Make Diplomacy, not War ))

I just returned the favor so I don't have to read snowflake millennial "I did this and that and I'm so great" crap anymore.

@Sky, there's no point in talking to this idiot anymore. He is completely lost in his own ego.

Do we need *another* one of these threads? Not a good look for many of you. Join more games instead.

Honest question: what happens if you join a game with someone who's muted you? Is it cancelled out for the game? Or is the game automatically thrown off by the fact that some people can't talk to each other?

"Do we need *another* one of these threads?"

As a moderator you could step in and lock them, right? All productive conversations have ceased, and there's little to be gained from an online game of 'got ya last'.

I regret weighing in in the first place, but I grew weary of one player spamming the forums with five threads of incessant nitwittery and general ego gathering. And while I know that we all have the capacity to ignore here, the fact remains that Enriador has somehow become a very influential person and what happens at VDiplomacy. Now maybe he presents himself as much more so, but he certainly seems to have Oli's ear on many things. It's worth pointing out that his game design talents are very much limited to his ability to write code. He's not the expert on the game of Diplomacy that he presents himself as, not a particularly talented map/variant designer. Rolling out 13 versions of the same variant doesn't make the guy an expert.

His lack of expertise doesn't silence his viewpoints either. My rationale for diving in was because the guy presents himself as an expert and an insider at VDiplomacy. While I don't think he is either, he cat definitely comes from the quantity over quality camp, and he makes sure his message is sprayed everywhere, shouting down anyone who dissents. If no one checks him on these things, perception has a way of becoming reality here.

Most of these conversation should be held in a variant lab context, but there are not because these variants have been rushed out to play with limited play testing. More is not always better.

Well vdip in it's origin was always supposed to be a testing area for new variants, both from the gameplay side and the technical side. It has evolved from being purely that into a community on it's own, but that is still part of the spirit. People create variants and the users here just try them out and see how they like them.
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@Sky_Hopper if you have any issues with users, you can contact us directly in the mod forum, you are not in a position to call for public judgement over a fellow user.

More great leadership from the Mod team. Once again sweeping the garbage under the rug. Nice work.

If VDiplomacy is just a test laboratory, then why do we need points, ratings, and moderators? This is just more egotistical equivocation for failing to deal with the problems. No one is against new variants being created. The problem we have is not a pushback against variants. The problem is we have a self appointed Michelangelo rolling out dozens of mediocre products in a short period of time. That in itself is bad for the community, but complete commandeering of the forums by Enriador in his vain search for endless praise is not only sickening, but disruptive to the ability to find and play new games.

Yet as if on cue, a member of the moderator team feels the need to publicly take sides without even bothering to understand the debate. There's nothing wrong with Sky_Hopper's observation. If you see this thread as a problem, then lock it down. Sky_Hopper is not the problem. He's not alone either. Almost every member of the community sees that Enriador is the problem. If you want these conversations to go away, why not speak to him privately? All you have done is embolden him now, by shaming a voice of reason. At least Doc's comment was neutral in nature, and one offering a suggestion of self restraint.

The decision to implement new variants or not lies 100% and only with Oli, we mods have never been asked and there is not need for that. Since Oli doesn't follow the forum too much, you might want to send any suggestions you have to him directly, although I don't really see the need to bother him with such issues personally.

If maybe 10 of 526 active users (hardly "almost every member of the community", is it?) see the need and feel the urge to publicly denounce each other and spend days debating, that is not my problem as a mod, as long as the issue remains contained to a few threads as well as verbally. I'm neither trained nor willing to be a kindergartner for adults.

Me personally objecting something is no reason to lock a thread.

To paraphrase Dr. Phil. It's not about variants.

It's about one self-entitled individual who posts thread after thread seeking to have his ego stroked, proclaiming himself God's gift to vDip, and muting any dissenters. If Enriador could get his way, he'd have a dozen or so of us silenced or banned entirely.

That was bad enough but then he "suggested" that all variants on classic should get his new crap icons and began the muting when we told him to go play with his variants but leave variants he had no involvement in alone.

I bet he wonders what we ever did without him.

I concur with the members of this community who consider that Enriador's behaviour could cause problems.

On a side note, is it possible to correct the spelling mistake of the title of this thread ?
Indeed, "La Résistance" is obviously made of two French words and, as such, should be written with an acute accent on the second letter of the word "Résistance". As a French native speaker, that spelling mistake hurts my eyes.

@YCHTT....why do you care? My main reaction to all of this has been to find humor in how people to always announce that they are muting people. When I care not about someone's babbling and random opinions, they generally are not important enough to me to announce to them that I will be ignoring them.

@GOD....as a random cultural note, in American English, a "kindergartener" is the child as opposed to the teacher. Idiomatically, one might say "be a nursery school teacher for adults."

@RUFFHAUS.....I think most of "the mod team" just leaves the forums as a free speech zone where site members can have whatever discussions they want. The appropriate reaction to most ridiculous behavior from fellow members should probably be to just point and laugh, which I think is what you did. But please, 'almost every member of the community agrees with me that so-and-so thinks he is the center of the universe' is a bit comical as assertions go. I used to having a colleague who would occasionally explain when drunk that his political enemies needed to be rounded up and shot because they were intolerant and animated by violent impulses.

@gopher - As he had me blocked, I wasn't announcing it to the snowflake. I was just letting Sky know my simple solution. Not reading the "safe zone" snowflake's rants is a huge improvement to the site.

@uber: Fair point there.

Gopher, to clarify my position on this matter after reading your comments. I understand the concept of leaving the forums uncensored, and support that general principle. But please, yourself. You and the rest of the moderator team are ignoring Enriador's disruptive behavior. This is not a matter of disagreements in a forum discussion. Enriador is spamming the forums in his egotistical quest for more and more accolades for his mediocre variants because he's not getting the praise he craves through normal channels. The reason I suggested locking the thread was because Dr. Recommended posted a question above, asking if 'we needed another one of these threads?' Do we need one? Of course not. What we need is for the moderators to moderate the site. Clearly the other idiot moderator opining above on this conversation is incapable of understanding disruptive behavior, probably because he endorses it and cheers on such cheeky bullshit antics. But maybe you will consider the fact that Enriador's praise craze is adversely affecting the community, and take some action to mitigate this. Specifically this assclown is clogging the threads with multiple conversations, and endless 'must have the last word' retorts to a never ending debate about his lame variants that no one wants in the first place.

If you prefer to quibble with the numbers and say that only 10 players object, then so be it. Stick you head in the sand like your smartass do-nothing douchebag colleague on the mod team. At least two moderators (Leif, and Dr, Recommended) have noted that this stuff is a problem, and attempted in polite fashion to make it stop. The problem is not the lame variants, debate, or even the absurdity of the positions taken up by Enriador. The problem is that we cannot read the forums because he won't shut up. He has to keep the conversation going to keep himself in the limelight. It's not just me saying this. It's other long term members of the community like drano, Retillion, and YCHTT. It younger, but commited players like ubercacher, and Sky_Hopper. It's not a few fly by night players in for a game or two and bolt players. These are knowledgeable and experienced hobbyists and VDip veterans, and not ones who typically march in lockstep agreement on anything. There's likely many other annoyed by the inability to follow the forums for new games, tournaments. results/standings, announcements because there are a half dozen Enriador related threads dominating the forum. The reason we have threads like this is because the Mod team refuses to moderate.

I’m locking this thread (and the other one). We’ve managed to get by with a minimum of forum moderation over the years, and we really don’t want to have to start now, even if we’ve had some characters here over the years (think meepmeep).

This seems like a good time for the community to have a discussion about what sort of forum we want and what (if any) restrictions we would like to see in it. However That discussion shouldn’t be in this forum thread for obvious reasons. Let’s have a civil discussion about this folks.