How...?! (Guitar Hero viral ad)

[Jake]

For what it's worth, I thought Zaarin was beginning to become one of the in-crowd. But then maybe that takes years and years. Please come back, Zaarin! The guilty have been punished and their accounts deleted!

"The in crowd"?

Blah. I hope he didn't leave, because I don't think anything said was meant personally. The Thumb forums can be tough. Folks like to spew out pretty extreme posts so full of vitriol, hyperbole, and expletives that on most boards they would be considered rhetorical, flame bait, or both. Of course, as we all know, that's just many people's horrible, attention-seeking, emotionally stunted way of having an "intellectual debate" around here. A fine line, but it's present nontheless.

But on the other hand, if I said I was leaving but had second thoughts, came back and saw that high-school-cheerleader-clique / high-school-art-club-pretentious bullshit about "beginning to become part of the in-crowd," I would probably wish that the whole forum community would die in a gas leak... or at least, it would be the exact opposite of a compelling reason to come back to this place.

[Roderick]

Now, now, you know exactly what was meant there; as it was a reaction to Karimi's guide, which is brilliant precisely because it ironically describes such a culture here.

The truth is obviously that newcomers are very welcome here and embraced, in my experience, immediately. The Thumbs atmosphere isn't hostile in that respect at all.

We just love a good storm-off

[ThunderPeel2001]

The Thumb forums can be tough. Folks like to spew out pretty extreme posts so full of vitriol, hyperbole, and expletives that on most boards they would be considered rhetorical, flame bait, or both. Of course, as we all know, that's just many people's horrible, attention-seeking, emotionally stunted way of having an "intellectual debate" around here. A fine line, but it's present nontheless.

To be fair, you're guilty of the most most blunt and obnoxious posts here recently. There was a time when the Thumbs Forum featured more of that stuff, but recently things have really calmed down into a nice little clique community. There's a lot less stranger-bashing than there used to be.

Edited November 29, 2008 by ThunderPeel2001

[Marek]

"The in crowd"?

Blah. I hope he didn't leave, because I don't think anything said was meant personally. The Thumb forums can be tough. Folks like to spew out pretty extreme posts so full of vitriol, hyperbole, and expletives that on most boards they would be considered rhetorical, flame bait, or both. Of course, as we all know, that's just many people's horrible, attention-seeking, emotionally stunted way of having an "intellectual debate" around here. A fine line, but it's present nontheless.

But on the other hand, if I said I was leaving but had second thoughts, came back and saw that high-school-cheerleader-clique / high-school-art-club-pretentious bullshit about "beginning to become part of the in-crowd," I would probably wish that the whole forum community would die in a gas leak... or at least, it would be the exact opposite of a compelling reason to come back to this place.

Jake, you've talked before about what you think about the forums -- that it has a tendency to turn into pretentiousness, e.g. people only appreciating a certain specific style of games (such as the artsy and indie ones) or being dismissive of things for no good reason, or generally waving their pipe around. And I generally agree with you. I mean, with the sort of sarcastic tone that is prevalent here there's always a fine line between 'ha ha we're just joking around' and 'check it out, actually being pretentious now under this veil of sarcasm', and sometimes that line gets crossed or confused. I think foregoing the pretentiousness (fake or otherwise) more often would be healthy for this forum.

HOWEVER, I'm not sure if posts such as the above help the situation at all. I mean, it's firstly not always clear what you mean, and it also derails threads, but it also actually make you look like the problem. You can't fight fire with fire. Even though I agree with you, maybe it's time to get off the high horse and just lead by example?

I dunno.

[Nachimir]

My high horse is higher than all three of your high horses combined.

It's a pity to find out how faked that advert was.

[Marek]

My horse is pretty high, but then again you don't want to know what we feed them in Holland.

CHING BOOM CRASH.

Nachimir, I commend you for trying to steer this thread back on topic. I'm totally not helping you with this post, though.

[brkl]

CLANG BOOM STEAM

Let's talk about trains. Trains are pretty ok.

[toblix]

CHING BOOM CRASH.

I'm sorry, I... was that your stand up comedian sound?

[elmuerte]

Instant Rimshot

always useful

[Chris]

Wow, what the hell happened in here?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow, what the hell happened in here?

The thead... it's cursed!

[Jake]

(For the record I closed this thread, due to it going wholly retarded. It was in part my doing by exacerbating the situation, but the thread had already outlived its welcome.)