Where do we go from here?

[Prak]

For what it's worth, the minirpg I wrote last December, Yule Lads, is still on the front page of IMOI with almost 2300 views and no replies. I could really use some feedback on that.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Personally, I'm glad there's an uptick in activity right now. At the moment I'm trying to get closer to actually finishing my heartbreaker. Ancient gave me the go-ahead to use Space Madness! as the base system and I'm hacking away at that.

[infected slut princess]

LOL

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

God, I love every single post ISP makes.

[Zinegata]

Thanks too fbmf. You're the real reason the Den has lasted this long.

And I think this will be my last post here too. I just don't see the value anymore. I've moved on years ago, and I suspect most people I follow have too.

That said, one last observation for any would-be designers, given this is originally a designer's forum:

However, I absolutely wouldn't post it here. There's no reason to. Back in the day when I first showed up here, I was excited to talk about my ideas and ask questions and learn from folk, because Frank's thoughts on game design were what led me here.

Then I got shat on left and right constantly, with the aforementioned acerbic responses. And sure, it's part of the community and all that, but honestly? It's fucking exhausting to deal with, especially when it isn't followed with anything resembling "and this is how you could do better."

Nope, just: eat a barrel of cocks, your ideas are shit, turtles all the way down.

The Den's original sin was pretty much this. It subscribed to the idea that is now popularly called "Radical Honesty". Its premise is that by being completely honest - even to the point of being an asshole - you'd be able to greatly improve your design and not come up with "obvious" failures like the Martial Classes being so weak compared to the Magic classes in 3.X.

Real game design is instead a lot of work, and most of that work isn't coming up with new mechanics or subsystems. Instead most of the real designer's time is spent in testing. You need to see how the game actually performs with people who are not your friends or sycophants.

And if you think the Den is harsh, then you simply haven't tested enough. There is nothing more draining to a designer's ego than actual feedback from strangers. Not because said strangers are assholes (very few testers actually make a point to be mean), but because said strangers will make it very obvious how uninteresting, shitty, and incomplete your design really is. Very few testers will actively hate or rant about a design, but many will make it clear using their simple body language that they are bored and uninspired by it; and their indifference is going to be far more painful than any of the hate that was ever spewed here.

Which brings me to what I've come to realize about professional game designers - guys who actually make good games, and are not just the ego-driven guys who start a Kickstarter and run a cult decrying anyone who can't see their "genius". Those are a dime a dozen these days.

Real designers are honest, but they are first and foremost honest to themselves. They don't try to hide their insecurities by shitting on other people's designs. They're instead their own biggest critic.

And because of that, paradoxically, real designers are kind. Because they know they aren't perfect. They know that for every hit game, they have dozens or even hundred more awful prototypes that should never see the light of day. The ones who forget this, and start believing their own hype, are the ones who often end up faltering and fading into obscurity.

Because in the end, gaming is about bringing people together and giving them a good time. You aren't very likely to achieve that when your host is an insecure brat shitting on everyone else.

[GnomeWorks]

The Den's original sin was pretty much this. It subscribed to the idea that is now popularly called "Radical Honesty". Its premise is that by being completely honest - even to the point of being an asshole - you'd be able to greatly improve your design and not come up with "obvious" failures like the Martial Classes being so weak compared to the Magic classes in 3.X.

There is a world of difference between telling someone their design is bad, for reasons X, Y, and Z; and telling someone their design is bad, that they should eat a barrel of cocks, and fuck off forever.

The first is useful. The second is acerbic. Whether the Den was the first and transitioned to the second over time, or has always been the second, seems academic.

And if you think the Den is harsh, then you simply haven't tested enough.

One of the reasons I enjoyed this place, at least for the first couple years, was because of the brutally-honest feedback. If one is to improve, one needs that kind of straight-forward talk. None of the wishy-washy "if it works for your table" or the OSR bullshit of "who the fuck needs rules just make shit up," the Den is/was a crucible for design and mechanics.

What people don't need is to be told to eat a barrel of cocks when they suggest something that's bad, or insinuations that they're racist when they disagree with someone's take on free will (fuck you, Kaelik, you're a godsdamned piece of shit).

Telling idiots like silva to fuck off? Absolutely. If someone makes it clear they're not interested in improving, then insult away. I'm down with that. But there are plenty of folk around here who are interested in improving their work, that don't deserve that kind of treatment.

You can be harsh on the designs without being an assclown to the designer.

[Zinegata]

One of the reasons I enjoyed this place, at least for the first couple years, was because of the brutally-honest feedback.

You're unfortunately missing the point, and are still chasing after the mirage.

The Den's feedback was brutal, but rarely honest. This idea it championed "brutally honest" feedback is in itself a myth.

And that's because honesty is premised on the facts. Someone can be very sincere and truly believe every word they say, but if they're insisting that the Earth is flat contrary to all evidence presented then that person is very clearly not honest and is just talking out of their ass.

Because at the end of the day, very few people in the Den really knew how to design a game properly. It was never a forum for professional designers. It was instead primarily a forum of people who aspired to be designers, but who had very little interaction with real designers.

Real designers for instance basically live their lives around conventions, because cons are prime opportunities to test and market their designs. And yet there is very little talk in the Den about attending conventions. Instead the prevailing attitude is somewhere along the lines of "We know better, all these current designers suck", even though the Den has precious little output to prove this premise.

Likewise, real testing has completely no resemblance to the fiction promoted here that all you need is "brutal honesty". I've seen how a truly successful designer tests a game, and I've followed his methods for my own try. The Den's brutality is nothing more than feeble rambling in comparison to the real thing.

Genuine and honest testing is instead emotionally devastating to the designer because testers will not hide their complete and utter indifference to your design. Even if they give you positive feedback afterwards, and even if they go through the motions of playing the game, their body language cannot hide how they really feel about your game. If they're bored out of their skulls, you'll know just by the lifeless way they roll dice.

Indeed, see all of the material published in the Den with basically zero feedback? The sort that makes the "designer" wonder why nobody is saying anything? That is the real sign of a shitty design in the actual industry. Because it bored people so much they couldn't even be made to care to give feedback.

By contrast people who do enjoy your game won't give you feedback or praise you. They will not tell you what works or what doesn't. Instead they'll be too busy enjoying the game to give you feedback. The real winners - the ones that become big hits - are the games that people ask you to bring or run again without needing to mention it a few days after the test.

You, in fact, have to watch the emotional reactions of players to be a good designer. You need to connect to the players and figure out how to give them positive emotions.

Testers who rant angrily about games by contrast are the extreme exception, and often they're just people with an axe to grind so their feedback will be just the same hot mess regardless if the game is actually good or bad. .

That's why the Den's "brutal honesty" was in fact just nothing more than an excuse to hide the fact that this isn't really a forum for designers, but a forum for wannabe designers with an axe to grind. That's why it was never actually useful for figuring out if a game was actually good or bad. That's why it simply got louder and more toxic as output failed to materialize. People here weren't honest enough to admit that they were wildly exaggerating their own design chops to be making sweeping judgments about the games they critiqued to death.

Because again, games at the end of the day is about giving people a good time. And that means giving them positive emotions to feel. You can't argue your way to making other people happy. People who try that are just the creepy nerds at the game store trying to argue newcomers into playing their 2E game, even when said newcomers are clearly bored out of their skulls just listening to the arguments.

By contrast, you'll probably have a much better chance of making new friends and playing with more people if you simply sit down and play. Ask them what quick and short game they like. Play it with them even if you don't like the game that much. Don't be an ass. Watch how they act, not just what they say.

In short, recognize that you should perhaps be taking into consideration how make other people feel better, instead of how to use other people to make yourself feel better.

Do that, and you will literally be a much better designer than the vast majority of people aspiring to be designers.

[angelfromanotherpin]

And that's because honesty is premised on the facts. Someone can be very sincere and truly believe every word they say, but if they're insisting that the Earth is flat contrary to all evidence presented then that person is very clearly not honest and is just talking out of their ass.

Learn English, try again.

[Zinegata]

And that's because honesty is premised on the facts. Someone can be very sincere and truly believe every word they say, but if they're insisting that the Earth is flat contrary to all evidence presented then that person is very clearly not honest and is just talking out of their ass.

Learn English, try again.

Sorry but Google says sincere can be “proceeding from genuine feelings.”

But hey keep on being shitty people. I’ve really come to not expect better.

[Thaluikhain]

I think the issue was that people can be honest and totally wrong at the same time.

[merc1138]

I think the issue was that people can be honest and totally wrong at the same time.

That's certainly true, but I don't think it's the problem here. Want an example of the real problem here? Just look up a couple of replies:

Learn English, try again.

Crap like this is the problem with TGDMB. When I first heard about this forum, I thought "cool a bunch of people discussing mechanics and ideas without just patting eachother on the back". The problem is a large number of users aren't grognards in the sense of being stuck in insisting that D&D 1e or 2e are still the best thing since sliced bread and praying at least once a week to their Gygax shrines. It's the fact that a large number of users here, and unfortunately some of the most frequent posters are stuck in the late 90's typical shitlord forum poster mentality. An annoyingly high number of posts on this site remind me of specifically quake 2 and SC:BW forum users bickering with eachother, with only the slightest advancement in decorum that they aren't just outright cussing eachother out. Someone else in this thread used the word acerbic as a descriptor, that's a hell of an understatement. The fact that "eat a bag of dicks" is treated as some sort of inside joke... clearly you can't expect growth with that being the case.

As far as cutting out the non gaming section, just rip the band-aid off and do it already. The idea that forums or even other topic specific discussion outlets really need that is just silly. And if fbmf is really handling the entirety of the modding here on his own... set some standards and find a couple mods to assist. Once the asshats are cleaned up, either the forum will die quicker(and if the place really relied on those people and that discussion, what's the point?) than the slow spin down the drain it's currently in and just be less of an administrative headache in the long run, or actually see some activity from other users instead of so many lurkers being completely uninterested in the thought of even participating here.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Zinegata, you're full of shit. How on earth are you going to get "real" feedback from "real" players if that can only be done IRL? If that's your position, then of course anything posted on the internet is going to be bullshit to you in comparison. What the fuck, man? It's like you were trying to connect the dots and say that the internet isn't a good medium for discussing tabletop design, but you stopped right at the end in favor of "feels not reals" posting, and some weird baggage about people here not making anything and having no friends, despite the years of evidence to the contrary.

Here, let me condense your post into something meaningful:
"Playtest your game with real people."

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think the issue was that people can be honest and totally wrong at the same time.

That's certainly true, but I don't think it's the problem here. Want an example of the real problem here? Just look up a couple of replies:

Learn English, try again.

Oh piss off. Zinegata made a semantic argument based on a false definition of a word (by his own definition, this makes him dishonest) while insulting most of the Den. The problem is not the tone in which someone returns his insults while pointing out that his argument is unsound. The problem (if there is one) is you standing up for one person who throw insults while tone-policing another person who throws insults based on I-do-not-know-nor-do-I-care-why. If you enjoy that kind of thing, you can find many like-minded individuals on rpg.net.

[owlassociate]

Damn zinegata, you ever consider that the people on this forum actually enjoy the discussions here and, if that's not you, you are fully capable of leaving? Flailing around insulting everyone here is not going to change anything on this forum or endear anyone to your way of thinking. I'm really not sure what the point of your posts are beyond telling everyone here that you don't like the forum and you think the posters are stupid, which is exactly the kind of toxic behaviour you're trying to denounce in your posts. Maybe, if you'd like to improve quality of discussion on this site, you're the one that should stop posting.

[Zinegata]

Zinegata, you're full of shit. How on earth are you going to get "real" feedback from "real" players if that can only be done IRL?

Easy. As I said - Play an actual fucking game instead of posturing on a forum. It doesn't have to be face to face, there are like dozens of video tools that let you play online now. Pay attention to how players actually react.

Then bring your actual game experiences and observations to the discussion.

You're not a grandpa, are you? You do know what a webcam is, yes? Are you aware that real designers nowadays in fact love the fact that it's so easy to record game sessions on video, so they can pore over the footage like a sports coach scouting an opposing team?

The problem again, is that you and the insecure clowns here aren't designers. That's why your methodology to "design" is to be the loudest and most obnoxious Monday Morning Quarterback possible.

Worse, you're the kind of Monday Morning Quarterback who doesn't even watch the actual football game, much less play one. Instead you act offended and mystified when it's suggested that maybe you should play or watch the actual fucking game first before commenting on how it sucks.

That's why your ending zinger:

"Playtest your game with real people."

Really reflects badly on you. Because you're not doing it. You're finding every excuse to not do it.

Because you're too fucking arrogant to admit that you're nothing more than a Monday Morning Quarterback, and are absolutely threatened and terrified when someone with any real chops show up.

Damn zinegata, you ever consider that the people on this forum actually enjoy the discussions here and, if that's not you, you are fully capable of leaving?

Except the post isn't meant for the insecure jokers who are all hot and bothered by my posting.

I was instead replying to a guy who was specifically bemoaning how the Den is failing their expectations. It's addressed to GnomeWorks. Indeed I told him it was probably my last post ever before all you clowns decided to overreact.

Because again: I'm not trying to save people who want to stay miserable. As I told another poster here: If you want to stay a shitty person, that's your choice. I don't expect better.

That you and other posters ended up demonstrating the exact sort of insecure "I'm not an expert, but I'll run my mouth off anyway and shout LOUDER until I win" bullshit that made the Den toxic - a fact that other posters have picked up on - is merely you hanging yourselves with your own self-inflicted misery.

Indeed, it's really telling how so many of you insecure clowns clearly got the message I was telling GnomeWorks despite one shitty person claiming that my English is bad because he wants to remove all nuance from the English language

Which really points to why all the people with some semblance of self-awareness have either gone into lurking or left altogether. You might find value in your little pissing contests, and look back fondly at all the time you've spent here.

But if someone wants to be a serious designer or even just a better hobbyist designer then this place clearly isn't it. You can't argue you way into becoming a better designer. You actually have to play games with actual people.

[merc1138]

I think the issue was that people can be honest and totally wrong at the same time.

That's certainly true, but I don't think it's the problem here. Want an example of the real problem here? Just look up a couple of replies:

Learn English, try again.

Oh piss off. Zinegata made a semantic argument based on a false definition of a word (by his own definition, this makes him dishonest) while insulting most of the Den. The problem is not the tone in which someone returns his insults while pointing out that his argument is unsound. The problem (if there is one) is you standing up for one person who throw insults while tone-policing another person who throws insults based on I-do-not-know-nor-do-I-care-why. If you enjoy that kind of thing, you can find many like-minded individuals on rpg.net.

Honestly it sounds like you're just upset that I hit the nail on the head. Tone policing? Really? Asking that people not treat eachother like asshats by default is tone policing? Ok. Ya'll can go right on ahead keeping up with the 40 year old shitposting like it's still 1998 on SA and keep on wondering why there's a chance this place dies off, since all you did was prove my point.

Thing is, I don't necessarily agree with Zinegata, but if that's your take away? Wow. Definitely out of touch. Hell, I even pointed out that conversation can happen without a backpack circle jerk(like rpg.net) but apparently it's just too hard for some people to find any degree in-between raging 90's shitlord and a tumblr hugbox.

[owlassociate]

You know zin, I have no idea who you are irl or what you're really like, but you just come off like a raging asshole online. Like, the kind of narcissistic, condescending projecting you're doing is seriously annoying. I am just genuinely asking you to leave because you're spreading the exact kind of misery you claim to be fighting against and it's kind of exhausting to think about being you. You act like you know better than everyone on this damn site, but if that were the case you wouldn't fucking be here! And that's the thing that belies your hypocrisy in calling everyone here insecure* and antagonistic**.

*Regarding that, I can say that I'm just insulted by the fact that you seem to think that bog-standard advice like "play games with actual people [and don't forget to notice how they react!]" is going to whip this forum into shape or something.

**Pretty sure you were the one that came in here throwing insults at the community in general.

[Username17]

It's been over three months since I quit the message boards and stopped posting on social media. And I suppose some of you deserve an explanation for why I've revoked my name from endorsing this board as well as why I've canceled myself. This wasn't easy to write.

It starts of course with the fact that people were posting David Silverstone memes. That was disgusting. And no one did anything about it or apologized at all. And I realized that this was an outgrowth of the culture here. A culture that I helped create. Obviously the dirtbaggers are garbage people, but found fertile ground for their filth because I had allowed them to. And that meant that I was a garbage person too and I should shut up. Probably forever.

So then this happened:




David Silverstone left Twitter after it was exposed that he abused his position as moderator on a help group for survivors of domestic violence; and also creeped on and sent unsolicited dick pics to vulnerable young women and highschool girls as young as fifteen. That is simply a thing that happened. And while I have not read The Gaming Den exhaustively, I don't think I'm on shaky ground when I say that not one person who posted David Silverstone memes or attacked people who were critical of posting David Silverstone memes ever apologized or faced any censure of any kind. Which leads to the following inevitable conclusion:

The Gaming Den is a message board where loathsome trolls posted disgusting memes made by an adult man who showed his penis to children.

That's just a fact now. It can't ever not be that. And that is why I had my name stripped off my account: I simply cannot endorse a message board where that is true. I work with vulnerable women at the hospital, my name being forever associated with this filth is absolutely despair inducing.

But no matter how much I don't like it, the reality is that I helped make this board what it is. So if this is what the board became, it must necessarily be my fault. That is a reality I cannot live down, that I cannot be forgiven for. The only path for me is to shut up forever and accept that I have failed in trying to make the world a better place with my hobbies.

Almost a year and a half ago I tried to take action against the dirtbaggers. But not only did my motion to have the dirtbaggers moved to their own politics threads fail (you can see the fourteen month old posts on the rules thread of me being defeated on this, including having the board owner come out against me), but importantly in retrospect it would have been totally inadequate had I succeeded. Irony poisoned gamer gators would have posted “Biden is a rapist” memes from David Silverstone whether they were segregated into their own toxic threads or not. The pipeline of real-world sexual predators to this board would have been exactly as short if I had gotten what I asked for as it was in the timeline where I did not. I cannot say “I told you so” because the reality is that even my full table wishlist wasn't nearly strong enough and things had already gotten far too gross.

It would be one thing if this was a good-faith error. While I personally know and knew who the people who were pushing the Tara Reade nonsense were before they started doing it, and thus knew how utterly absurd the prospect of Katie Halper and Ryan Grim suddenly caring about rape victims was, I understand that for a lot of people that was just new voices from the cacophony of the information age making disturbing and plausible sounding accusations. I could understand if some of the people accusing people of being “rape apologists” were simply deceived and were confused and offended when more knowledgeable people dismissed the sources. But let's be real here: these people were never operating in good faith.

The truth is that Tara Reade skeptics are more vindicated than it was even plausible to ever hope for. The place she claimed to have been sexually assaulted does not even exist. Her Kremlin-appointed lawyer dropped her as a client after it came out that she committed perjury in multiple court cases working as an (unqualified) expert witness for the prosecutor's office in Monterrey. We are in week 12 of Ryan Grim simply ceasing to tweet about Tara Reade while moving off to chase the next shiny object. In the latest case, that turned out to be a week-long meltdown in which Ryan Grim insists that a university lecturer going to student events to try to have sex with teenagers is absolutely fine because the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16 (wish I was making that up, but it is what it is). The people who shouted “rape apologist” were wrong, but beyond that they have been proved wrong in ways more thorough and more complete than it was ever reasonable to expect. And not one of them has apologized.

In fact, on this very thread you have Libertad doubling down. Sure, it's already been fully established that the people who were critical of Tara Reade's wild claims and that the people making the anti-Biden memes were literally showing penises to children, but he's still calling me a rape apologist after all that came out. Libertad explicitly and thoroughly aligns himself with [The Great Fence Builder Speaks]Possibly libelous content removed[/TGFBS].

That's where we are. The Gaming Den is a place where loathsome trolls posted disgusting memes made by an adult man who showed his penis to children. It's partly my fault that it got this bad, and I should not ever be forgiven for that. And the most vile dirtbaggers never apologized or faced censure of any kind. And that is on them, but it's also on all of us. And it's on fbmf specifically. The fact that all these gross people are still allowed to post here after all... this... says bad things.

In any case: I'll answer some questions:

• Where are you posting now?
  
  Nowhere.
• How should we credit you in the future?
  
  Please do not credit me in the future.
• What do you think can be done to salvage The Gaming Den?
  
  I do not think The Gaming Den can be salvaged.

[Zinegata]

You know zin, I have no idea who you are irl or what you're really like...

No, you don't.

However, I do know enough about you from just two posts.

What I always find funny about die-hard Denners is they love bragging about brutal honesty. That they're these big, strong, intellectually robust guys who can dish out insults and take them.

And yet when they're presented with a version of events that questions the fanfiction they wrote about themselves in their heads they start being fucking crybabies.

Where is your "suck a barrel of cocks" now?

You're actually so weak and flimsy that you can't take the notion of being called "insecure"?

That people start complaining about tone when you literally can't hear my tone over the text interface? That you can somehow tell the tone is "antagonistic" despite priding yourself on antagonism when it's directed elsewhere?

That you're so triggered and fragile you have to start stomping your feel and ask people to leave because they hurt your precious little feelings?

Go suck a barrel of cocks you crybaby. The reason you're pissed is because you know damn well that you wasted your life hanging out with shitty people; not because I had the temerity to actually say it outright.

And I know this from just two posts for a simple reason: I read what you actually wrote. I noted how kept making yourself the victim - when I even told you point-blank that my post was not addressed to you.

By contrast, despite not knowing me, you proceeded to make up fanfiction about me immediately. Because painting other people in an awful light to hide their own ugliness is pretty much the only thing shitty people ever do.

===

Also, again, if you weren't so easily fucking triggered, you'd have realized I fully intended to leave already.

More importantly, for the second time, I was talking to GnomeWorks, not you. And that the criticisms of the Monday Morning Quarters who talk even more obnoxiously to hide their obvious lack of expertise were not even directed towards you, it was directed at Almanac.

The thing is, you ARE that easily fucking triggered. Because it's all true. You're literally so fucking stupid and up your ass that you don't actually play games with real people anymore; and that's why you instead spend time here shitting on other people's designs to make yourself feel big.

Thanks for raising your hand and serving as an example to prove my point though. Please continue posting to serve as an even starker example on how to be a failed designer.

[Zinegata]

It starts of course with the fact that people were posting David Silverstone memes. That was disgusting. And no one did anything about it or apologized at all. And I realized that this was an outgrowth of the culture here. A culture that I helped create. Obviously the dirtbaggers are garbage people, but found fertile ground for their filth because I had allowed them to. And that meant that I was a garbage person too and I should shut up. Probably forever.

I really, really don't know all of the details to comment much.

I'll only say this:

Garbage persons aren't people who make awful errors. Deliberate or not, we all make them.

Garbage persons are the ones who refuse to admit to their errors because their ego is more precious to them.

People who learn to stop being garbage persons feel they can never be forgiven at first. Then they eventually realize they've just become more careful and open-minded.

Good luck.

[Koumei]

So the entirety of my knowledge of David Silverstone is what Username17 posted there, and though I only did some skimming of the politics/election threads back when shit was kicking off, I don't recall seeing him named there. I feel it's worth point out though: one (1) person who apparently made Biden memes is a shitbag and a sex offender. But go ahead and claim everyone who won't do free door-knocking and campaigning for him and is that guy.

Meanwhile I'll go back and scrub attribution from things at your request. I'm still happy/paid to make gaming stuff, and some of that is built on the back of stuff you made when you were happy to be involved in game design and discussion.

[Sunwitch]

one (1) person who apparently made Biden memes is a shitbag and a sex offender. But go ahead and claim everyone who won't do free door-knocking and campaigning for him and is that guy.

This is the essence of it.

Honestly Frank, accusing a bunch of people of being pedophile-affiliated because they sorta liked some memes produced by a guy who turned out to be a creep is a stretch. I had someone I considered a friend, who I talked with semi-regularly, who had a name for herself as something of a "meme queen" and was even starting to make it as an Adult Swim affiliate on a first-name basis with Eric Andre - she was an outspoken leftist and known for that. She turned out to be making advances on minors, got held accountable, disappeared from the internet and was rightly panned, widely, as a dangerous person; by people who used to share her memes widely, including myself. Using someone's memes does not mean you condone the actions they were carrying out unbeknownst to you, and using that as a crutch to bring up, again, your steadfast apologia for your guy Biden is embarrassing.

David Silverstone has few apologists - Biden has many. David Silverstone has lost what meagre relevance he used to have - Biden has the potential to become president of the USA. The broad mass of the left has abandoned Silverstone with good reason - the DNC fans still support their good old boy while regarding the allegations against him as an actual conspiracy perpetrated by The Russians. I'm sure your request to be dissociated with TGD will be honoured, but I don't buy the idea that you're doing it out of a real concern about pedophilia or whatever, considering you immediately used it as a crutch to go back into grudges you've built up with other members of the forum. Whatever.

PS: The whole Cielingcat bit was a major reason why I've mostly lurked here rather than actually posting. You never took accountability but just acted like it was all in the past, and I don't think there's much you could say at this point that I'd take to be sincere. I'm hoping your last post actually is your last at this point, as much as I found a lot to like in your material in the past. Your last post hasn't been the first to be laced in manipulative, hyperbolic rhetoric and I really want you to consider how much that actually affects others if you're sincere about addressing how you think you've set a bad standard for discourse on this forum.

[Zinegata]

Honestly Frank, accusing a bunch of people of being pedophile-affiliated because they sorta liked some memes produced by a guy who turned out to be a creep is a stretch.

I'll be honest, I've no idea about Silverstone either. I agree it sounds like a stretch.

But to forestall any more stupid political discussions, let me just describe the actual "political disagreements" leading up to this fiasco, at least based on my point of view. So people can realize how stupid the "debate" got and how justified nuking the entire Politics section was.

Frank hates Trump.

Kaelik and co. hate Trump.

Both groups wanted Trump to lose the 2020 election so he's thrown out of power.

In most forums both sides would have said "We agree" and gotten on with their lives.

====

Here's the rub:

Kaelik wanted Bernie Sanders as candidate against Trump for reasons.

Frank wanted Elizabeth Warren as candidate against Trump for reasons.

This simple point of disagreement caused dozens of pages of back and forth vitriol where basically everyone accused everyone else of every crime known to humanity up to genocide.

Regardless, both sides lost and Biden became the candidate against Trump.

Frank, in keeping with "hate and beat Trump", pushed to vote for Biden.

Kaelik disagrees and... I dunno. I have no clue what Kaelik's plan for beating Trump is anymore. And in any case he has no power to implement whatever plan he comes up with anyway.

This simple point of disagreement AGAIN caused dozens of pages of back and forth vitriol where basically everyone accused everyone else of every crime known to humanity up to genocide.

Which is why the main point, as I said weeks ago, is that the actual political arguments were completely inconsequential. They accomplished nothing, and changed nothing. The fact that BOTH sides arguing to death didn't result in Sanders or Warren winning should have clued all parties in, but nope.

People were just too arrogant to admit that their opinions didn't matter; but they went after each other as though it's a life or death struggle anyway.

Its literally just feeble people playing social hierarchy games in a fucking desert over who gets to be First Loser.

Edit: I removed some details. The real debate was too fucking stupid to give either side's arguments any merit.

[Chamomile]

Frank's repudiation of the culture he helped create would be a lot more convincing if he weren't doubling down on basically the exact same petty bullying tactics while he did so. What can be neither salvaged nor rebuilt from scratch is his cult of personality.

[DSMatticus]

"Citizen, did you visit The Gaming Den on March 3rd, 2020, around 7:13 PM?"

"Uhh, maybe? Sure, I guess. Why?"

"Citizen, do you recognize this meme?"

"Um, lemme see... oh, that one, haha, yeah, that was a good one, wasn't it? I think I got it from xXx_smokingbluntsforsanders420_xXx."

"TAKE 'EM AWAY BOYS, WE GOT OURSELVES A DIDDLY KIDDER."

"What?! What'd I do?!"

"It turns out xXx_smokingbluntsforsanders420_xXx got it from idrawcartoonhorsedickcommissionsopen who found it on reddit after it'd been uploaded by karmafarm919381 whose algorithms saw it when it was retweeted by a minor celebrity you've never heard of but who's trying really, really, really hard to be relevant... who retweeted it from David Silverstone."

"Who the fuck's that?"

"No idea, but says here he's a pedophile so you're going away for a long, long time, you sick fuck."