Witch hunts

okay, seriously though, this happens every couple of months. Some issue in SL gets dragged into the forums, heated debates ensue, heads are rolled, accounts are cancelled, and harassment is commonplace.

And then, either the situation solves itself, everyone stops caring about the situation, or the situation is solved by Linden intervention.

I kinda hate it.

I hate it when people march in here and say "OH! LOOK WHAT SO AND SO DID! LETS KILL HIM!" And then 50 people pile on, saying "YEAH YEAH!" And then a couple people say "Hey, now wait a minute..." And then the instigators turn around and say "WELL OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!" And then a forum war erupts.

This has happened way too many times. Could we maybe just all calm the hell down a little bit?

LF

No. I feeeeeeeeed off of drama.

Lordmaggot,

I don't understand why you're always about spreading the hate. HATE HATE HATE. And now we see the latest in your hate-chronicles, now you're hating on the haters, like you're oh-so-cool and oh-so-not-hating.

So let me ask you this. Who died and asked you to judge us all? Who? Let me tell you. NO ONE. NO. ONE. No one cares what you think or who you are so why don't you get a f***ing clue and go build some more towers to compensate for your lackingness in other departments like you always do.

I don't know where you get off being so judgmental, LM, or what makes you think you're so much better than the rest of us. Oh, I'm sorry, you're the KING of RATIONALITY so we should all bow down to you. Yeah Right.

YEAH.

RIGHT.

You're always slandering the forums and then when it turns on you, you're all like, "OH NO can't we all just get along???" Well, we didn't start this fire, and you sure the hell ain't putting it out, so I wonder who's really to blame, huh?

HUH!

Well, whatever, I bet you can hardly read in the first place. Oh, wait, you can probably read enough to respond with hate, just like you always do.

HATE HATE HATE

*blink*

What in the hell?

edit: okay, now that I've reread the post...

Are you joking, or what? Yeah, I can sometimes be a "troll", but I do so for usually one of two reasons:

1) I have a point, or
2) I'm playing devil's advocate to prove a point.

Very rarely do I go after someone's character, and when I do, it's usually because their asinine comments have gone over the edge of my tolerance level (ie a certain owner of Club Elite).

Color me gullible, but your post might be sarcasm, or it might be acid-tipped vitriol. I can't tell, my sarcasm meter's broken.

So by all means, enlightmen me.

LF

Sorry, Lordfly. I couldn't resist the trolling opportunity. I guess it was too "straight."

For what it's worth, I wouldn't mind a taming of the discussion of certain issues myself. I feel, often, that people who make good points about issues as they come up are drowned out by the bickering which usually happens between just two people.

And, for the record, Lordfly, you're always one to offer sane suggestions and astute observations amidst the flamewars that sometimes erupt. You're anything but a hater.

I'll try to make it more obvious the next time I troll. If I troll. I guess you'll never know, will you?

Oh, and I wasn't being sarcastic so much as ironic. Er. I think that's the right word...

phew.

okay.

LF

Why don't you 2 trollers just get a room!

LF.

Before you try to fix the city I suggest you weed your own back yard.

Cath

edit* posted in the rants section purposfully, and with respect to ALL other forums.

Care to elaborate?

LF

edit: spellcheck is fuuuun

Re read any number of replies to anyone of my posts if you need further clarification. You claim to be a smart man yet the obvious escapes you. That attempt to bait me once again was very transparent LF. No thank you.

I keep telling him to use a treble hook and cheese instead of a worm hook and sinker but does he listen noooo.

*snicker*

Rofl! good one

Wait, Cath, why would you weed a city? It's all cement


j/k, I know what it meant

*scratches head*

Lordfly?

Garden? Weeds?

*scratching head*

Pushing dandylions?

I'm not trying to bait you, I simply don't have a firm grasp of obtuse metaphors.

If you're implying that I myself lead witchhunts, I believe you're mistaken. If anything, I attempt to stop them. Feel free to give concrete examples, however, to the contrary.

LF

L-Fly,

Surely you mean "abstruse metaphors."

Obtuse implies that the metaphor was of low intellect (which I'm not prepared to admit yet), Abstruse implies that the metaphor may have been too deep to ponder effectively.

Just trying to promote "Peace through Excessive Editing"

LF why should I bother to provide any information that you can easily look up yourself? Seems counter productive to me. (Waste of my time, no ty.) Only to have you argue every point I make; again. I am sorry you don’t understand my wording. If you cannot grasp these concepts then a conversation with me is frivolous. You may not be the one starting the “witch hunts” but you have certainly participated and perpetuated them. To deny this, is to indulge in self-denial. Before you have us all jumping on “feel good” train I suggest you start to undo the damage you have done in the past.

What damage is that? Telling everyone to calm the crap down? Reminding people that it's just a game? Pushing back bullies? Pointing out debate inconsistencies?

If by participation in witch hunts you mean "trying to quell them before people die", then yeah, I guess I'm guilty of that.

Track record:

1) Tax Revolt. I came out against that, because I found it silly that people were complaining about a loss of a bug in the tax system allowing people to hold huge tracts of land for little loss.

The result? No one listened to me, people got all bent out of shape, cancelled their accounts, shut down their themed areas, and got all huffy in general. But SL survived.


2) The coming of 1.2. I came out for that because it made tons more sense than the tax/land/prim model of 1.1. I tried wading into the meetings, the heated debates, the angry thread postings.

The result? No one listened to me, at first. People rushed to the podiums, demanding their money back from their lifetime memberships, decrying the end of SL, and basically causing a ruckus. Eventually, thank God, the more rational amongst us quelled the riot before the lindens were lynched and Dore was firebombed or something.

3) The sale of Avalon. I came out FOR people buying land, and indeed, their own sims, for whatever purpose they chose, including businesses. YOU, however, came out AGAINST it. Vehemently. I was there when the initial protest was forming on the island soon after sale. I was there when you helped posting "anti-avalon" signs. I was there listening to people abusing fizik verbally. I was debating simultaneously between you and angel leviathan. Angel tottered off to go troll somewhere else, but you and a few others went against me for the better part of an hour. It ended in a stalemate.

Several thousand forum posts decrying the "end of SL" ensued. Heated debates happened. People were harangued. Anything Fizik said was misconstrued and people jumped to conclusions. OUTRIGHT LIES were perpetuated (he stole it from the children, THE CHILDREN! OH, the humanity!) in order to maybe push FIzik off the island.

The result? Several people who wanted to join the project were forced off due to mounting community pressure. The project went on anyway, and Avalon was opened. SL survived, as usual. Fizik turned out to be an okay guy. The island turned out to not be a megamall. SL was saved. People forgot about it.

4) Grimmy Moonflower. One little post about Grimmy shooting me while I was trying to build blossomed into a week-long tirade and witch hunt against griefers, perpetuated by many people. People were accused of alternate account griefing. Orbiters were distributed. Anyone who tried to defend the accused were lynched themselves. It was a mess. Suddenly any "bad" behavior was griefing. IT MUST BE STOPPED! Oh, the humanity. The end of SL was predicted. Again.

The result? Grimmy was banned of his own accord, and everyone else tottered off, forgetting the debate even happened. SL survived, as usual.

5) Club Elite. Granted, I shouldn't have muddled my way into that mess, but I feel it my duty as a SL citizen to not let bullies push people around. Some bullies pushed... I decided to help the victims push back.

So yes, I guess I "perpetuated" the witch hunts by trying to stop them.

Feel free to search my posts for evidence aboutt he above events. Go ahead. Reread my responses to threads and happenings that were spiralling out of control.

LF

Have you ever tried being part of a senseless angry mob? It gives you the feeling of belonging, others view you as part of and accept you into their group, and you rarely have to take responsibility for your actions.

Looks pretty win-win to me.

Don't forget that grand feeling of justification and empowerment. Those who lead a mob get the sense of finally being supported in a crusade against what they don't like, sometimes after a good period of being ignored. Those who jump on the bandwagon suddenly get to be part of a grand movement. Self-importance and false cause and effect combine to make it seem as though the herd is following the newly involved individual, who never really had to make up his or her own mind about the issue at hand.

Time to go give Sabbath a spin. The Mob Rules.

Witch hunts. Man, I can't wait for witch season to roll around again. I remember last October me and my buddies got up about 3:00am to get an early start and we headed out to the forest, found just the perfect clearing. You know the kind? Not too big, not too small, with a little toadstool ring right in the dead center. Can't ask for better. It was like something out of a picture.

I'm not a morning person but there's something about crouching in the blind with your friends, passing around the thermos of coffee after you set out the children-shaped decoys and a little trail of breadcrumbs. We were loaded for the three bears with twelve gauge cold steel shot. Lead doesn't work so good on witches.

Anyway, I'm rambling so I'll wrap this up. We didn't wait long before this perfect V of Canadian witches came in from the east. We could hear them before we saw them. That distinctive triple cackle carries a long way with a tailwind. They were coming in low on their brooms making right for our clearing and we waited until we could see the warts before we started picking them off. Bagged our limit before nine in the morning. I'll tell you; it doesn't get any better than that.

LF give me a few days to get all your insulting remarks from the threads together.

Attention please. The school nurse has chill pills available for those who need them. That is all.

*SNIFF* I was wondering what happened to my fellow bretheren. Know I know it was YOU that make our family reunion such a sad one. Beware! As this October we shall be aware of your little tricks and traps, and perhaps set a few of our own *cackle*

Aww, I'm sorry, Purple. You can come visit your friends on my den wall anytime.