Double and triple posting isn't allowed. Put your shit into one post. It isn't hard.
That is simply false. Useless double and triple posting isn't allowed. My multiple posts are constructive and serve an obvious purpose that I have stated multiple times already in this thread.
People don't think you're trolling because you suggested a slogan change, but because you're suggesting it based almost entirely on linguistic prejudice (you'll probably deny this, but it's true).
I don't believe we agree on the meaning of prejudice. I have no particular linguistic prejudice that isn't based in reason, such as my prejudice against English spelling. As I stated before, I do not believe English to be superior to any other language for any particularly meaningful reason (except as allowed by its entirely coincidental position as a universal language of sorts, for example, but that is a purely practical concern.)
Moreover my personal opinions about specific forum members' paucity of English expertise were definitely not preconceived notions. I formulated those opinions based entirely on knowledge and experience, namely my own (excellent) grasp of English and examination of their actual posts. In the examples I cited and corrected oh so many posts ago, it is very evident the people in question lacked sufficient expertise to have a meaningful opinion concerning a very subtle change to the TASVideos motto. I also made it clear I was judging only their mastery of English in comparison to my own, not making judgments about their value as human beings.
Lastly, it is certainly an interesting rhetorical flourish to make a false statement and then confidently crow that I will no doubt deny it, but upon reflection it is clear it adds no force to your argument.
It's generally agreed that this kind of argumentation is arrogant and at the very least detrimental to your own discourse. Seeing that you failed to recognize this, it's reasonable to have some doubts about your authority in language aesthetics.
If you truly believe I am (and intend to be) arrogant and cruelly dismissive, or something of that nature, despite my repeated protests that my one and only intent is to change the TASVideos motto for the better, it still doesn't follow that you should doubt my assessment of English aesthetics. You could, however, reasonably say something like, "You have little regard for the feelings of others." I don't believe that's true, but it would be a logical conclusion to draw if you really and truly believe I am some sort of monster. On the other hand, I will continue to claim (because it is true) that my only goal is to change the TASVideos motto for the better.
It's obvious that you are good with English grammar, but that can be irrelevant for the purposes of a motto. I'll give you an example in my native language since you care about this so much: once a large bank used in its slogan the sentence "Vem pra Caixa você também!" ("You, come to Caixa too!"), it was very successful because it rhymes and coulb be put in songs easily. Thing is, it's grammatically incorrect because "vem" expects a pronoun in the 2nd person and "você" is in the third. However, this sounds more familiar to people, even highly educated ones, because the correct language is used mostly in writing. Depending on what you want to say with too much formalism, people will ask "Why are you talking like a book?".
As you can see, there's at least one slogan that was made based on what non-experts on a language would think and it worked, simply because there are situations where being strictly correct is unimportant or just doesn't matter.
Your example is particularly inapt. It's a great example of how some really subtle feature of a language is likely only detectable by proficient native speakers, which only proves my point. My modification of the TASVideos motto is equally subtle. Nowhere did I suggest that my modification was more formally correct or anything of that nature.
My entire argument is based on the fact that "just aren't enough" simply sounds better to (most) proficient native speakers. Both versions of the TASVideos motto happen to be formally grammatically correct, but that is irrelevant for the purposes of my argument. My version "sounds more familiar to people, even highly educated ones", and doesn't sound remotely bookish. In fact, it sounds very natural in conversation because "just aren't/isn't/can't blah" is such a common English construction.
Furthermore, based on your description, that slogan in your native language wasn't based on what nonexperts would think at all. It was simply based on conforming more closely to the spoken language as opposed to the written language. If you were to ask an expert "what sounds more natural" in most contexts, no doubt they would choose the spoken language construction as opposed to the written language construction, and would be very familiar with both.
Anyway, seeing that the grammar in the motto is correct and people seem to like it, there's little motivation to change it, even less to have a novel written about it.
Yes, this jives with my repeated claims that most people either express a weak preference for the old motto, or have no preference at all. Importantly, however, in my experience, experts tend to strongly prefer my version. There were also other good reasons given for making the change. The subtitle is inaccurate and misleading by being too inclusive, and the visual symmetry achieved by making both of my suggested changes is quite pleasing.
I readily agree no changes need to be made. The changes I am proposing are fairly minor, as I have freely admitted. A small error or inaccuracy is certainly still worth fixing, though, especially if you can find someone who is willing to fix it. Indeed, that someone is me. I've done all the heavy lifting by coming up with a sensible, positive change. All that remains to be done is minor edits in four lines in a file.
The tasvideos IRC channel could be used right now for discussing things the users would like to see, but at the moment, people are having fun there replacing "English speaker" with "penis sucker" in your sentences.
I, too, enjoy the ribald humor of substituting "penis" (or similar) into various quotes and phrases, and do not mind my words being subverted in this manner. My favorite such construction is:
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and penis has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei
This shows that this discussion is not just stupid, but also counter-productive.
I agree that this discussion is somewhat stupid and fairly counterproductive, but not on account of me or my English speaker.
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Mod edit: Merged triple post. --Mothrayas
I once again protest the needless and destructive modification of my posts. It is very clear I am being singled out and harassed by Mothrayas and FractalFusion for having the nerve to reasonably express my preferences and opinions, even where they differ from those of the mods in question, and further for having the sheer audacity to protest such loathsome, iniquitous persecution. I have done absolutely nothing to warrant this unheralded stifling of my inalienable human right to free expression.
----
Mod edit: Merged double post. --Mothrayas
Getting back to the main topic, I actually like the suggested motto improvement made by Pointless Boy before the major derail.
Unfortunately, I am mostly a passive member on this forum, and English is not my first language, so my opinion doesn't count at all in there. :-(
It's true that your opinion regarding which version of each phrase sounds best is not relevant, but you may still reasonably express appreciation of the faux justified alignment, for example. You may also have an opinion as to whether or not you believe the motto should be changed on some other basis. If so, please express that opinion.
----
KennyMan666 wrote:
Alright, let's play this game.
* KennyMan666 cracks knuckles
Honestly, I am not "playing a game". I am expressing what I believe to be a related series of rather uncontroversial opinions, the sole purpose of which is to improve the sound and appearance of the motto (and subtitle.)
You've not insulted me personally, no. But what you don't seem to realize is that your very demeanor, the way you say that other people's opinions aren't valid, the way you say that YOU'RE the expert and YOU always know best is inherently insulting to the very people you communicate with.
I realize that some people apparently believe that, but I don't think their reactions are warranted or rational, so I am not that concerned with such overreactions. Note that I have been quite careful to state ad nauseam that I only think (most) people's opinions in this thread aren't valid solely concerning English usage and style, and that their overall mastery of world languages in general is likely superior to my own, as many people here speak a second language fluently at a conversational level. From the get go I was constantly, incessantly hedging my statements for the express purpose of downplaying any perceived superiority.
I have many limitations. Compared to most people in this thread, mastery of English is not one of them. That is not a value judgment, implicitly or explicitly. It means only what it means. My English is better. I am better equipped to judge English usage and style, especially when it comes to two statements of largely equivalent meaning that are both grammatically correct. That kind of "feel" for what is "just right" is the last thing people acquire when learning a language, and, in fact, most speakers of a nonnative language never, ever acquire it. Even many native speakers of languages aren't great in that regard. I was lucky enough to grow up speaking English, and I am fairly well educated and widely read, so I just got that "feel" without much effort. Make use of me. Or fling nonstop invective at me. You know, either or.
Your supposed mastery of GLORIOUS ENGLISH LANGUAGE™
Note that I have never stated or implied that English is "glorious" or superior to any other language. English happens to be the language we, as a community, have deemed most useful for fostering communication between disparate gamers from all over the globe on this forum. I understand there are some "foreign" language forums, but it is undeniable the majority of the communication on this forum is English, as are the vast majority of the pages on the actual site, as far as I know.
I believe English's position as the de facto universal language is entirely coincidental from a historical perspective, and in fact think it is inferior to many languages in many respects. For example, spelling in English is ridiculous, and should have been phoneticized long ago, similar to Spanish.
isn't even being taken into question, even though your expertise is nothing but self-proclaimed. It's the way you present it that makes your posts just seem like they're full of hot air and needless wordsmithing just to make yourself appear as the perfect intellectual.
You are reading entirely too much into everything I write. I have consistently stated my only intent (in this thread) is to improve TASVideos by championing a stylistic change of its motto and subtitle. I am so consistent in this regard because I have been entirely truthful throughout. I believe the motto can be improved without changing its meaning. I believe I am well suited to make such a decision. I believe most of the people that have since responded in this thread are not well suited to make such a decision because their English, especially concerning such a subtle point, isn't great. That's it. Really.
I, like many others in this thread, was merely trying to deflate you - because I've never in my entire life encountered someone who needs deflating as much as you do.
That doesn't seem particularly constructive, especially considering you appear to actually agree with my assessment of the motto and subtitle. I find this somewhat astonishing. In your shoes I would simply have expressed my agreement.
Also, neither. I'm Swedish.
Interesting. No doubt I should have considered that possibility. Your English is quite good.
I, myself, have a tendency to use language that is more formal than average, both when I write in Swedish and English. I fancy myself a bit of a language connoisseur, but I don't feel any need to be a dick about it.
Nor do I. I have not attempted to be a dick about my mastery of English. I consider it entirely uncontroversial (almost not even worthy of note, except in this thread expertise in this narrow field is relevant) to state "My English appears to be better than yours, you should defer to my judgment" to a nonnative speaker. It would be equally uncontroversial for you to claim mastery of Swedish over me, or for feos to claim mastery of Russian over me, etc.
You're right, humility has nothing to do with the inherent correctness of the argument - but it has everything to do with getting people to actually listen to your argument and take it seriously. Presenting it as "Here's an opinion, you're dumb if you disagree" will make people think you're a pompous ass not worth listening to no matter how much truth actually lies in your initial point. Case in point: This thread.
I don't think any amount of false modesty is necessary when making uncontroversial statements of fact. "I am a native speaker and I've got a pretty great sense for English usage and style, insofar as you are willing to believe I am acting in good faith, take my word for it, this is just better, so let's get it done" is not offensive or arrogant in the least.
I did end the OP with a nonsensical, flippant remark, and a picture of a kitten. I've never been in the habit of taking nonsensical, flippant remarks followed by pictures of kittens very seriously.
Every post you've made in this thread has been about how you're so much better than other people. If you can't see that, you're a dumbfuck.
To the contrary, I carefully hedged many of my statements to make it clear I had no intentions of putting on airs of superiority in general. I did repeatedly make it clear that my mastery of English was better than that of most of the people that senselessly argued with me, though I never stated or implied that mastery of English had anything to do with one's general value as a human being. I did not and do not equate "my English is better than yours" with "I am better than you".
"My English is better than yours" means precisely what it means. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't feel the need to be held responsible for people who pore through every statement in search of innuendo, especially when I state over, and over, and over, and over again that my words have none. My only goal is to get the motto (and subtitle) changed, because I truly believe my proposed changes to be in every way better. My (truthful) claims of relative mastery of English were made only in support of that goal.
You've not claimed it in words. But from the way you act, it's obvious you think less of the following groups of people:
- People who disagree with you
- People who aren't native English speakers
- People who are native English speakers but aren't you
- ...no, that's pretty much everyone.
An example of where you do it: "my English is quite evidently better than that of the people in this thread who don't speak it natively (and, indeed, most of those that do.)"
That is a simple statement of fact. Nowhere have I stated or implied that relative mastery of English has anything to do with relative value as a human being. In fact, I have stated that I harbor no such misconceptions many times. In a discussion about a subtle English rephrasing, mastery of English is perfectly relevant. When obvious nonmasters argue with a relative master, it bears repeating.
Something I'm curious about now: How old are you? No, "What does my age matter?" is not a valid answer to that question.
No, my age doesn't matter and it is perfectly valid for me to say so. You asserting otherwise doesn't change that, as I'm sure you are aware. Nevertheless, I have no particular objection to revealing general information about myself. To the nearest quinquennium, I am 30.
----
feos wrote:
Native English speakers were reading your posts for the whole day (judging by comments in IRC). No one of them got any interest in discussing the aspects of English usage here with you. Only some irrelevant issues. Guess why.
Because native English speakers by and large agree with my assessment regarding which version of the motto sounds better. (To be more precise, among native speakers, some express mild preference for the original motto, some express no preference, and some, especially most experts, express strong preference for my version of the motto.)
Additionally, I suspect most people recognize that my entire line of argumentation throughout this thread is essentially correct, see the whole argument as a pointless waste of time, and most of all don't want to get involved. That accurately describes my own feelings, but as this is my thread, and I am trying to get a change made, I feel obliged to respond to whatever questionable criticism pops up.
----
Mod edit: Merged triple post. --Mothrayas
Pointless Boy, you have pretty much insulted everyone in this thread. You seem to be very good at writing English™, but utterly suck at reading between the lines, so to speak.
I'm not reading between the lines because I'm not writing between them. Really.
Mothrayas wrote:
Pointless Boy, the moderator actions were not "wildly inappropriate". It's a near universal forum rule that one must not double post/triple post/multi post, as these are generally disruptive and occasionally considered spam. The Forum Rules, which you like to refer to, state that "making multiple useless [...] posts", like spam, is considered disruptive posting, which is not allowed. Therefore, it's reasonable for the moderation staff to interfere.
My posts were not useless, and were not "like spam". My posts were unique in content, substantive, written in response to separate people about each of their separate concerns, and written over a period of 60 or 90 minutes.
Making multiple useless posts is against the forum rules. Making multiple posts is not. FractalFusion's actions were completely unreasonable and were a clear abuse of his authority.
The imagery was clearly obnoxious and annoying. This was, again, disruptive, and intentional obnoxious behavior is more than likely considered uncivil, and uncivil behavior is also not allowed as per the Forum Rules. Again, the moderators are allowed to edit your message for cleaning out the uncivil behavior.
It is not against the rules to be sarcastic, obnoxious, or annoying, and I was intentionally only slightly obnoxious and annoying. As I specified earlier, I was careful to be considerate of others by using small images that wouldn't unexpectedly interfere with the forum browsing experience. I didn't do that because I wished to skirt some imaginary line, but because I genuinely didn't want to be particularly disruptive. I wanted to express a feeling that I thought those images appropriately conveyed in that context.
I have also consistently been one of the most civil people in this thread. Excepting my (justifiably) righteous outrage in response to FractalFusion's abhorrent abuse of his moderator privileges, I have been calm, collected, and level-headed throughout this entire debate. The same can't be said for many people in this thread, for example, Mr. Kelly R. Flewin, or KennyMan666. Note that I do not personally believe their actions to be consistently abusive enough to warrant moderation, but surely if an objective party were bent on moderating posts in this thread, moderation would start with the likes of those.
Singling me out for doing nothing more than calmly, dispassionately, and steadfastly defending my position against various levels of uncalled for vitriol surely indicates FractalFusion is unfit to be a moderator, no matter what motivated his inappropriate behavior.
So you can see, FractalFusion was clearly following the Forum Rules in his moderation, and therefore you shouldn't have any reason to complain.
I believe I have adequately refuted this above.
Also, technically, as moderators are site staff, we are allowed to do whatever we want with anyone's posts. Deal with it.
Just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean that you would be correct in exercising that ability. You are "technically" allowed to do many, many terrible things. For example, not too long ago Anders Breivik was quite evidently technically allowed to slaughter children in the name of xenophobia, and he did so.
Post scriptum: We are not censoring anything. None of your text was modified in any way. The only things removed were useless flashing .gif images. Claiming your expression was stifled in any way is bullshit.
The images were not useless. They were really and truly part of my message, and they were censored. My expression was quite obviously and unarguably stifled.
Pointless Boy: you don't TAS, you don't encode, you don't code, you act like a troll. You're not willing to improve yourself. Go away then, it's pretty simple.
I am not trolling. I have consistently maintained throughout this entire thread (because I am being completely sincere) that my intent is for the TASVideos motto (and subtitle) to be modified slightly so that they "read better". This thread is an honest attempt to make a substantive contribution to the community. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, giving the site a little spit and polish isn't a huge deal. But it's something. It's something I can reasonably do. It doesn't seem any less valid than tassing, encoding, or coding.
I could go away. You could also stop vacuously and vehemently arguing with someone who is willing and able to help, and who is (honestly) only trying to accomplish the explicitly stated goal in this thread. Again, that is to make the TASVideos motto (and subtitle) sound better without changing their actual substance.
I don't see how self improvement is relevant to this discussion. I suspect you actually mean something to the effect that I am incapable of learning or changing my ideas. If my interpretation is correct, it's interesting that you should have that opinion, especially when I've given a precise formula for how to change my opinion on this matter in this very thread. Just get a few proficient speakers of English to state, in good faith, that they disagree with my assessment of which version of the phrase sounds better. I strongly suspect you can't, as I doubt very many proficient speakers do disagree with me (in fact, it seems almost no one actually disagrees with my assessment of which phrase sounds better, which makes this entire thread even crazier. There is either very weak preference for the current version, no preference at all, or, especially among experts so far, strong preference for my version.)
Regardless, I am truly, entirely open to having my opinions changed. It has happened many times in the past. I freely admit I know almost nothing about a great many things, and have huge gaps in my knowledge in even those things I know a great deal about. Would you believe I didn't know the correct pronunciation of "Pleiades" until a few weeks ago? (That sometimes happens for words I've never heard spoken.)
Right, which means you have the option to express an opinion. That doesn't mean you should always exercise that option, or that when you do, your opinion will be respected. Do you have an expert grasp of English usage and style? No? Then your opinion concerning English usage and style is not relevant. Your opinion -- in this instance -- may reasonably be ignored.
EEssentia wrote:
Meh. I give up. I think ignoring this one is simply the best option.
You could attempt to address my arguments in a logically consistent fashion, as I have done for everyone else in this thread.
Guga wrote:
...
I give up. If you keep ignoring everyone's posts, I don't see the point of discussing with you.
This viewpoint is interesting, given that I have ignored literally no one's post. I have gone to great lengths to craft a level-headed and well-reasoned response to each and every person in this thread. (I consider my response to FractalFusion's abuses to be reasonable, given that my intent was to express outrage.)
KennyMan666 wrote:
Wow, you're a massive ass. Every single post you've made in this thread is condescending to the maximum, and you wonder why people are telling you to fuck off? Your username is quite appropriate, you're the most pointless person in this thread. Yes, that was an attack on your person. No, I can't be arsed to look up what type of attack it is.
This sort of post doesn't seem constructive, or to have been made in good faith. It is interesting that, despite my innocuous words and calm demeanor (excepting my righteous outrage at FractalFusion's abuse of power), some people bizarrely feel motivated to violently attack me -- as much as one can be violently attacked by words, that is.
What motivates your attack? I have neither personally insulted you (or anyone in this thread, excepting perhaps Mr.KRF, if pointing out a bad post is an insult), nor said anything that seems particularly contentious. Is my mastery of English not superior to most people who don't speak it natively? How is observing that fact and using it as the basis for determining the correctness of opinions about English usage and style controversial? It is telling that no one has been able to argue effectively against this point.
Off topic, I am also intrigued by your simultaneous use of "ass" and "arsed". Neither is incorrect, of course, but their use in conjunction is unusual. Are you an American that is unfamiliar with the (admittedly uncommon) phrase "can't be assed", who picked up the habit of using (the much more common in England) "can't be arsed" from TV or interactions with Brits? Or perhaps a Brit that has been browbeat into using "ass" on the internet?
You claim to be an "expert" on the English language. A self-described expert. Using big words and telling everyone else they know nothing does not an expert make. Here's a word for you: "humility". Try it sometime.
I am always slightly bemused by accusations of using big words. I simply use whatever word sounds most appropriate to me. (Though I recognize my English vocabulary is larger than average.) Anyway, how humble one is has no bearing on the correctness of one's argument. (Except in a highly contrived example, such as if you were arguing whether or not you always exhibit humility in arguments.)
Even if you have a point, noone's going to take you seriously if you keep treating everyone who disagrees with you as lesser human beings than you.
I haven't once treated anyone in this thread as a lesser human being, nor said anything to that effect. In fact, I have repeatedly said that, obviously, my superior mastery of English implies but one thing: that I am more equipped to make judgments about the finer points of English usage and style. I have often mentioned multiple times how good most peoples' English is, and how their English is far in advance of any second language I could claim. (In fact, I essentially have no second language.)
Get off your fucking pedestal, you're not of a higher standing than anyone else on this forum. Being demeaning and insulting is the only thing you've done for the last three pages.
I have never claimed to have higher standing than anyone else on this forum. I have (reasonably, convincingly) claimed to have superior mastery of English than most, though. I don't understand why you consider "My English is better than yours" to be a demeaning observation. It is a simple statement of fact, and one which no one has seriously seen fit to argue, because my English is quite evidently better than that of the people in this thread who don't speak it natively (and, indeed, most of those that do.) I don't preclude the possibility of another Joseph Conrad somewhere out there, but such a person has certainly not made him or herself known in this thread.
Pointless Boy, when joining a community, you must understand that there are rule enforcers, just like the police. They have authority and can make decisions about rules, including things that are not explicitly stated in the rules, because a lot of things are subjective and writing rules to cover every little possible thing is just not possible.
I understand that some judgments are subjective, however, my posting habits in this thread were clearly reasonable, I have been nothing but level headed, dispassionate, and reasonable for the entire duration of this thread (except for a well-deserved jab at Mr.KRF), and the moderator's actions against me were clearly wildly inappropriate. (I do not believe mild expression of annoyance to be unreasonable, and after the juncture at which I was censored, I do not believe extreme protest to be unreasonable.)
If you dislike the change they've made, then PM another moderator or admin informing them that you think that their decision was faulty and explain your reasoning. They will investigate and notify you with their decision.
That is one option. Another option is to speak out, to protest, to publicly decry abuse as loudly and as often as you can, so that abuses of power never, ever go unnoticed, even if they still go largely unacknowledged and unpunished.
Publically denouncing moderators is not going to work in your favor. It is going to make you look worse in everyone's eyes, which will make them less likely to listen to you.
A moderator that allows his or her objectivity to be compromised by protest should not be a moderator. Anyone that doesn't care to listen while I fight for my inalienable rights as a human being is free to plug their ears and submit to tyranny. I won't.
You've already made your point. You want to change the logo. Fine. Let the community decide if they like it or not. You are going to get anywhere by continuing this argument. It will just make it less likely that your suggestions will get accepted in the future.
What do my protests have to do with the merits of my suggestions? That is not a rational criticism. I will continue to protest as long as I believe I have something to protest about.
feos wrote:
This site is built of contributions. Contributors are from all over the world. The comunity has its own unique spirit and attitude. The ones who never contribute are wellcome when they keep the same spirit and attitude. You do not wish to try to win any of these. Either because you're proud or because you're trolling. The quoted lunge implies that the latter.
I literally do not understand the meaning of your post, here. I am not being proud, or trolling, and I do not have intent to insult or demean. I am being literal. Literally. I literally do not understand the meaning of your post.
Because you are making it out to be,
"Because this doesn't sound right to me, it must be changed, unless someone can prove to me that this isn't correct English."
That is the crux of my argument, yes, though "proof" is too strong a word for what would be required for me to change my mind. Simply, if a number of clearly proficient native speakers came forward and said they did not share my opinion, I would take note and, after further review, alter my understanding of what sounds normal. (It is telling that none have, and unlikely that any will.)
I also didn't say the motto "must be changed", I simply pointed out that the motto (and subtitle) seemed flawed to me, and if we agree correctness is generally more desirable than incorrectness, and natural speech is generally more desirable than unnatural speech, then it seems the motto (and subtitle) are ripe for minor modifications.
I also ended the post with a flippant remark and posted a picture of a kitten.
It doesn't matter if you are very good at English or whatever.
Absolutely it matters. Whether or not (the correctness of my opinion concerning) my suggestion is reasonable depends on my mastery of English. I think this is fairly obvious.
You have stated an opinion, and this is a community, not some dictator faction or private group.
Even in matters of opinion, it is not always appropriate to consider the opinions of an entire population. In this case, the reasonableness of my suggestion rather transparently depends on whether or not there is a consensus among subject matter experts. (It seems there is. Most nonexperts either weakly prefer the current phrasing, or express no preference at all, whereas experts strongly prefer my phrasing.)
You dismiss everyone's opinions because they are not proficient enough in your opinion to matter.
Correct. If you aren't an expert, you can't reasonably express an opinion as to what sounds best to an expert.
But that's just the thing. Who says that the logo must be 100% correct English, or just english that matters to you? No one. Only you are saying it.
No one is saying the motto must be 100% correct English, and I have invited people to express an opinion contrary to my stated one: "TASVideos, wherever it uses English (or any language), should endeavor to use the best sounding and most correct phrasing possible, in order to facilitate communication and so as not to needlessly promulgate erroneous usage."
If you disagree with that sentiment, then by all means let's discuss it. But you don't disagree. No one does. Endless hemming and hawing with various what-ifs and hypothetical scenarios isn't constructive if those scenarios don't actually seem to exist. Sure, someone could theoretically be opposed to the concept of generally communicating clearly wherever possible, but no one is. You either don't particularly care about further correctness (as long as something is "good enough") or you agree correctness is desirable, all other things being equal. If you don't care, why are you arguing in this thread, and why would you be so passionately resisting those that do? And if you do care, why are you, a nonexpert, arguing with an expert?
This is a community, and as such, the community makes a decision if something changes or not. Not one individual.
It is certainly appropriate for the community to make the decision whether or not more correct English usage and style is necessary or desirable, sure, and on that basis the community should decide whether the motto gets changed. It is not for the community to decide what is the most correct English usage and style. Only people who could reasonably be experts should determine that.
"Do we care that many native English speakers' first impressions of the site (from looking at the motto and subtitle) will be that it is poorly edited, and that we will be promulgating incorrect usage?"
- That is a question for the entire community.
"If we don't want native English speakers to have a negative first impression of the site on that basis, and we desire correctness, what changes should we make to the way the motto and subtitle are phrased?"
- That is a question only for experts. If you aren't an expert, your opinion doesn't matter.
No, it's not. Merging posts does not have any destructive or disruptive effect. (Other than to your post count, but that's an entirely irrelevant factor).
It has many destructive and disruptive effects:
1) It stifles my creative expression by needlessly forcing my posts to conform to the moderator's chosen configuration.
2) It stifles the expression of everyone on the forum by showing them that anyone's posts are subject to being censored by any moderator that disagrees with their content, even if that content is reasonable and posted in good faith.
These images, however, do. They're obnoxious, flashy, and serve no purpose at all.
Of course they served a purpose. They were supposed to convey exasperated disdain just so, by being obnoxious and flashy. Nowhere does it state in the forum rules that it is inappropriate to occasionally be moderately obnoxious or flashy for rhetorical purposes. The images were small in both filesize (so as not to interfere with the loading of the page) and physical dimension (so as not to overwhelm the thread by necessitating a horizontal scrollbar, for example.) In short, they were perfectly reasonable images to use for the purpose of visually expressing my annoyance.
The rest of the rant about this lowering the threads's quality by making it "harder to read" (WTF?) is also meaningless.
It's not meaningless, it's merely subjective. I personally prefer to have my posts separated for the reasons already mentioned, the primary one being I don't like reading or writing posts that are too long. Where my replies were short, I grouped them into one post. Where my replies were long, I made a separate post, as is my personal preference. You may disagree with my personal preference in that regard, but it would be ludicrous to say I was being unreasonable or abusive in my posting habits. Posts should never be edited by a moderator without compelling reason, and FractalFusion had no compelling reason. (As we've seen, his reasons were most likely, in fact, reprehensible.)
Mothrayas wrote:
They were nothing that would have necessitated additional posts. The edit button, use it.
I only consider multi-posts meaningful if either:
There's a significant time gap between the posts (at least 1 day or so, the timespan for your posts was definitely way too little)
It's an update with significant content (e.g. a new WIP in a game thread; just another response in a debate thread doesn't warrant a new post in short succession)
Your posts were neither.
Those are merely your preferences. The forum rules give no guidelines in this regard. My preferences are different, and clearly reasonable. I prefer to have my thoughts broken up into smaller chunks than you do. For example, I consider this post to be uncomfortably long.
Reasons for merging multi-posts:
Make the thread easier to read (contrary to what you think, this is more convenient for the vast majority of people)
Restrict post count increase abuse
More convenient for some, less convenient for others. I prefer smaller posts. In the absence of clear consensus, or guidelines in the forum rules, there is no justifiable reason to alter the posts of anyone who is posting reasonably, as I was.
A "show of exerting control over the thread"? What are you even talking about? FractalFusion simply did his job as a mod, removing clutter from the thread. What is your problem with this?
...
The pictures were deleted because they were unnecessary and more distracting than anything. I don't see how merging posts is "abuse" in any way, shape or form. And it has nothing to do with "stifling your expression". Stop thinking it was done to target you. It wasn't.
He did not remove clutter from the thread. In my opinion he made it more cluttered by making my posts harder to follow. Moreover he changed the meaning of one of my posts (by removing reasonable images that had communicative purpose), and made me feel uncomfortable through his needless exertion of authority, and in a thread in which his objectivity could obviously be called into question, no less! If he truly felt the formatting and pace of my posts was so egregious, he could have and should have alerted another mod (a mod that had not already weirdly chastised me in the thread) and asked him or her to make a determination and, if warranted, take action in his stead. He did not because his actions were not justifiable.
Mothrayas wrote:
Actually, that particular image/text probably requires a site manager, not just an editor.
So be it.
Also, why not ask to become an editor yourself then, if you do want to patch up the text on the site?
That is one option. Another option is the option that I chose: making the issue known and asking for it to be changed. I do not object to being made an editor, but I had various reasons for believing simply making a thread about it would be most efficacious.
also, nowhere in the thread topic does it say that this thread is about preferred English grammar, unless motto has some hidden meaning that I am unaware of.
Huh? In the OP I suggest making an essentially grammatical change to the way the motto is phrased. That is what this thread is obviously about.
EEssentia wrote:
It is not your judgement that is doubted. It is the way you act which makes you come under fire and which is why people are mostly ignoring you rather than listening to you. That is what they mean by high horse.
I still don't know whether you are ignorant of this fact or just doing this on purpose.
Clearly my judgment is in doubt, or people wouldn't be arguing against it. People aren't saying, "That is a good suggestion, you are an asshole." I'd be fine with that, because my intent would have been realized. My intent is for the logo, title, subtitle, and motto to all be correct, natural, and aesthetically pleasing.
EEssentia wrote:
It is my opinion, as well, and gathering from the replies in this thread, the opinion of many others, as well.
And yes, opinions weigh more than expertise in some areas...
Is this one of those areas? I think it is self-evident the answer to that question is no. If someone who plausibly represents himself as a good judge of English comes along and mentions there is a minor issue with some phrasing somewhere on the site, suggests a change, and literally no proficient English speakers (of which there are many on this forum!) object, what is the problem? Why are Russians and Chileans and all manner of relatively inexpert (compared to me) speakers of English coming out of the woodwork to argue with me?
First Pointless Boy ridges high/her high horse and dismisses everyone's opinion simply because they are not proficient and native speakers.
Not everyone's opinion, only the opinions of those people that aren't proficient native speakers, and then only their opinions of what sounds most correct and natural to a proficient native speaker. How is this even an argument? This is tautology!
Now he/she complains that a moderator abused his/her power because he/she merged three posts. Right.
Because a moderator did abuse his power. My posts were substantive, unique in content, and not posted in rapid succession. There was no reason to merge them other than to make a show of exerting some control over the thread. Deleting my pictures and merging my posts was unnecessary, heavy handed, and a clear abuse of power aimed at stifling my expression.
Well, just know that triple posting is considered BAD on most forums. You can separate them even when they're merged into one post.
Needless triple posting is considered bad. As I said before, I made three separate posts for obvious and sensible reasons. It is not relevant that no one else responded in this thread over the course of me crafting multiple lengthy responses to many different people.
So, should we ignore Pointless Boy and settle on our own opinion on the logo matter? I find it difficult to separate them meanings of the two sentences, so I am either way...
Your opinion is not relevant. Your English isn't good enough for you to have a meaningful opinion about what sounds most correct and natural to a proficient native speaker.
The idea of having all the site in perfect English is awesome, but it is simply unachievable. Just compare the amount of such "hard-coded" text, that can be fixed once and for all, with the amount of user-generated text. Do you have a bunch of "well trained monkies" to check the perfectness of every single wiki edit's English? If so, go ahead and clean up after all of us.
Does the fact that perfection is impossible mean we should ignore all opportunities for improvement? In fact, we do have well trained monkeys, and I am one of them. I am deeply embroiled in the process of cleaning up after all of you at this very moment, or hadn't you noticed?
I saw an inaccuracy, was willing to fix it, and was not able to do so because only editors can make such changes. So then I made this thread in hopes that an editor would make the change. I did not expect it to be controversial as the change is minor and there is no reason to doubt my judgment (in this field), or my sincerity.
I've been reading your posts, and (especially from your last one) it doesn't seem like you're arguing in good faith either.
It is hard to understand this viewpoint, as in every single one of my posts I make a carefully reasoned argument in support of my position (or refuting the position of another.)
The entire post is just a sesquipedalian way of saying "Your opinions are all invalid because my English is better than yours"
Yes! This is precisely my argument! My opinion -- in this instance, in this particular and specific area of inquiry -- is the most valid one (so far expressed in this thread.)
and you're disqualifying other people's opinions regardless of whether they are even native English speaking or not.
Not quite. I disqualify the opinions of other people (concerning what sounds most correct and natural to a proficient native speaker) on the basis of my perception of those peoples' mastery of English. In order to avoid this all being entirely too circular, and to allow people who don't have my mastery of English to nevertheless recognize bad English, I made a point of highlighting a few of the more egregious errors displayed by various people that posted in this thread.
Actively listing and pointing out grammatical and spelling mistakes is also an entirely pointless attack to the opponent, as it doesn't actually have to do anything with what the discussion is about.
It was imperative that I undermine the credibility of those people that disagreed with me, not because they disagreed with me, but because those particular people happened to lack a sufficiently advanced grasp of English usage and style, which is necessary to have a meaningful opinion about the suggestion in the OP. Demonstrating that someone lacks mastery of English is, in this context, a perfectly reasonable method of invalidating their opinion regarding English usage and style, and not at all a personal attack.
Tellingly, not a single person with an advanced grasp of English usage and style has disagreed with me. I am open to having a meaningful discussion on this front with anyone that doesn't obviously lack the necessary knowledge and experience.
i can tlak liek dis, and still have very good knowledge on English spelling and grammar, regardless of whether I actually apply it or not.
True, but I would advise against trying to obfuscate your expertise of any particular subject in a discussion about that subject. I don't see how that could be constructive.
Also, your references to numerous "English experts" are entirely meaningless without other backup. "I consulted five experts and they all straightly agreed with me" doesn't exactly say much to me. I could easily say "I consulted 300 experts of American English and they say your experts are all wrong". It doesn't really mean anything, as it's too easy to make this all up.
Sort of true, in that in the absence of your own sufficiently advanced experience and knowledge, you do require a certain amount of faith in my expertise, and that I'm not simply lying when I say I consulted other people. That being said, I am the only person here (so far) actually claiming any expertise in this area, I have no particular reason to lie about it, and no one has seriously suggested that I am not an expert, probably because it's fairly evident that, hey, my English is pretty good.
Therefore my opinions (and the opinions of other experts I have supposedly consulted) are perfectly valid inasmuch as you trust that I am acting in good faith with regard to this issue. Do you believe I am attempting to mislead?
If I were you, I'd have probably derailed this guy's opinion because his capitalization is ass, and that there needs to be a period at the end. Then I'd claim that this invalidates his entire opinion on everything because clearly this guy's English expertise is not up to par.
Also, considering his grasp of English is according to you "equivalent to yours or better", that means that at best, you're as good as this guy, so clearly your English expertise must be equally bad as well.
His usage of English is actually quite fluent there, and the point he makes is cogent. Lackadaisical capitalization and the missing terminal period are certainly not relevant critiques of a casual IM conversation. (Moreover his use of punctuation, even in that short excerpt, is actually quite adept.) Note that I have not criticized anyone here for trivialities such as capitalization, punctuation, or speaking informally.
Aaand thank you for the blatant ad hominem at the end. Way to derail your own argument.
Though it was definitely my intent to be scornful to Mr. Kelly R. Flewin (and rightfully so, in my opinion, as his post was execrable and he needed to be told more than once), it wasn't ad hominem. Subtle but relevant distinctions follow.
Please turn to page 2,939,314 of the English edition of the hivemind wikigod: ad hominem "is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it." I was clearly not attempting to negate the truth of any claim, as Mr. Kelly R. Flewin didn't make one. At least, I don't see one. He certainly didn't say anything the least bit relevant to the suggestion put forth in the OP or the ensuing discussion. As such, while pointing out that his comments were utterly devoid of value was, perhaps, a bit childish, it was obviously not a component of my rhetorical argument, which I had expounded upon in excruciating detail prior, including in part within that very post.
Assuming, however, that Mr. Kelly R. Flewin intended his comments to be on-topic (forgive me if this assumption is incorrect), his words do constitute argumentum ad hominem, as he is clearly attempting to undermine my position, not with well-reasoned argument, but rather by expressing his opinion that I am a shit, or something of that nature.
Again, I think it is perfectly clear my jab at Mr. Kelly R. Flewin (by quoting my friend's opinion of him) was intended only to point out that he made a terrible post, which he did, and that he was generally a dick by extension. So, I may have derailed the thread a bit, but not my argument.
Bottom line: Stop acting like the intellectual high ground
I think you mean "stop acting like you have the intellectual high ground." If at any time I don't actually have it, I will.
and at least give others the chance to make their points without immediately dismissing them.
I only immediately dismiss those arguments that are immediately dismissible. Entertaining bad or obviously incorrect arguments is usually a waste of time.
You're mostly just coming off as a smug, arrogant butthole here.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man.
Edit by FractalFusion: Three posts merged. Images deleted for being disruptive and unnecessary to the discussion at hand.
Unnecessarily editing and merging my three posts is actually far more destructive and disruptive to this thread than my satirical use of these four small images:
The use of images on these forums is allowed, as is the use of satire. It's not as if I make a habit of filling my posts with pointless images, nor do I consider the images I used above to be pointless. They contributed to an overall tone was intended to convey a certain amount of exasperated derision. It is clear you have abused your position as a moderator on these forums to censor me because you have a personal grudge against me. This is evident from your mystifying overreaction to what amounted to a neutral statement of fact and some grammar and spelling corrections earlier in this thread, a thread which, I remind you, is essentially about preferred English grammar.
Multiple posting is also allowed on these forums. The Forum Rules mention "Disruptive posting is not allowed. This includes spamming, making multiple useless topics or posts, or repeatedly going off-topic in a topical thread. In extreme cases, disruptive members will be banned." My posts, however, clearly do not violate any of those rules. Each of my posts was lengthy and substantive, on-topic, and there was a significant delay between each of them. (You have conveniently concealed the timing of my posts by merging them.)
Furthermore, you have actually lowered the quality of this thread by making it harder to read. I separated my posts into "digestible bites" because each of them was fairly long, and they were responses to different people (or sets of people.) The now merged triple post is ridiculously long and much more difficult to parse. There is a reason text is commonly organized into various structures such as words, sentences, paragraphs, posts, chapters, and what have you. Organization serves as a guide to the reader and allows the writer to indicate pace, group related passages, suggest natural stopping points where a reader may take a moment to reflect, and more. I organized my posts the way I did because that is how I preferred to read them, and wanted them read.
I am honestly shocked and appalled at your abuse of power. If you have any regard whatsoever for inalienable human rights such as freedom of expression even and especially when you disagree with that expression, you must restore my posts. Of course, you won't, but that's because you are a petty, vindictive, power hungry despot. I dare you to prove me wrong, coward.
----
"This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance."
- Philip K. Dick
Pointless Boy:
Just because you are an "English expert" doesn't mean that your opinion is the only one valid in this thread.
True, in theory, but as I am the only person (in this thread, so far) to both claim expertise and express a strong preference, my opinion is the only one that matters (in this thread, so far.)
Your opinion, for example -- solely regarding "what sounds best to a proficient native speaker" -- doesn't matter. You are not a native speaker of English. Though your grasp of conversational English is great, you frequently make obvious errors that betray you. You say things like "is the only one valid" which sounds stilted and unnatural to native speakers. (It should be "is the only valid one", if you care.) Most of your exposure to English likely comes from tv, movies, video games, and the internet. You simply don't have the mastery of English necessary to have a meaningful opinion about the very specific issue brought up in my OP.
Now, if you disagree with the idea that "TASVideos, wherever it uses English (or any language), should endeavor to use the best sounding and most correct phrasing possible, in order to facilitate communication and so as not to needlessly promulgate erroneous usage", then say so. But if not, you should defer to actual experts to make judgments like the one in the OP. You can rest assured I will happily defer to you on all stylistic judgments related to Spanish, or whatever your native language may be. (I assume it is Spanish because you claim to be from Chile.)
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Mr. Kelly R. Flewin,
I do not believe you came to this thread in good faith and with intent to express a constructive opinion about the matter put forth in the OP.
Opinions are much like arseholes. Everyone has one and they usually stink.
It is difficult to interpret this as anything but an ad hominem attack. It doesn't offend me, but it does bother me that you might think this is a valid method of debate.
That being said, the danger of riding a high horse is finding ones parachute fails on the way down.
This faux folksy colloquial wisdom is as cryptic as it is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
This is a Global community, not a small Private Club with exclusive membership to the privledged ones.
I am confused by this comment. It suggests you believe that I think TASVideos is (or should be) a "small Private Club" and that I should be one of the "privledged" members. (The correct spelling is privileged, by the way. To get back to the actual point of the thread for a moment, I believe this error, among others, precludes you from plausibly representing yourself as an expert on English usage and style, despite British English apparently being your native language.)
Anyway, I don't see where I have expressed or even implied such a preposterous idea, so your wild accusation is hard to interpret.
If you don't like it, no one is forcing you to stay here or be a part of the community in any respect.
It is difficult to interpret this as anything but a passive-aggressive attack, and a misplaced one at that, considering that I appear to like, enjoy, and respect (most of) TASVideos enough to spend time and effort attempting to improve it. As I mentioned previously, I believe TASVideos, wherever it uses English (or any language), should endeavor to use the best sounding and most correct phrasing possible, in order to facilitate communication and so as not to needlessly promulgate erroneous usage.
Recall when CoolKirby coolly mentioned, "Newcomers are the ones that are going to look in that corner and this graphic helps them form an opinion of our site." I, too, believe it is important for TASVideos to put its best foot forward -- something which you are assuredly failing to do right now -- and to that end I suggested a minor correction to a prominent portion of the site. Do you have anything to add to that discussion? (Though, as I've explained, your opinion on the stylistic merits of the phrasing itself is not likely to be persuasive, you might still say something like, "I like the look of the matching line lengths. All other things being equal, I support the change on the basis of visual appeal.")
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[Images deleted]
TRIPLE POST ALERT CALL THE COPS
[Images deleted]
Agreement and an interesting point from a friend of mine whose grasp of English is likely equivalent to mine or better:
(12:57:29 AM) : i like "just aren't enough" quite a bit better. "are just not enough" is either a stilted way to say the former OR it makes a false claim: that human skills can 'nearly' match a TAS
And because he deserves it:
(12:58:44 AM) : lol Mr. Kelly R. Flewin is amazing
(12:58:48 AM) : what a horrible, horrible post
(12:58:49 AM) : lmao
----
Edit by FractalFusion: Three posts merged. Images deleted for being disruptive and unnecessary to the discussion at hand.
Are we arguing semantics here? :|
"just aren't enough" vs "just are not enough"?
I'm inclined towards the later (yes, I know it's spelled latter, but later sounds better ^_^)...
Also, tasvideos is an international site, so IMO it would be better to base a decision of what all members, native British or American or not, thinks. Both are proper english...
I think you've already disqualified yourself as a plausible expert, so your opinion -- solely regarding "what sounds best to a proficient native speaker" -- doesn't matter. It also doesn't seem like you read the entirety of my posts, as I already addressed the possibility that my opinion differs substantially from that of a British English expert, and mentioned that the British English expert I consulted agreed with me.
So it appears there is no controversy with respect to showing favoritism to one dialect of English over another. (I think we are all agreed the only dialects we need to consider are American English and British English, as they are the most globally dominant English dialects and the de facto standards for international communication in English.)
snorlax wrote:
"When human skills are just not enough" implies that human skills are insufficient for the task at hand. "When human skills just aren't/are not enough" implies that human skills do nothing, other than fall short when you use them. I say we leave it as is.
None of the experts I have consulted (four Americans, including myself, and one Brit) agrees with you. All five of us find both phrases to be entirely equivalent in meaning, but favor "when human skills just aren't enough" because it sounds more natural and fluent. It "just sounds better."
I also consulted thirteen other native speakers who I don't consider to be experts (so I find their opinions less persuasive, but they are fluent nonetheless), and none of them made the distinction that you did. There also wasn't a consensus among them which version of the phrase sounded better, though it is interesting to note none of them strongly favored the current version. (Also, everyone consulted, expert and nonexpert alike, noted that the uncontracted "when human skill just are not enough" sounds unnatural.)
So far, it appears people either have a weak preference for the current version, no preference at all, or a strong preference for my version.
FractalFusion wrote:
The opening post could be considered marginally funny, but here you are going way too far. There are things you should not say, and these are a few of them.
Why shouldn't I say them? I didn't call him stupid. I called him less expert in English than me, which is very relevant to this discussion. Perhaps it was unnecessary to point out his errors, but I find people often have inflated opinions of their own expertise in almost every field. Nonexperts in particular fall prey to this phenomenon -- as is well attested in the literature -- so I thought it prudent to make self-evident his lack of expertise. That being said, his grasp of conversational English, though riddled with various grammatical and spelling errors, is excellent. His English is certainly better than any nonnative language I've ever attempted to learn.
DarkMoon wrote:
Why isn't it in Spanish? Y'all are a bunch of racists.
I fully support a Spanish translation of the site, though I'm not going to be the one to make it (or make judgments about what sounds best in Spanish), as my Spanish sucks.
If justifying (ie. aligning left and right) the two lines is desired, there's no need to change the contents of the text simply to achieve that effect. Any sufficiently advanced text editor (or, in this case, any image manipulation program with a sufficiently advanced text object) will allow you to justify the text by automatically adjusting the font spacing. It will look good as long as the two lines were even marginally close in length to each other to begin with.
My post was about more than looking good, though. It was also about sounding good. (In fact, it was primarily about sounding good. If you reread my post, you will note the pleasing visual symmetry that resulted from my suggestion was an "added bonus", not the stated goal.)
I want the motto and descriptive blurb to both look and sound good. As it stands, they both look and sound bad, to me. And as a highly proficient native speaker of American English, and as someone that consulted a highly proficient native speaker of British English, my opinion really and truly is the only one -- so far expressed in this thread -- that should matter, assuming you take at face value my claims of being an English expert, and insofar as you believe a general consensus would exist between me and other experts with regards to this issue. (Note that an argument from authority, though often universally decried on the internet as fallacious, is perfectly valid in this case.)
If you wish to represent yourself as an English expert, and your opinion differs substantially from my own, then I am prepared to debate the merits of your opinions, and perhaps even be swayed by them. Or if you don't want to engage in constructive argument, you may attempt to weaken my position by attacking my presumption of expertise, perhaps, for example, by citing my nonstandard use of punctuation in and around quotation marks. (Honestly, though, I wouldn't advise it.)
EDIT: It's also worth pointing out that the text in question isn't currently represented graphically, so if you agree the visual symmetry is pleasing, there is some merit to using phrases that happen to line up when displayed under default browser settings. If there is an uncomplicated cross-browser method for achieving justified alignment, or including the title, subtitle, and motto in the logo graphic is seen as a valid option, then obviously the visual symmetry argument alone shouldn't motivate a change.
I approve "video game" thing, but all that 's don't need to be in the motto.
It's not about what "needs to be", it's about what sounds best to a proficient native speaker. I'm a well-read native speaker of American English. It's a reasonable assumption that my lifetime of experience with the language has better prepared me to make judgments of English aesthetics than yours.
For example, just in this thread you have committed numerous blunders:
I approve "video game" thing should be I approve the "video game" thing.
all that 's don't need to be should be that 's doesn't need to be. (Or, if there were more than one 's, all those 's don't need to be.)
when cursor hovers should be when the cursor hovers.
Would be genious should be Would be genius.
Since you are (I assume, based on your location information) a native Russian, a logical explanation exists for why your English is worse than mine. If you believe I am acting in good faith, it would be reasonable for you to defer to my opinion on this issue.
Now, if a proficient native speaker of British English came along and said, "I disagree, on this side of the pond we prefer the motto the way it is currently written," then perhaps we could have a discussion about whether pleasing symmetry was a good enough reason to show favoritism to American English in this instance. But as it happens, I consulted a proficient native speaker of British English, and he agrees with me.
The current TASVideos motto, "When human skills are just not enough", sounds stilted and unnatural. "When human skills just aren't enough" is the more fluent and aesthetic version of the phrase.
And while we're on the subject of the NW corner of the homepage, "Tool-assisted game movies" seems under specified and misleading. Surely that should be "Tool-assisted video game movies"?
And as an added bonus, if you implement both my changes, the lengths of both lines match up perfectly, giving very pleasing symmetry.
Old and bustedThe new hotness
I'm not saying you're dumb if you disagree with me, but you're dumb if you disagree with me.
Link to video
Apologies if this is not relevant or has already been discussed. Seen in the SDA thread, glitch doesn't seem to be used in most recent any% movie.
Blizzard did a lot right with Diablo 3, in terms of duplicating Diablo 2's gameplay and removing many of the annoying elements. But there are also sooo many completely boneheaded design decisions that it really makes you wonder how people get paid to make one terrible choice after another, and how nobody else objected at any point during design and development.
The skill system is a complete change from D2, and though it's different, it's fine. The main annoyance with the skill system in D2 was that you were heavily penalized for experimenting, which is obviously terrible. Simply giving players unlimited respecs would have completely solved that problem. D3's limited skill selection is certainly more restrictive than D2, and lowers the skill cap considerably, but I don't object to the designers drifting away from the standard skill tree, which can be argued has structural issues unrelated to whether or not you can respec.
Itemization is completely imbalanced in D3. D3 was always going to be a game about killing lots of stuff over and over again and hoping to get good drops. If you object to that particular type of gameplay (and I'm fine if you do), you're just playing the wrong game. If you don't like farming items, don't play Diablo. But the frequency and level range at which items drop in D3 is absolutely terrible.
The vast majority of stuff that you drop in D3 is going to be 8-12 levels below you, and it can't possibly be relevant to you other than putting it up on the auction house for cheap. This has the effect of flooding the auction house with cheap and easy items, essentially allowing anyone to "twink" themselves for very little cost or effort, simply by visiting the auction house.
I'm not opposed to the idea of the auction house per se, but when the 100% best way to progress through the game -- from 1-60, through all difficulty levels -- is to use your abundant excess gold to buy cheap stuff other players flood the AH with, then the designers have failed. Of course, part of the reason the AH is "too good" is because blues (magic items, in D2 lingo) are WAY too good, and legendaries (uniques) SUCK.
It's as if the best legendary items you can get in D3 are equivalent to exceptional uniques from D2, while blues can (and do) drop at elite. The disparity is THAT big. But blues are very common drops, while legendaries are exceedingly rare. So the exceedingly rare items just SUCK. They are TERRIBLE. But the really common items are AWESOME. They are easy to get and anyone can get them. The auction house is full of them. Everything is ass backwards, and dropping legendaries has none of the excitement that dropping uniques had in D2. In fact, you would prefer to never ever drop a legendary item.
Something else that is completely and utterly backwards is relative monster difficulty in Inferno. Inferno mobs are much, much, MUCH harder than the ACTUAL GAME BOSSES. For example, after you beat Diablo in Hell, if you could somehow magically teleport to Diablo in Inferno, you would be able to beat him. This is not hyperbole, and it's true for every single boss in the game, except The Butcher, who is the only boss with an enrage timer (so his fight is a DPS check, which you need a certain fairly low level of gear to pass.)
The Inferno bosses have no new mechanics, and their existing mechanics are all very robotic, easy to learn, and require nothing resembling strategy or teamwork to master. The only way they differ from their Hell counterparts is they have more HP and more damage. That's the way D2 did it, and I guess it would be OK if D3 did it the exact same way (but you hope the designers would have found a way to improve upon it ...), but D3 actually does it far worse. In D2 bosses were at least a gear check. In D3 they are a nothing check. Are you in Hell? Congratulations, you can beat all the Inferno bosses. You can't GET to them, but, hey, you could walk all over them if you could.
A1 Inferno actually is fine. The mob difficulty is ramped way up, elites spawn with some crazy combos of affixes, and it's legitimately difficult to work your way through it the first time. Then you get to The Butcher fight, and he enrages after 3 minutes and spanks you. You eventually realize you need to just spec max DPS, maybe gear up a bit, and he goes down smooth. Compare that to Act 2.
When you set foot in Act 2 for the first time, you are going to get SMASHED. The mobs are impossibly difficult. You need much better gear to be able to get past them. That's reasonable, I have no problem with a difficult game, nor am I morally opposed to the idea of gear checks as a means of impeding progress (though it's admittedly lazy design if that's all your game's got.) But then you get to Magda, and ... you trash her. If you can get to Magda legitimately, you will almost certainly utterly destroy her the first time you try. It will not be a challenge. Magda (and every Inferno boss except The Butcher) is simply easier (and MUCH easier) than the mobs you have to wade through to get to her. The bosses are an absolute joke.
Never mind that Blizzard really, REALLY made it sound like Inferno was going to be difficult and awesome and hardcore, and we were all in store for some amazing new gameplay mechanics, and the game doesn't really start till Inferno, etc., etc. They talked it up BIGTIME in interviews and previews and the like. (They said things like "people are going to wipe for weeks and weeks on the first boss" and "it will be months before Inferno is beaten.") Never mind that. It's terrible simply from an aesthetic perspective that the actual bosses of the game, purportedly the strongest demons in the world, would all get literally destroyed by trash mobs.
Some people (including blue posters) have been trying to defend this terrible design by saying stuff like, "Well we've/they've been saying the whole time we/they didn't want D3 to be like D2 where you just run bosses over and over again for gear. Of course the Inferno bosses are going to be easy, they drop trash." That reasoning is soooooooo dumb.
First of all, I really fail to see how endlessly farming elites is any different from endlessly farming bosses. At least killing a boss feels epic in some sense. Farming elites is way more frustrating because you never know when some mob is going to spawn with some impossibly retarded combination of affixes. But let's ignore that. Let's say farming bosses is categorically off the table.
Ok, what does boss difficulty have to do with what they drop? Bosses could drop jack shit nothing at all and still be the hardest fights in the game. They should be some of the hardest fights in the game. Even if they dropped nothing, players would still want to beat them because that's how you advance in the game.
Also, it's so trivial to make boss drops awesome without making them farmable. Make them drop some one time use item (e.g. Alkor's potion in D2), or an item you can only have one of (e.g. Annihilus in D2), or only make them drop something the first time you kill them, etc. If Blizzard was so irrationally opposed to the concept of boss farming, there was still absolutely no reason to make the Inferno bosses absurdly easy.
Or they could have done something really awesome like make bosses get harder every time you kill them, or after you kill a boss for the quest, start making them spawn with bonus affixes, or make it so boss loot tables suck at first but scale up faster with Nephalim Valor, so if you wanted to farm them, you'd definitely want to get 5 charges of NV first (which turns a "boss farm" into "just playing the game for a while, and killing a boss at the end"), etc. etc. There were a MILLION awesome ideas Blizzard could have done here, and they somehow designed, tested, and sold the hell out of an obviously terrible and disappointing one.
Then there's the attitude of all the publicly facing Blizzard employees. As I mentioned before, they talked up Inferno like nobody's business. It was guaranteed to be super hard and it would be months before anyone could beat it. Turns out they were completely wrong because the top players just corpse hopped through all of Inferno, effectively skipping past all of the impossibly difficult mobs, and fought the ridiculously simple and underpowered bosses with trash gear.
Athene hit 60 24 hours after launch. Method beat Inferno Diablo in something like 80. Blizzard screwed the pooch. And instead of admitting they oversold the game and completely underestimated the ingenuity and dedication of their playerbase, and promising to make it right in the expansion, blue posts from the likes of Bashiok and others have been condescending and insulting, the equivalent of "Well that's how no life faggots play the game, but if you play it the right way it's hard, this is the best game ever and all of you are stupid."
Umm, Inferno mode was explicitly FOR hardcore gamers. You can't talk up Inferno mode for months saying how it's going to be the pinnacle of gaming challenges and then whine "that's not how you are supposed to play the game" when you get handed your ass three days after launch. I mean, you CAN, but then you'd be the idiots at Blizzard.
And don't even get me started on the auction house. (The interface, not the concept.) It's a fucking unmitigated disaster.
I could go on for hours, here, but I'm getting angry just thinking about all the ways I'm pissed off at how bad D3 is.
IronSlayer and Kyrsimys argue fruitlessly about the nature of science fiction and various books' classifications
There is a fundamental flaw in your understanding of Suvin's definition that renders much of your discussion moot. It doesn't help that Swirski (assuming Kyrsimys has represented his position accurately) also misunderstands Suvin's definition.
As an example, is The Time Machine science fiction or fantasy? It is undeniably science fiction according to Suvin, despite Swirski's erroneous objections, because H.G. Wells' empirical framework differed from our own! (One would think this point would be painfully obvious, but alas.)
The "model reader" of The Time Machine would be a contemporary of H.G. Wells, who would not have the benefit of the 115 years of scientific endeavor we've experienced since the book was written. We know that scientific consensus agrees time travel of a sort resembling that in The Time Machine is "fantasy," but H.G. Wells certainly didn't know that. In 1895, the fantastic conceit that H. G. Wells asked his readers to accept as the foundation of his novel (this is known as "suspension of disbelief") was plausible for his time. He established a conceivable premise, then followed the logical implications of that premise in a world that was otherwise indistinguishable from that of his model readers. Ergo, science fiction.
Authors can also ask readers to suspend disbelief for a premise that is known to be impossible, and/or takes place in a setting that is clearly distinguishable from the model reader's universe. Such stories are known as fantasy. Note that fantasy authors still have the responsibility of following the logical implications of their premises and settings, and failure to do by any author of any genre is just the sign of a bad writer. (See J.K. Rowling, Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown, Dan Simmons, among countless others.)
The only character that still seems fresh is Dany, and she's probably the reason I'll eventually finish reading the books.
This just goes to show there's no accounting for taste. Dany is by far the least interesting character to me, as her characterization is one of the least compelling and least consistent, while her narrative is the most dominated by deus ex machina.
The use of images on these forums is allowed, as is the use of satire. It's not as if I make a habit of filling my posts with pointless images, nor do I consider the images I used above to be pointless. They contributed to an overall tone was intended to convey a certain amount of exasperated derision. It is clear you have abused your position as a moderator on these forums to censor me because you have a personal grudge against me. This is evident from your mystifying overreaction to what amounted to a neutral statement of fact and some grammar and spelling corrections earlier in this thread, a thread which, I remind you, is essentially about preferred English grammar.
Multiple posting is also allowed on these forums. The Forum Rules mention "Disruptive posting is not allowed. This includes spamming, making multiple useless topics or posts, or repeatedly going off-topic in a topical thread. In extreme cases, disruptive members will be banned." My posts, however, clearly do not violate any of those rules. Each of my posts was lengthy and substantive, on-topic, and there was a significant delay between each of them. (You have conveniently concealed the timing of my posts by merging them.)
Furthermore, you have actually lowered the quality of this thread by making it harder to read. I separated my posts into "digestible bites" because each of them was fairly long, and they were responses to different people (or sets of people.) The now merged triple post is ridiculously long and much more difficult to parse. There is a reason text is commonly organized into various structures such as words, sentences, paragraphs, posts, chapters, and what have you. Organization serves as a guide to the reader and allows the writer to indicate pace, group related passages, suggest natural stopping points where a reader may take a moment to reflect, and more. I organized my posts the way I did because that is how I preferred to read them, and wanted them read.
I am honestly shocked and appalled at your abuse of power. If you have any regard whatsoever for inalienable human rights such as freedom of expression even and especially when you disagree with that expression, you must restore my posts. Of course, you won't, but that's because you are a petty, vindictive, power hungry despot. I dare you to prove me wrong, coward.
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"This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance."
- Philip K. Dick
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I'm not saying you're dumb if you disagree with me, but you're dumb if you disagree with me.
