Welcome to the deep end of the pool.

Quote from: Kiero;1085104Do we need a subforum for introductions from exiles?

It seems to come in waves. Maybe a single sticky thread would be appropriate?

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On topic: Welcome Chunkthulu! One of the concequences about free speech is that you may see threads and/or replies here that you may find very disagreeable. Due to the incessant culture war, there's a lot of contentious topics. As you say, you can just skip them.
Like you, I had my boiling point reached at rpg.net, and stopped regularly going to the site, and haven't logged in to the forum in years. It's sad and frustrating, with a dash of schadenfreude.

Quote from: SHARK;1085100Greetings!

Welcome to the forums here! I think you will find this place to be an island of sanity...

I don't know if I'd go that far.  I'd say it's more the case that the insanity on this island is usually a lot more fun rather than disturbing. YMMV.

It's not just that people can find redemption...

It's that the people on RPGnet are not the arbiters of *anything* to grant redemption or *anything* else. This is why engaging with them on their terms is pointless. Their terms are clearly laid out: they want all those that don't agree with or be subservient to them to be crushed.

Quote from: tenbones;1085132It's not just that people can find redemption...

It's that the people on RPGnet are not the arbiters of *anything* to grant redemption or *anything* else. This is why engaging with them on their terms is pointless. Their terms are clearly laid out: they want all those that don't agree with or be subservient to them to be crushed.

... and once again the Poobah hits on the D.O.N.G.

Quote from: tenbones;1085132It's not just that people can find redemption...

It's that the people on RPGnet are not the arbiters of *anything* to grant redemption or *anything* else. This is why engaging with them on their terms is pointless. Their terms are clearly laid out: they want all those that don't agree with or be subservient to them to be crushed.

Precisely.

According to the outraged shrieking, Webb having a chaperone from his own team is...

Proof that he's a harasser, but proof that FGG aren't taking things as seriously as they should
Useless to the point of being criminally incompetent, enabling, etc, etc, etc.
Out-fucking-rageous because who can trust a member of staff to keep him in line.

So who should it be? How do you gauge if he's repented?

They don't want the guy at conventions, yet they want him to demonstrate he's changed his behaviour. He shouldn't be allowed to roam around without a parent, yet the most sensible and efficient way of ensuring he's not alone is decried as outrageous. I mean, for fucking fuck's sake: who is going to devote a precious con resource to act as a chaperone? Who's gonna pay for a security guard to do it? The con? I seriously fucking doubt it. And even if they did, it would be a measure only fitting if he was a GoH - which he isn't allowed to be, because he's the fucking devil.

The outraged demands coming from the Purple Haired Stalinists are contradictory, impractical, and designed to make Webb fail before he's even started. The punishments they want to impose are out of all proportion to the 'crime', and they even feel they're justified in demanding them, because 'this isn't a court of law', and because ill-informed heresy and speculation by the righteous is actually more important than the truth.

Even if Bill Webb is guilty of some misdemeanour, the only way he can prove he's learned his lesson and won't do it again, is through allowing back into familiar territory with some sensible measures in place. It's what a fair and reasonable society does. But no, all the Purple Stalinist Bastards want is another fucking scalp.

Fuckers.

(*phew*. That felt good).

Welcome, and enjoy!

Edit: Side note, if anyone would like more entertainment or wants further reason never to return to TBP:

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/so-totalcon-sexism-and-safety-at-the-convention.842344/

A thread in which people are outraged at "only cishet old white men" have been invited as guests of honor, despite the fact they're just the returning GoH that have been around for years AND the organizer being a woman (who deliberately attempted to invite more women, which declined); she posts her thoughts as well.

Spoiler: it doesn't particularly work.

Quote from: BrokenCounsel;1085141The outraged demands coming from the Purple Haired Stalinists are contradictory, impractical, and designed to make Webb fail before he's even started. The punishments they want to impose are out of all proportion to the 'crime', and they even feel they're justified in demanding them, because 'this isn't a court of law', and because ill-informed heresy and speculation by the righteous is actually more important than the truth.

It's because what they really want is for him to bend the knee and grovel.

Welcome. Ya this topic was just too outrageous for me to ignore. It's a serious issue in the community at this point.

Quote from: shoplifter;1085144It's because what they really want is for him to bend the knee and grovel.

You know, I wish you were right. I wish that's all they really, truly, wanted. But they don't.

This isn't a quest for forgiveness over in Purple Haired Bastard Land; it isn't a quest to gain new converts. It's a pogrom. What the collective shit-mind of TBP actually wants is for Bill Webb to issue a statement that he's stepping down as CEO of Frog God Games, quitting the gaming industry, allowing his wife and kids to change their names so they don't have be tainted by his shame, donating every last cent has has to worthy, gender-fluid, anti-harassment causes, and going to live as hermit on a rock in the south Atlantic where he's guaranteed to die broken and alone by the time winter comes. And even that won't be enough for some of the Purple Haired Fuckers in the Puce Kremlin. They'll want pictures too, and eye-witnesses appointed by the Politically Correct Wing of the UN, report back that he died in writhing agony.

Basically, we're at fucking war.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1085142Welcome, and enjoy!

Edit: Side note, if anyone would like more entertainment or wants further reason never to return to TBP:

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/so-totalcon-sexism-and-safety-at-the-convention.842344/

A thread in which people are outraged at "only cishet old white men" have been invited as guests of honor, despite the fact they're just the returning GoH that have been around for years AND the organizer being a woman (who deliberately attempted to invite more women, which declined); she posts her thoughts as well.

Spoiler: it doesn't particularly work.

Greetings!

Indeed, my friend. I skimmed through a few pages. Geesus these people are such morons. They're pod-people, like Donald Sutherland in the movie, "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers." Totalcon is a small, regional convention that is having 25 guests of honour, all male--though one is Asian, and two are Black. But the whining, Happy Barney troglodytes are shrieking about, "Oh NO! There's no women, trans, or non-binary guests of honour!!" LOL. Whaa! Whaa! Whaa!

Who gives a fuck? Why is that so fucking important? I don't think it is important at all. If guest A is someone interesting and cool from the game industry, great. I don't care if they are male, female, white, yellow, black or purple. Offhand, I can't think of any women, trans, or non-fucking binary people from the "game industry" that I just desperately need to meet, or hear speak. None. I've gone all of these years, and never heard any trans or non-binary people speak about fuck all. Seldom only a few women. I don't need to, either. Is has zero fucking relevance to *my* gaming, my friends, and so on. There's nothing especially valuable or noteworthy about someone simply because they are a woman, trans, or fucking non-binary. For a convention to go out of their fucking way to desperately seek out and beg such people to come to the con as guests of honour is fucking stupid. It's entirely unnecessary. This whole glorification and fetishization of women, trans, and non-binary people is so fucking annoying, pathetic, and stupid. It really has fuck all to do with gaming and the hobby. I sure as fuck don't want to listen to any of these troglodytes speak about whatever fake propaganda they come up with as a facade to lecture everyone else there on how homophobic, transphobic, and mysoginistic everyone is. Cutting all that stupid shit out kinda narrows it down, now don't it? That's because most of these fucking troglodytes are simply ideologues. Fuck them. I have no interest in hearing them spew a bunch of diarhea propaganda to an audience. If they need to feel special, why don't these fucking morons get together and have a special Happy Rainbow Barney fuckfest convention, where *all of the guests of honour* can be sobbing women, trans, and cupcake non-binary snowflakes? Make all the topics choking full of their SJW bullshit. See how well that convention goes. I hope it would go great. Let them all wallow together in their Happy Rainbow Barney convention. Anyone who wants to go can go. Other conventions, however, don't have to fucking pander to these SJW ideologues, and let them continue to pollute and corrode, and degrade our hobby. The whole fucking identity BS is so mindless and poisonous. Fuck them.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1085152If guest A is someone interesting and cool from the game industry, great. I don't care if they are male, female, white, yellow, black or purple.

That's a viewpoint I share, which - for some reason I'll never understand - is a viewpoint that is really hard for some people to grok.

Quote from: SHARK;1085152Indeed, my friend. I skimmed through a few pages. Geesus these people are such morons. They're pod-people, like Donald Sutherland in the movie, "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers." Totalcon is a small, regional convention that is having 25 guests of honour, all male--though one is Asian, and two are Black. But the whining, Happy Barney troglodytes are shrieking about, "Oh NO! There's no women, trans, or non-binary guests of honour!!" LOL. Whaa! Whaa! Whaa!

Ha-ha! I love that movie. And yes exactly, like what, they're supposed to fucking materialize trans people and women out of thin air just to pad the ranks? Perhaps they should just close the doors of the con until we can either make more, or simply settle on extermination (or at least a nice righteous castration) for the remaining white males.

It is so odd to me that these types of opinions are almost exclusively touted by sheltered, young, American, middle-class white people who seem to think such "downtrodden" and "subjugated" (or, shit, what's that word they love using? "Minimized"? "Sidelined"?) women and ethnicities so desperately need their help and "progress" forced down their throats. It's bizarre, and unlike some alt-right conspiracy bogeyman it's ACTUALLY racist and sexist.

Quote from: SHARK;1085152Who gives a fuck? Why is that so fucking important? I don't think it is important at all. If guest A is someone interesting and cool from the game industry, great. I don't care if they are male, female, white, yellow, black or purple.

Ha, yes SHARK! Exactly this!

Quote from: SHARK;1085152Other conventions, however, don't have to fucking pander to these SJW ideologues, and let them continue to pollute and corrode, and degrade our hobby. The whole fucking identity BS is so mindless and poisonous. Fuck them.

Hear, hear. May their pendulum of cultural relevance swing back soon.

Quote from: SHARK;1085152Who gives a fuck? Why is that so fucking important? I don't think it is important at all. If guest A is someone interesting and cool from the game industry, great. I don't care if they are male, female, white, yellow, black or purple.

It's not important. They only think that shit is, because that's how they choose to define themselves, using only skin-deep traits. There's a reason on twitter it's considered a red flag when someone puts their sexuality and pronouns in their bio.

Quote from: Chunkthulhu;1085154That's a viewpoint I share, which - for some reason I'll never understand - is a viewpoint that is really hard for some people to grok.

Greetings!

Exactly, sir. Are they celebrated game designers? Accomplished authors? Brilliant artists? Yeah, I'm interested. How does any of such criteria have to do with whether they are "women, trans, and non-binary"? Hmmm...maybe because our hobby is majority male? Oh that's right, it's always been majority male. Oh, and by extension, all the famous people in it are also mostly men. This isn't some evil conspiracy. It's just normal reality. Not many women. Not many trans, or fucking "non-binary". LOL. More importantly, no, our hobby doesn't need to be hijacked and thrown into the cesspool by a bunch of SJW ideologues.

I think Chunk that the looming problem, as many have commented, we aren't dealing with normal, healthy, rational people. These are generally SJW freaks. That means most of them are emotionally and mentally damaged. It also means that they are *consumed* by politics, ideology, and their special *identity*. They are so emotionally and mentally damaged, and brainwashed, they simply cannot have a rational discussion about much of anything. I think that's why they don't "Grok" the idea, Chunk. It's because people like us are normal--we aren't consumed by SJW identity politics and ideology.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK