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[GoblinCookie]

Should we just ignore him and carry on discussing? Because it leads to nothing productive. At all.

I doubt this thread would have reached it's 7th page without my help. 

[KittyTac]

Should we just ignore him and carry on discussing? Because it leads to nothing productive. At all.

I doubt this thread would have reached it's 7th page without my help.

Most of that was pointlessly exchanging passive-aggressive arguments, mind.

[SixOfSpades]

This latest whispering campaign of "everyone hates GoblinCookie" goes back to this thread, on which you posted.  I spent a number of pages criticising certain folks sociobiological delusions and said folks immediately went about slandering me to everybody . . .

While we're on the subject, I'd like to mention another thread, just a couple of weeks later, on which you posted this little nugget:

. . . You [Manveru Taurënér] have a group of people, it is never one person and it is seldom more than three, but let's call them the trio for the sake of argument.  The trio see things in more or less exactly the same way and as a result there is exists a 'cosy consensus', which to everyone else is effectively a form of censorship.  The thread is quite harmonious and on-track, in the sense that the train goes round and around to nowhere.  Because people do not want to upset the cosy consensus and dislike conflict, most people carefully keep things within the 'brackets' that the trio have initially set by their own internal consensus and intellectual blind-spots; this is how the trio effectively censor the discussion.  But if someone who is fundamentally unalike the trio in their thinking comes along then they have to crack down, because they like how the thread is defined entirely by their limitations of their own thinking.

You see, GoblinCookie, when you spend "a number of pages" publicly criticizing people's "delusions," you can be sure that those people are going to have, well, opinions about you, and you shouldn't be surprised when they voice those opinions. And yet, when they inevitably did, you managed to draw the conclusion that there must be a covert conspiracy organized specifically against you. Gee, I wonder what could have polarized them to make them behave in such a fashion.

I'm sure you've noted that I have repeatedly called you intelligent. What I believe you've missed, however, is that I never once said you were more intelligent than myself--nor do I expect to ever have reason to. From your response to my most recent PM and your remarks on the forum in general, you seem VERY assured that your own intellectual superiority is a foregone conclusion . . . let me assure you that it is anything but.

Also: Disagreement is not censorship, not even "effectively". If you can't deal with the fact that other people commonly have views differing from yours, maybe an Internet forum isn't the best place for you to hang out.

So you did respond afterall SixOfSpades, even though you said you wouldn't?

If you think my message said that I wan't going to reply to you at all, GoblinCookie, then maybe you should go back and read it more clearly. Perhaps then you might notice that in your reply, you actually argued against one of your own quotes.

Flat out ignoring arguments without rebuttal does not make you look smart, it just it look like you were just blustering and have nothing actually to say to back anything up.

In most circumstances, yes. But for you? You're a special case, deserving of special treatment. You see, when I read something that is patently ridiculous, I can either
a) Respond to the person who wrote it, and try to help them realize their error,
b) Ridicule it, or
c) Ignore it.
Naturally, I tried the most proactive option first. Many times. At length. And it clearly had next to no effect. So as that path has proved to be a dead end, I refuse to accept blame for choosing the nicer of my two remaining options. As I said, if / when I choose to negate your points without bothering to rebut them, it will be because I have judged them to not merit rebuttal.

. . . you simply declare stuff wrong/unpopular/unworkable and expect me to simply capitulate simply because you loudly declared it to be so.

Actually, I'd hardly even care if you capitulated or not. You have shown yourself to have poor judgement, bad manners, and a lousy attitude. As a direct result of these character flaws, I now feel your opinions, and indeed even your presence, to be all but irrelevant.

Also, there is nothing at all constructive about lecturing a person who already pissed off with you as though you are some kind of all-wise teacher and they the ignorant student.

My message repeatedly and explicitly stated that it was written without malice, which it actually was. I knew full well you were angry, I expressed my sympathy for your position, and tried to help you deal with it. I mentioned your vocabulary mod as both an excellent outlet for your emotions, and a way to restore your reputation. I exhorted you to accept my message in the spirit of good faith. I extended a hand to try to heal the breach, and you slapped it away. Very well--you've made your choice.

The vast majority of people would dig in their heels in response to such pretentiousness, so it is not exactly notable that I did so.

The vast majority of people would steal a $5 bill if they were sure they could get away with it. Does that make it morally okay to do so? Aristotle once said, "We are what we do repeatedly." What do you do here, GoblinCookie? What is it that you are known for?

There are experiences that change who you are. And there are experiences that reveal who you are. I gave you an experience, hoping to help you change. But I now consider you revealed.

[GoblinCookie]

Most of that was pointlessly exchanging passive-aggressive arguments, mind.

All of which still counts for keeping the thread high up on the list.  The thing about internet forums is that numbers matter and crap still counts as numbers!  I suppose it is the internet forum corollary to "all publicity is good publicity"  .

. . . You [Manveru Taurënér] have a group of people, it is never one person and it is seldom more than three, but let's call them the trio for the sake of argument.  The trio see things in more or less exactly the same way and as a result there is exists a 'cosy consensus', which to everyone else is effectively a form of censorship.  The thread is quite harmonious and on-track, in the sense that the train goes round and around to nowhere.  Because people do not want to upset the cosy consensus and dislike conflict, most people carefully keep things within the 'brackets' that the trio have initially set by their own internal consensus and intellectual blind-spots; this is how the trio effectively censor the discussion.  But if someone who is fundamentally unalike the trio in their thinking comes along then they have to crack down, because they like how the thread is defined entirely by their limitations of their own thinking.

You see, GoblinCookie, when you spend "a number of pages" publicly criticizing people's "delusions," you can be sure that those people are going to have, well, opinions about you, and you shouldn't be surprised when they voice those opinions. And yet, when they inevitably did, you managed to draw the conclusion that there must be a covert conspiracy organized specifically against you. Gee, I wonder what could have polarized them to make them behave in such a fashion.

I'm sure you've noted that I have repeatedly called you intelligent. What I believe you've missed, however, is that I never once said you were more intelligent than myself--nor do I expect to ever have reason to. From your response to my most recent PM and your remarks on the forum in general, you seem VERY assured that your own intellectual superiority is a foregone conclusion . . . let me assure you that it is anything but.

Also: Disagreement is not censorship, not even "effectively". If you can't deal with the fact that other people commonly have views differing from yours, maybe an Internet forum isn't the best place for you to hang out.

The thread about the trios is a different but related topic.  It is a 'defensive' version of the situation I am talking about, the aim is to keep discussion within the brackets, it does resemble a conspiracy in a way but those involved are likely not aware of what they are doing, it is more of a dynamic than an intentional choice.  It is not about directly hurting the persons reputation, it is about derailing threads whenever discussion passes outside of the field that encompasses what the trios think should be discussed. 

But what I am talking about now is a different situation.  This is an offensive situation, the offending party bails out of the thread in a huff, similar to the way that you did so.  But rather than returning to the thread and you have done the offending party goes about telling everybody on other threads how bad the target is, without revealing the real reason for the enmity.  What actually happened is that at least one of the people whose delusions I argued against, then went about telling everyone about how bad I was on different threads, their posts were then deleted by the devs, a fact which they used to complain about me further in even more posts which were then deleted also; but people still read the posts. 

This is related to the more general situation in that over time the trios get rather annoyed at people who don't keep things within the 'acceptable' parameters of debate they have decided.  Then when any person goes around spreading slander against that person, they provide a ready audience to form an attack mob.  Once the size of the mob has reached a certain minimal size it becomes self-perpetuating, since if a person gets lots of personal criticism, folks are inclined to think there must be something wrong with the person because otherwise there would not be so much of it. 

The strategy is invincible unless people are made aware of what is actually going on.  The more I defend myself, the guiltier I look and hence the more people attack me. 

If you think my message said that I wan't going to reply to you at all, GoblinCookie, then maybe you should go back and read it more clearly. Perhaps then you might notice that in your reply, you actually argued against one of your own quotes.

That I argued against my one of my own points is not surprising, given they were from the past and my ideas may well have developed since then.  This is however what you said.

     I know that you want to argue with me on some, or even all, of these points. I know that you most likely WILL argue them--that's your nature. And I also know that it doesn't matter at all, because I simply won't respond. Yes,  you're right to think that that sounds both arrogant and cowardly of me, but I'm right to do it and I'll tell you why.  You have made a common practice of finding new threads started by less experienced forum members, and shooting down their suggestions with non-constructive criticism . . . sometimes followed up with an idea of your own that is actually far worse than the original. Strip away the veneer of intelligentsia, and that behavior is only a step or two removed from outright trolling. And what do we do with trolls? We don't feed them.

So you specifically said that you would not respond because I am like a troll.

In most circumstances, yes. But for you? You're a special case, deserving of special treatment. You see, when I read something that is patently ridiculous, I can either
a) Respond to the person who wrote it, and try to help them realize their error,
b) Ridicule it, or
c) Ignore it.
Naturally, I tried the most proactive option first. Many times. At length. And it clearly had next to no effect. So as that path has proved to be a dead end, I refuse to accept blame for choosing the nicer of my two remaining options. As I said, if / when I choose to negate your points without bothering to rebut them, it will be because I have judged them to not merit rebuttal.

Why do you care so much about the nature of clans and feudal houses?  It is like I have hit some ideological nerve, you can't agree with me but yet you can't seem to muster a decent counterargument, so you just stomp off and come with reasons to dismiss my opinions. 

Actually, I'd hardly even care if you capitulated or not. You have shown yourself to have poor judgement, bad manners, and a lousy attitude. As a direct result of these character flaws, I now feel your opinions, and indeed even your presence, to be all but irrelevant.

Yet my perceived attitude does not change anything about the facts of anything.  Clans are more than just big families and so it is misleading to call the latter the former, that fact remains whatever my attitude is. 

My message repeatedly and explicitly stated that it was written without malice, which it actually was. I knew full well you were angry, I expressed my sympathy for your position, and tried to help you deal with it. I mentioned your vocabulary mod as both an excellent outlet for your emotions, and a way to restore your reputation. I exhorted you to accept my message in the spirit of good faith. I extended a hand to try to heal the breach, and you slapped it away. Very well--you've made your choice.

The message reads pretty maliciously, even now I have cooled down.  In any case, you are trying to advise me on diplomacy but yet you seem to have not had the diplomatic sense not to talk down to a person who is likely angry with you.  Your expertise in the matter then seems lacking, which does not enhance your pedagogical skills. 

The vast majority of people would steal a $5 bill if they were sure they could get away with it. Does that make it morally okay to do so? Aristotle once said, "We are what we do repeatedly." What do you do here, GoblinCookie? What is it that you are known for?

There are experiences that change who you are. And there are experiences that reveal who you are. I gave you an experience, hoping to help you change. But I now consider you revealed.

No, the majority of people would not steal a $5 bill if they were sure they could get away with it; the whole of human society functions at all because of that fact.  What I do is contribute new ideas to threads, typically one's that other people have not yet thought of; except now I am waylaid arguing about nonsense.  What I also do is mod computer games and write books, time spent arguing about nonsense distracts from this. 

[KittyTac]

Most of that was pointlessly exchanging passive-aggressive arguments, mind.

All of which still counts for keeping the thread high up on the list.  The thing about internet forums is that numbers matter and crap still counts as numbers!  I suppose it is the internet forum corollary to "all publicity is good publicity"  .

Geez, I see now why your reputation is thin on the ground. And yet you are complaining about it being bad. You are, in effect, a troll.

[dragdeler]

The second part of you quoting me, wasn't specifically adressed at you GoblinCookie; maybe that's what throwing you off... lol  .


I was basing that reply on this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You have not indicated which of the above words fill which slot, also you have translated the third word into English but none of the other words, but that does not really matter.  I will impose the following order onto what you wrote.

1. Personal Name: Mebzul.
[Entity surname value 1]
2. Own Marriage Name: Dodok
3. Parents Marriage Name: TreatyLobster
[Entity surname value 2]
4. Paternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Ezum
5. Maternal Grandparents Marraige Name: ItonStakud
[Not relevant]
6. Name of Site Government+Civilization: DatenBer
7. Name of something else: CogLolor

The last two don't matter here, so our mother is Mebzul Dodok TreatyLobster Ezum ItonStakud.  She decides to name her illegitimate baby Kinzul, that is it's personal name.  The baby then ends up being called Kinzul Mebzul Ezum ItonStakud, as Mebzul is the mother's name.  Now to explain how things fit back together again, Kinzul marries a woman called Yoplin Yellowpage Ipolkin Loinclan.  The happy couple adopt GoblinSpade as their marraige name.

1. Personal Name: Yoplin.
[Entity surname value 1]
2. Own Marriage Name: GoblinSpade
3. Parents Marriage Name: Yellowpage
[Entity surname value 2]
4. Paternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Ipolkin
5. Maternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Loinclan

So we end up with Kinzul GoblinSpade Mebzul Ezum ItonStakud and Yoplin GoblinSpade Yellowpage Ipolkin Loinclan, we fill the empty second slot with the newly created marraige name.  Now let's just have DatenBer increase their Entity surname value to 3, so we now have 7 family related names and have them produce a (legitimate) daughter called Ulop.  We end up with the following name.

1. Personal Name: Ulop.
[Entity surname value 1]
2. Own Marriage Name:
3. Parents Marriage Name: GoblinSpade
[Entity surname value 2]
4. Paternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Mebzul
5. Maternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Yellowpage
[Entity surname value 3]
4. 1st Paternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: Ezum (actually great-great-grandparents)
5. 1st Maternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: ItonStakud
6. 2nd Paternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: Ipolkin
7. 2nd Maternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: Loinclan

If the name is inherited, I consider it not related to the location it designates. To change that we'd have to solve all possible cases concerning the frequent namechanges. Loads of workhours, arbitrary decisions to take, computation power to dedicate, all for what? Names that are way too long, to not make any "normal" person loose interest immediatly. You suggested to cull unnecessary information, if we do that there is no way to ensure the player allways receives the information he's most interested by. I add that we leave the game no room to instill some sort of personality that might attract interest, into the names; it's immersion breaking. And from a search function view point it's not so cool either in worlds where people have many descendants, these strings will be spammed all over the place forcing you to type more words. It's too hard to know which strings are most relevant. At least with family names as we know them you can tell at once glance: "oh I bet these are related" and choose to dedicate your interest accordingly. Also the system wastes a lot of strings and screen space to indicate only familylinks (that are vaguely related to their origin, I'll give you that). I tried to demonstrate that with less strings you can show familyinformation and add other infos in a way that paints how we perceive the creatures on our screens.

If the point was just to conciliate this overflowing name system with the general idea of clans, I can witness for my self that it was not the impression that it gave. Anyway I don't consider the idea of clans nearly as important, and easily subsumable into a less rigid system with additional means of expression at it's disposal.

Now to the witchhunt: I find you more stimulating than the predictably consensual. So usually I'll give it a try, even tough you like to act like I don't make any sense when I presumably annoy you. What I don't understand is why people grant so much attention to the parts that are honestly not worth it. When it's much more effective and easy to get bored and overfly them with a diminished attention span.

[Starver]

Imma gonna quote myself, as either you all missed it the first time or you don't care and could do with another chance to ignore me for shitzngiggles. I won't do it again, so enjoy this time as much as you can.

Speaking of which,  once we're arguing about how we're arguing, it probably puts the cherry on the top of the circular arguments that aren't going to help anybody, least of all the main characters in the Toady And ThreeToe Show who might well be discouraged from implementing any version of this whole idea, on the basis that there's plenty of vocal opinion that would consider any direction they went as being utterly wrong.

Can I suggest that there's not many more arguments/counter-arguments/counter-counter-arguments left that haven't yet been said, at least in passing. Even the meta-arguments are getting stale, IMO, but whether you take the same view or not I leave up to you.

[GoblinCookie]

Geez, I see now why your reputation is thin on the ground. And yet you are complaining about it being bad. You are, in effect, a troll.

I didn't realise I was advocating having pointless off-topic mud-slinging matches, I was just pointing out that ironically such a pointless mud-slinging match may well actually cause a proposal to rise up the lists faster than a constructive, civil and on-topic debates.  If you are OP make sure to promote mayhem on your thread, as long as it does not actually get your thread locked.

The second part of you quoting me, wasn't specifically adressed at you GoblinCookie; maybe that's what throwing you off... lol  .


I was basing that reply on this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You have not indicated which of the above words fill which slot, also you have translated the third word into English but none of the other words, but that does not really matter.  I will impose the following order onto what you wrote.

1. Personal Name: Mebzul.
[Entity surname value 1]
2. Own Marriage Name: Dodok
3. Parents Marriage Name: TreatyLobster
[Entity surname value 2]
4. Paternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Ezum
5. Maternal Grandparents Marraige Name: ItonStakud
[Not relevant]
6. Name of Site Government+Civilization: DatenBer
7. Name of something else: CogLolor

The last two don't matter here, so our mother is Mebzul Dodok TreatyLobster Ezum ItonStakud.  She decides to name her illegitimate baby Kinzul, that is it's personal name.  The baby then ends up being called Kinzul Mebzul Ezum ItonStakud, as Mebzul is the mother's name.  Now to explain how things fit back together again, Kinzul marries a woman called Yoplin Yellowpage Ipolkin Loinclan.  The happy couple adopt GoblinSpade as their marraige name.

1. Personal Name: Yoplin.
[Entity surname value 1]
2. Own Marriage Name: GoblinSpade
3. Parents Marriage Name: Yellowpage
[Entity surname value 2]
4. Paternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Ipolkin
5. Maternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Loinclan

So we end up with Kinzul GoblinSpade Mebzul Ezum ItonStakud and Yoplin GoblinSpade Yellowpage Ipolkin Loinclan, we fill the empty second slot with the newly created marraige name.  Now let's just have DatenBer increase their Entity surname value to 3, so we now have 7 family related names and have them produce a (legitimate) daughter called Ulop.  We end up with the following name.

1. Personal Name: Ulop.
[Entity surname value 1]
2. Own Marriage Name:
3. Parents Marriage Name: GoblinSpade
[Entity surname value 2]
4. Paternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Mebzul
5. Maternal Grandparents Marriage Name: Yellowpage
[Entity surname value 3]
4. 1st Paternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: Ezum (actually great-great-grandparents)
5. 1st Maternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: ItonStakud
6. 2nd Paternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: Ipolkin
7. 2nd Maternal Great-grandparents Marriage Name: Loinclan

If the name is inherited, I consider it not related to the location it designates. To change that we'd have to solve all possible cases concerning the frequent namechanges. Loads of workhours, arbitrary decisions to take, computation power to dedicate, all for what? Names that are way too long, to not make any "normal" person loose interest immediatly. You suggested to cull unnecessary information, if we do that there is no way to ensure the player allways receives the information he's most interested by. I add that we leave the game no room to instill some sort of personality that might attract interest, into the names; it's immersion breaking. And from a search function view point it's not so cool either in worlds where people have many descendants, these strings will be spammed all over the place forcing you to type more words. It's too hard to know which strings are most relevant. At least with family names as we know them you can tell at once glance: "oh I bet these are related" and choose to dedicate your interest accordingly. Also the system wastes a lot of strings and screen space to indicate only familylinks (that are vaguely related to their origin, I'll give you that). I tried to demonstrate that with less strings you can show familyinformation and add other infos in a way that paints how we perceive the creatures on our screens.

If the point was just to conciliate this overflowing name system with the general idea of clans, I can witness for my self that it was not the impression that it gave. Anyway I don't consider the idea of clans nearly as important, and easily subsumable into a less rigid system with additional means of expression at it's disposal.

Now to the witchhunt: I find you more stimulating than the predictably consensual. So usually I'll give it a try, even tough you like to act like I don't make any sense when I presumably annoy you. What I don't understand is why people grant so much attention to the parts that are honestly not worth it. When it's much more effective and easy to get bored and overfly them with a diminished attention span.

The focus of that post was specifically on the question of how family names are inherited.  The system I used actually halves the number of family names, if we have a name for each ancestor then we would end up with even longer names than I end up with, having a lot of names is pretty much an inevitable consequence of having multiple generations in the system.  However the situation you are referring to about having to type lots of strings in order to search for a person won't happen, the reason being that if I want to locate a specific individual, I simply type in their personal name, if I want to locate a person's family instead I type in their family names (without their personal name). 

The culling works as it does at the moment, we don't see stuff that is irrelevant to the context.  For instance we don't see the family names of our close family members in adventure mode because their relationship can be designated in a simpler fashion, they will simply be referred to as Mother [PERSONAL_NAME] or Father [PERSONAL_NAME] or Brother [PERSONAL_NAME].  When we meet strangers which are not closely related then they will introduce themselves using their full name, but in casual conversation should probably just use their personal name only, unless prompted to use their full name. 

There could even be "what is your full name" prompt in adventure mode.  You could also have a "show full name" setting in fortress mode.  In both situations we get the full name as it appears in legends mode, but we don't see stuff that the culture does not use for naming purposes. 

Aside from the family stuff I envisage two other names.  One of them is the first string of the civilization's name combined with the second string of the site government's name, in the case of an independant site or an orphaned civilization member we can use both strings of the name instead.  This name is not used in fortress mode for your own dwarves, but only for visitors, neither is it used in adventure mode for other members of site governments or civilizations you belong to. 

[KittyTac]

Geez, I see now why your reputation is thin on the ground. And yet you are complaining about it being bad. You are, in effect, a troll.

I didn't realise I was advocating having pointless off-topic mud-slinging matches, I was just pointing out that ironically such a pointless mud-slinging match may well actually cause a proposal to rise up the lists faster than a constructive, civil and on-topic debates.  If you are OP make sure to promote mayhem on your thread, as long as it does not actually get your thread locked.

That's VERY, VERY bad netiquette. Really. And it might cause Toady to not implement the proposal, seeing it as divisive.

[GoblinCookie]

That's VERY, VERY bad netiquette. Really. And it might cause Toady to not implement the proposal, seeing it as divisive.

Obviously.

[KittyTac]

That's VERY, VERY bad netiquette. Really. And it might cause Toady to not implement the proposal, seeing it as divisive.

Obviously.

So you are intentionally trying to make suggestions not get implemented?

[GoblinCookie]

So you are intentionally trying to make suggestions not get implemented?

Your ability to twist even a single word is amazing.  I was agreeing with you and saying that everything you said was obvious. 

[KittyTac]

Well, then you're not just a troll, you're a proud troll.

[GoblinCookie]

Well, then you're not just a troll, you're a proud troll.

Take a look at yourself KittyTac, what are you doing with this pointless dialogue we are having?

[KittyTac]

Well, then you're not just a troll, you're a proud troll.

Take a look at yourself KittyTac, what are you doing with this pointless dialogue we are having?

You are the one who tried to derail the thread first, actually. This one dialogue was me retaliating. Let's end this, shall we?