[DeveloperX]

From: LordGalbalan
To: DeveloperX
Posted: October 17, 2005, 6:51 pm
Subject: Listen bastard.

[RuneLancer]

Hah, reminds me of a PM I got from him.

Title: You are now my enemy.
*nt*

I fearfully asked him- nay, begged him- not to send his evil internet ninjas over to my house to assail me with dry goods. But I disgress.

I've yet to see anything but flames and vicious attacks coming from LG or his threads, very bad code, and an even worse reaction when given criticism (and yes, there are times when people have been polite and helpful to him.) I don't think he's offering much of a contribution to these forums; in fact, RPGDX has gotten somewhat of a flamer community reputation because of all this. Between seeing a drop in activity with the majority of the remaining activity being productive, or having the productive posts lost beneath all of the flaming, I'd rather see LG let go once and for all.

And yeah, there has been activity here. I can think of at least 5 threads in the recent weeks that have not involved LG, flames, or drama, and that have shown a decent amount of activity.
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Endless Saga
An OpenGL RPG in the making. Now with new hosting!

[tcaudilllg]

I will never again speak with Richard Marks.

I've done nothing but promote the end of longstanding problems... nevermind I don't have to put up with this. The RPGDX regular posting crowd had as bad a reputation before I came here as it does now. Tact friends, tact. I've read up on the subject, and pretty much everything that happened was due to DarkDread's influence. He was the stabilizing factor behind everything due to his passion for harmony. He was the shining star behind every contest, and the harmony to Mandrake's melody. Even though little else besides the contests got done, there was at least a semblance of harmony.

The debate raging now is over the nature of quality indie games that have some manner of length to them. Games that seem more professional in both size and scale. The debate is over how to create the system that makes them. After witnessing the historic failure (counting some 9 years now since VERGE was released) of the systems championed by most of the users here, I instead have tried to rally support for my own viewpoint. I consider the slow progress no fault of mine alone, because I am working at many things all of which need to be accomplished, but rather at the inexplicable, blindly emotional sustained heckling by RuneLancer, LeoDraco, formerly Mark_Y, and Janus, in particular. They have done nothing but attack my approach which has not been demonstrated to be a failure, as the approaches they have promoted have to the task of expanding the independent RPG quality-length spectrum.

As for Richard, well I've had enough. I mailed both RuneLancer and LeoDraco to formally seal off my relations with them. I tried to make a peace offering weeks ago when I told him how to port FreeBASIC to the SNES (or any console system) in regards to the thorniest issues of the port, AFTER he specifically asked me how to do it. It represented a pretty big gamble: had he the desire to do it, he probably could have made a rather influential product with the knowledge I gave him. (at least one professional scientist in my family has been blatantly ripped off by his "collegues" who stole his ideas and tried to take all the credit for them. I've received many reminders from those close to me to be careful who I trust with my ideas.) Like a smart-alec, RuneLancer then questioned the relevance of my idea to the discussion. As if there were any doubt. He wasted the energy I had spent to come up with the answer to his question quickly. From that point on, there was really no turning back. It was just a matter then of at what point would I be justified in severing relations with him. He made that point clear enough shortly thereafter.

I heard a bit of grumbling about waging personal issues on the boards, so I decided to confront RuneLancer directly. Short and to the point.

But since Richard has brought all of this into the open, I should remind him that I spent $10.00 of long distance talking to him. Time and money I could have spent elsewhere. I question who else here has financially sacrificed on behalf of their friendship with Mr. Marks. I was also one of all of two people who bought his game, so he told me. $1. It really wasn't worth the dollar, but I did it as a gesture of goodwill.

I'm really disappointed in Mr. Marks. I could have done all of the things I asked him to help me with myself, and yet he grumbled over the specific requests I made to him to try to link him to Worldyne/Iconsole effortwise. As much as it seems a dream to just let someone else handle the marketing, this is something I've got to face myself, and I'm ready to do it, with or without Mr. Marks.

I was disappointed in Mr. Marks' abilities of self-reflection. I came upon a description of my perception of him just the other day, in fact. It follows here, direct from C.G. Jung's famous Psychological Types essay.

[Gooseman]

I really did not want to post in this thread for fear of being slated for 'flaming', but..

LG (if you are even a real person), you are beyond a joke. Nobody finds you interesting and I doubt anyone finds you funny anymore.

Everyone here at RPGDX wants you to bugger off. You lower the tone of everything so I will say just two more words to you:
Go away.

[tcaudilllg]

OK sure then. I'll add you to the non-communicado list.

[RuneLancer]

Ah yes, I remember your attempt to "contact" me: a cryptic "Contact me on ICQ, here's my number" PM (...people still use ICQ?) My reply was pretty direct: "Dude, I'm not going to download ICQ for some cryptic reason. Email me at x or PM me." Your reply, about a week later, was quoted in my first post in this thread. I'm curious who rejected who's "offer" here, but it's rather irrelevant now, isn't it?

As for your "offer" to write an FB to 65816, don't confuse "musing about a concept you don't understand" with "putting effort and ressearch into starting a project with somebody else." You've clearly shown multiple times in the past that you have no capacity for working with low-level code of any kind, much less writing a compiler. Peace offering? I'm quite stunned by what a generous effort you've made. :) Specifically "asked" you how to do it? Specifically explained to you why it was a bad idea.

It's quite appaling that you would fuss over $10 and destroy a friendship over this. I met up with a friend at the nearby mall during my lunch break and give him a $10 bill without any second thoughts today because he forgot his wallet at home. Nevermind the fact it was $10 spent in one instant as opposed to over the course of an entire friendship (that could easily sum itself up to a few thousand, seeing as I've known this guy since I could walk.) Wow. You spent $10 bucks speaking with him on the phone... LG, your grasp of friendship is appaling, sickening, and quite frankly, a lost cause. And now, the only person who DID support you has made a thread to get you booted from the forums... yet you still haven't learned anything from the experience. Call this a successful social life? Cuz I don't. I have friends that would take a bullet for me. I have friends who have friends who would do the same for them. You had a friend, and now he's the one behind the gun.

As for successful projects? Check people's profiles. Look at their games and their screenshots. Notice anything? They have something to show off. Most of them haven't been here half as long as you. What HAVE you been doing all this time? Where ARE your working, well-designed, impressive demos/projects? The condescending know-it-all tone you take seems to imply you've already written stuff that can amaze and impress, but as far as I know, you're just being a jerk towards what was once constructive criticism. Hopefully you're not wondering why people act so negative towards you.

LG, you've been given many chances to right your wrongs. Hell, even I've gone out of my way to try to help you (despite being one of the major players in these flame wars.) None of it has even led anywhere. As far as I'm willing to bet, the only "no" vote will remain yours.
_________________
Endless Saga
An OpenGL RPG in the making. Now with new hosting!

[Mark_Y]

At the risk of sounding like people I normally despise, I should point out that LG's ability to cause trouble on RPGDX (using his typical approach) is directly proportional to the amount of attention people are willing to pay him. He may spam, but he doesn't flood. No one sent Internet ninjas to force you to post in LG's "Hitler" thread. No one mesmerized you into opening the PMs he sends you. Barring some sign that he is actively trying to derail on topic threads or that he is flooding threads or the forum generally, I'm not sure why he needs to be banned.

To have LG banned because you can't bring yourself to ignore him seems slightly lame to me. Obviously there's no obligation to let him post to RPGDX or read posts here, but I'm not sure there's an imperative to get rid of him, either.

[Nodtveidt]

Nah, don't ban LG...I find his erratic posts and ill-formed code amusing. There is simply not enough humour in the coding scene anymore...don't make me find my entertainment elsewhere!!! :~(
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[Nephilim]

I don't like the idea of banning anyone, but then again, I've never seen as strong a case as with LG. How someone could spend so much time thinking about personality types and be so clueless with regard to actually dealing with other humans is beyond me.

Still, I think a better alternative to banning LG would be to introduce some moderation to the boards. Bjorn seems to think that moderation = censorship, so he's been pretty hands-off. Normally, I'd agree with that stance, because you don't want to prevent someone from contributing or have them feel like they've been silenced. Even LG.

But when you have extreme cases, like the "Grand Coalition of Flaming" thread, there's something to be said for getting people to settle down, be civil, and stick to the topic. LG alienated what appears to be the only friend he's ever had, and I'm not sure the benefit we all got from people being able to rant on ad infinitum outweighed the destruction it wrought.

Moderation doesn't necessarily mean booting and locking. A few well-placed "settle down" messages, either publicly as a general warning or privately to the extreme cases, could have helped immensely, I think. Only when a thread spins so out of control that moderator requests for civility fail should a thread be locked, and even then, it only needs to be locked long enough to get people to calm down. You can always unlock the thread to allow people to resume posting on-topic in a few days.

But one thing is clear - something needs to be done with LG. I don't know whether he is being so irrational on purpose as a trolling exercise or whether he is being genuine, but it's clear that he is having a considerable negative impact on the RPGDX community - you only need to look at the number of posts devoted to the problems LG is causing to see that some sort of mediation or intervention would be a good thing.

There are several options besides banning, like perhaps letting people add him to a personal blacklist so they don't have to see his posts, or a moderator just asking him to dial it back a bit, but I don't see the LG situation getting any better if it is left alone. If the only choices are banning or not banning, I'd have to go with banning, but I'd prefer a less drastic solution if at all possible.
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Visit the Sacraments web site to play the game and read articles about its development.

[RuneLancer]

I like the blacklist idea, but there's one thing that should be considered.

Board image.

Not everyone will blacklist LG, if only out of morbid curiousity. And that won't stop him from posting, or seeing the posts of people who blacklist him and commenting on them (and given the state of things at this point, expecting a peaceful reaction is probably asking for too much.) In short, the problem is just swept under the rug: some of us won't see it anymore, but it's still there, and newbies will have to put up with it (I was a newbie too, not long ago, and I know quite well what LG is capable of.)

So what does that leave us with? The boards have two kinds of threads right now: general project/code/design discussions, and threads that are inevitably flame wars with LG. In fact, it's practically a 50-50 split. The boards would be damned fine if one of these two kinds of threads just vanished entirely. Not just for the older posters who know better than to argue with LG and who'd block him, but for anyone ever joining.

How, then, can we cut out the "LG flamewar" category? Banning him is NOT the only option: a blacklist has been suggested, more active moderation as well (for all people involved, mind you). Trying to talk things through with LG has, as has been shown MANY times in the past, led nowhere so that's, sadly, not an option. And among pretty much all key members of this category, his reputation has been pretty much irreversibly ruined. So, really, our choices are limited to admin intervention of SOME sort, or continuing this and bringing the boards down over flames and trolling.

So hey. Banning isn't the only option (although definately the easiest and, judging from the poll, most desired one), but like Nephilim said, letting this go on is unquestionably not the right solution. And if personal growth and change cannot be expected, then what can be done?
_________________
Endless Saga
An OpenGL RPG in the making. Now with new hosting!

[Ninkazu]

I say ban. I haven't seen one helpful contribution from him ever. Takes care of the problem and it's quick and painless.

[Mark_Y]

I guess I'm left unclear as to why black-listing is necessary. Odysseus needed to be tied to the mast because the sirens' song was irresistible. LG's post, despite the morbid curiosity they provoke, can be ignored by anyone who wants to. I'm also fairly sure that if people stopped replying to his threads he would change his tune. People act out for attention. When ignored, they either act out more -- in which case a ban would be appropriate -- or they stop acting out.

I happen to disagree with the notion that off topic talking is a bad idea, particularly when those posts are in the off topic forum. I think a forum is a community and a community shouldn't just talk about a narrow subject matter. LG's posts aren't problematic because they're off topic. They're problematic because they never seem to generate interesting off topic discussion. Since he never even engages with criticisms, it's not even a debate. It's just LG ranting and other people taking pot shots. But if you stop taking pot shots, I suspect the ranting will die off, too.

The best reason for a ban is retribution. The fact that LG crowed on his livejournal site that RPGDX had "capitulated" to him because I said it was unconstructive to belittle him makes it sorely tempting to show him how wrong he is. But I think it would be a stronger message simply to ignore him.

[RuneLancer]

[Mark_Y]

Well, true, we've all replied to his trolling, but there's no reason we can't stop. Truly, it isn't that hard, as obnoxious as his vaguely pro-Hitler post is.

On paper, your "think of the children" argument is appealing, but I'm not sure that there are enough new members coming in for it to be a problem. More importantly, though, new members aren't going to get sucked into LG threads if those threads aren't active. When you posted on the Iconsole thread, it had already been joined by four members who should've known better.

Hell, if you're concerned for newcomers, why not just get Bjorn to sticky a thread entitled, "Ignore LordGalaban" and have a few testimonials about why he should be ignored. Then lock the thread. Any newcomer who misses that deserves to deal with LG.

--EDIT--

It's a sign of my serious dyslexia that I've read his name as "LordGalaban" rather than "LordGalbalan" all this time.

[Adam]