never do that.

?
 

[Neo Uruk]

Shuru has showed a large amount of effort, and nobody can place the blame of MI6 being so godawful at her feet.

[Shurukian]

I muzzled people, see we tried. btw I refuse to muzzle people, would never do that.

?
 

 

Yes, I've asked people not to post and most have been gracious enough to comply. That's not the same as muzzling, which I have never done. In my book, It's a testiment of mutual respect to ask something of your members and have them voluntarily comply. I believe in individual investment in a set-out plan. Direct bans do not benefit anyone.

[Gibsonator21]

If yall are fine with the results you're getting, your methods are just perfect. If you aren't, what yall've been doing hasn't been effective.

Whether it's the popular thing to do or not, we're not going to change our personality or principles to appease you. If that's your endgame you've got another thing coming.

[Auctor]

Whether it's the popular thing to do or not, we're not going to change our personality or principles to appease you. If that's your endgame you've got another thing coming.

Isn't that precious.

[KahlanRahl]

I don't know why you bother, Oculus. You're just rehashing old news, things we've owned up to many times over. 

 

It's amazing how much spin you feel you need to put on the bullshit and lies you propagate to greater Bob. We're nearing three years old, and the vast majority of her citizens have probably formed a fairly solid opinion of us, yourself included. It's pretty clear nothing we could do will make you see that we're not the boogie man, because that's clearly not your aim. You're too afraid of each other, and in a moment of desperation you've banded together against a common cause, Her Majesty's Secret Service, to prolong the day when you realize, in this grand game of king of the hill, only one of you can win. So gather your lapdogs, Oculus, and by all means, delay, delay, delay. 

 

But hear me well, and remember this: While you're hugging your stats and eyeing each other warily, we're only here for one thing, to have fun as a community. We'll be watching when you finally implode. And we'll be laughing. 

[Canik]

 

Yes, I've asked people not to post and most have been gracious enough to comply. That's not the same as muzzling, which I have never done. In my book, It's a testiment of mutual respect to ask something of your members and have them voluntarily comply. I believe in individual investment in a set-out plan. Direct bans do not benefit anyone.

Eh, it's not the same as forceful muzzling. I'll give you that much. The way you originally said it, it didn't sound so voluntary. Thanks for the clarification.

[Neo Uruk]

I don't know why you bother, Oculus. You're just rehashing old news, things we've owned up to many times over.

Gonna stop reading right here and just point out that "yeah, we did it I guess" and "Yeah, we were wrong and are now going to fix it" are two different things. Most people think the latter is closer to "owning" a mistake.

[Shurukian]

Eh, it's not the same as forceful muzzling. I'll give you that much. The way you originally said it, it didn't sound so voluntary. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Thanks Big Ego. I enjoy the opportunity to clarify.

[KahlanRahl]

Gonna stop reading right here and just point out that "yeah, we did it I guess" and "Yeah, we were wrong and are now going to fix it" are two different things. Most people think the latter is closer to "owning" a mistake.

 

Just because you've chosen to drink the kool-aid, doesn't mean our efforts don't exist. I believe that's been addressed, and addressed recently, too. 

[Neo Uruk]

Just because you've chosen to drink the kool-aid, doesn't mean our efforts don't exist. I believe that's been addressed, and addressed recently, too.

I don't need to drink the kool-aid.. I've witnessed it first-hand in the NPO embassy and seen logs.

[Dochartaigh]

If Doch makes a good post and everyone's too biased against MI6 to care about the contents, does it really exist?

 

Doch does not make good posts, everyone knows that. 

 

Given the degree to which your current predicament stems from frustration and dislike of what one might call the unique Mi6 "persona", one might argue that efforts to change it would have helped/will help on both counts.

 

So in order to have gotten out of this rolling, MI6 was supposed to change everything about itself. What exactly were we supposed to change? I voluntarily muzzled over 90% of my posting on the OWF for almost 9-10 months as did many of MI6's more argumentative/combative posters and y'alls opinions apparently got worse about us. I did not see posts made in any alliance embassies not on MI6's but given what I have heard said to at least one of our players (nothing short of an OOC attack imo), you cannot say that combativeness is one-sided. Also, from what I have seen, NG (ya know, your allies for a long ass time as well as current Oculus members) have a far worse "persona" than MI6 and y'all ain't exactly tripping over one another to hit them. So, again, just because a year or two ago MI6 did not trip over itself to kiss Umb's/Aztec's/whoever elses feet is the main issue. Y'all can dress it up with variances grievances, most of which are legitimate, but many of them including the "personality" is bullshit given the likes of which you associate yourselves with. Arrogance, self-assuredness, combativeness, argumentative- all of these describe dozens of alliances including several within Oculus. The key is that we refused to be a lackey when we were younger, instead we wanted to be a king-maker. To that end, we have changed some. We still refuse to simply be a lackey but we no longer wish to be a king-maker either. We simply wish to find alliances we like and trust and be equal partners in the relationship. 

 

I fully aknowledge diplomatic overtures, but that isn't really the same as changing your persona - and your efforts are undermined by one only having to visit this forum to get a daily dose of hostility, petty spin and argumentativeness.

Speaking for myself I really didn't care about Mi6 one way or another until far more recently than most members of Oculus; in the end really what has made me happy to go along with this is not any feeling of anger, hatred or grudge towards your alliance - but a sheer exasperation and exhaustion at the amount of bull coming through.

And really, I'd have been one of the easiest people to win over.

But as I said before the war: my IRC chat is always open for honest advice and discussion.


  
I've seen it get worse frankly. You weren't even particularly bad two years ago, and a year ago if there was a room being polled, Pacifica wasn't in it.

If I might add, one particular aspect I have noted is a high degree of self-assurance combined with a slew of accusations of variable quality regarding anything that might contrast with that self-assurance. Which, if you believe what you are saying might feel like "telling it like it is" and not something at issue, but to those that disagree with you it would appear to substitute repetitive loudness for debate - which is a mental strain.

 

We are self-assured. We know our capabilities as an alliances, our drawbacks, our strengths, our weaknesses and despite what you think, we have been working on all of them as best we can. As for your last line- the same could easily be said about y'all. "If you believe what you are saying might feel like 'telling it like it is' but to those that disagree with you it would appear to substitute repetitive loudness for debate - which is a mental strain." Now go back and reread most of the party lines being said about MI6 and let's discuss repetitive loudness shall we?

[Auctor]

That yall think the problem is personality based is a hilarious deflection. The problem with yall is that no one sees your leadership as 1) acting substantively different than your membership, and 2) as wielding any positive authority over them. It's the wolfpacking the same inane post ad nauseum that looks really disorganized and sets people off of yall. It's the absolute inability to look at your own actions and see them as avoidable or correctable that is underwhelming.

No one is a victim here. We've seen alliances in a lot harder positions than yall are dig their way out over the years. All I'll add to this is that if the past few months of MI6 is what yall consider being dialed back, that kind of outlines the problem in and of itself.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Auctor

[Charles the Tyrant]

Clearly we should aspire to be more like Seppuku.

 

Only problem is that my spine prevents me from stooping that low.

[Dochartaigh]

That yall think the problem is personality based is a hilarious deflection. The problem with yall is that no one sees your leadership as 1) acting substantively different than your membership, and 2) as wielding any positive authority over them. It's the wolfpacking the same inane post ad nauseum that looks really disorganized and sets people off of yall. It's the absolute inability to look at your own actions and see them as avoidable or correctable that is underwhelming.

No one is a victim here. We've seen alliances in a lot harder positions than yall are dig their way out over the years. All I'll add to this is that if the past few months of MI6 is what yall consider being dialed back, that kind of outlines the problem in and of itself.

 

I was responding to Letum who specifically stated "persona" or personality. As for looking at our own actions and seeing what is avoidable or correctable- that would depend on whether it was past actions (which most of the ones that MI6 were guilty of, we have looked at and realized our error whether y'all seem to think so or not), or current ones (honestly other than our personality, I am not sure of a single current action we have committed outside of Sargun's thread on Sengoku spying on MI6 and the gov talks between Sengoku and MI6) which did our gov respond correctly- honestly not sure. I know there were gov talks held between MI6 and Sengoku, shit was said by both sides (not sure whether good or bad since I have only seen the logs where Petro discusses having seen multiple warchests as implied by his use of the plural "warchests" instead of having said that he spied but failed and saw nothing. So, whether Sengoku was responsible for every spy operation or that single one, they were at least privy to any information gained from those spy operations.

 

Did MI6 make Sengoku de facto responsible- yes. Was that a mistake- in hindsight yes. That is my opinion though. 

 

As for a victim, yes MI6 is a victim. We are a victim of internal delusions of grandeur from the get-go as much as we were victims of certain external plays by outside forces. Given that we let our delusions magnify those external plays, it allowed the outside forces to ultimately get what they wanted, a scapegoat. That was as much a fault of MI6's, for allowing ourselves to be used and played simply by allowing our own egos to ensure we did not see the proper paths to dig our way out, as it was for certain outside forces to block certain paths that we may have had an easier time with. 

 

Us dialing it back was for all intents and purposes, meant to stop the argumentative and combative nature of MI6 from rearing its ugly head. Did it stop it completely, no. Did it curb it some, yes. Maybe not to the degree wished by our gov but to some degree at least. You talk about us "wolfpacking some inane post" and state that it is a problem, but then state that dialing back is not even part of the solution. This is the issue that MI6 has come across in trying to "dig itself out". We get told that these X items are the problem. So we look at Item #1 and use solution A to try and fix the problem. We then get told that did not work. So we go back to what we were doing before we used solution A and get told that Item #1 is even worse now... So, solution A may not have worked the entire way but it obviously worked some and for the most part, we don't get recognition that at least solution A is not making Item #1 worse instead we get told that solution A did not work, try something else. 

 

The only 2 things that I, personally, can think of is that we expel certain members (at least apparently from holding gov positions) that caused the issues in the first place. Well, other than Chim and possibly Stagger, none of the rest are in MI6 anymore; the other one is to admit to every single thing y'all state we did wrong and basically admit that we were the sole alliance involved or some such. But this is very much like what MI6 did to Sengoku with the spying. We wanted Sengoku to admit to being responsible for every spy operation conducted since a gov member was caught spying and admitted to having seen multiple warchest information. Sengoku- reasonably said no, y'all wouldn't admit to that. Yet- take the war plotting on Aztec- MI6 has admitted to it. There are logs showing as much. Were we the only ones involved? Hell no. Yet, we don't see TOP/Sparta on the chopping block. 

[Auctor]

Let's put those logs in a bit of context. They were dropped after about a week of being harassed by multiple MI6 members over Petro relaying that an MI6 low gov't member had told him Umbrella couldn't be trusted to Umbrella, a Sengoku ally. MI6 wanted us to feel guilty about passing that information when it was 1) really not that consequential and 2) completely stupid to expect that we would not. That's the kind of chickenshit that really loses yall respect. It honestly wouldn't have costed yall a damn thing to have sucked it up and said yeah, ok, maybe that was something we shouldn't have said to an Umbrella ally if we didn't want Umbrella to hear it; instead, your membership chose to make it a full on troll war hoopla that ended up culminating in the exchange that resulted in D_T being asked repeatedly by MI6 members to realize those logs.

I honestly couldn't give a good goddam about MI6 members personalities. 80% of CN are the same kind of snide jerks yall are. The things yall choose to say and the things yall choose to make issues of are the reason no one drops issues they have with yall. Yall never give them a chance to.