Friday, December 26, 2008

GoW: New Members Not Welcome

So, I tried to join a discussion in #writers tonight. I was invited by Nadnerb a while ago so that I could listen to the discussion, mostly because I've been planning to start modeling in Blender for a while now, and I finally have some free time. He invited me about 24 hours before the discussion in that I will talk about.

I heard in CC that there was an argument going on, so I dropped into #writers to listen (or rather, I unlurked). *argue argue argue* Not being affiliated with the GoW, or any other writing groups, I had never heard in detail and/or paid attention to the politics. Within five minutes I could tell that BAD was in charge and held his rule with an iron fist, and that hoikas was BAD's little sidekick. I could also tell that Paradox was on the opposite side of BAD (ie: not GoW, but I had heard vague mentions of this beforehand). Zrax also made it pretty clear that he wasn't in total agreement with BAD. I couldn't tell where Kato stood.

*argue argue argue point fingers call names Paradox how dare you bring in your little toadies to this chatroom (as if RIUM and I would come because Paradox called and not of our free volition)* So, me, being one who always speaks her mind, decided to pipe up. Essentially, it went something like this (not quoted): "Guys, knock it off...this is the exact reason why I don't do anything more than chat in CC with this community...none of you guys get along, all of you guys argue. BAD, you're being an idiot, knock it off for one second. hoikas, please knock it off. paradox, you too, shush. Can you guys all step away from your computers for 10 minutes, take a deep breath, and calm down? And then we can talk rationally about this?"

How did BAD and hoikas respond? Hoikas muted the channel. Everyone was given voice. *EXCEPT ME*. BAD told me to stay out of it because none of this discussion was of my concern.

Wtf did I do to deserve this? I was trying to calm people down, listen to a (semi-)rational discussion... And the channel was muted on me.

And how do they know this is none of my concern? I am interested in possibly contributing to the GoW someday. Or at least, I was.

You can forget me ever joining the GoW. I will never support the GoW. If this is how they treat newcomers, no wonder they are such a niche, elitist group.

For those interested in reading the full transcript, it's posted on Paradox's blog here: http://paradox22.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/politics/.

10 comments:

Kumah said...

I learned awhile back that the myst community isn't a happy place. I just stick to CC and IMing other Myst fans. I avoid having an opinion anymore, it just seems to get me in trouble.

BAD said...

This is completely unfair and wrong.

Your commenting on an incident that happened in IRC, and your spinning this for your own personal benefit.

You admit you know nothing about the GOW, yet you can assure everyone that they are an elitist group? Sounds fishy to me.

The reason we silenced you on the chat is because you were interupting the discussion. We were actually starting to get passed te sarcasm and back biting, but you with all of your expertise on the GOW, decided to keep on telling people to shut up, which is rude in and of itself.

So why don't you take your paint brush and find some other place to slander for no reason.

Facts are:

The GOW welomes any newcomers. Usually, in IRC, on the forum, and on the wiki, you find tonnes of helpfull people and information.

The GOW is an open group. If you join the forum and contribute at all, they consider you a member.

The administration of the GOW has always done it's best to stay out of the way. This is the first time any one has openly attacked the GOW administration.

The person who instigated the attack is Paradox.

Im no longer a member of the GOW administration.

Thanks to people like Dox, vaaht, and tahg, I can't help there anymore without the fear that these people will attack me again.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, see, no way I am "joining a Guild"...I work for a living and I don't need that office politics crap in my fun time! I'm sticking to my Veovis geekdom. This is an ongoing problem, unfortunately. :( On my own blog I sometimes post something controversial just to stir the pot and see what happens. I get more comments for that because people naturally like to disagree and argue with your bold opinions.

Vaaht said...

Ku'mah> I agree with you. That is also why I left the Mysterium Committee, so yeah. I'm just going to stick to CC and IMs. The GoW didn't exactly make me feel welcome on a first try.

Baladria> Yeah, I don't enjoy politics either. I have enough of them in my department. I don't intend to immerse myself in them at home.

BAD> If you noticed, I summarized *my* version of the events, tried to include a few of my smart comments that I maybe shouldn't have said (like "shut up", since it just hurts my case...but oh well, too late now) so I wouldn't seem like I was completely guilt-free, and then I linked to Paradox's blog where anyone who has five spare minutes can read for themselves what went on in the conversation, and decide for themselves whether they think I'm an asshole, you're an asshole, Paradox is an asshole, or otherwise. So yes, I believe I am being fair. This was basically my only introduction to trying to talk to Writers outside of CC (and I use "Writers" to mean affiliates and non-affiliates of the GoW who work on Uru), and what I was shown was that if you disagree, we will silence you; if you're new, your opinion does not count; if you're in charge, whoops, there's only one person who rules the roost. Honestly, from someone who does *NOT* get involved in any of the forums (I don't even lurk and read) and tends to ignore most of the community, I think that speaks volumes.

BAD said...

Yes it speaks volumes.

It says you interjectd yourself into a discussion that you were not a part of, nor had any information about.

You made conclusions based on a narrow view of a whole group. You still admit no knowledge of the group or it's activities, but still continue to bash the group.

For your information, I was never the leader of the GOW, two seconds of reading the forum would tell you that.

Matter of fact, I quit even moderating the forum (which was my only job) since Dox felt I was over stepping myself. In his perfect world, I simply don't fit.

What your doing here is propagating misinformation. In essence your slandering a group of abou 600 members. You can BS yourself into thinking that your on some kind of moral highground, but the truth is your entry here is a kneejerk reaction to a one time event, and you are slandering a whole group with it

If you actually cared beyond your self, you would read the forum and try the ircfor more than one day.

I know you will give some line about you don't have to do that cause you are psychic and understand everything from one conversation.

Well God bless you.

Nisan said...

I am shocked by how rude and mean-spirited these people are. I'm not thankful enough for mostly having to interact with people who are reasonable or at least good-natured. It is hard to imagine why someone would want to put up with this sort of fighting all the time.

Anonymous said...

I think I can say with quite a bit of certainty that BAD is not a ruler at the GoW or over Hoikas.

Yeah, things got a little heated. However, not all was punches and hot air. Valid points were raised and for my part, it made me reexamine what I personally want the GoW to be, after seeing it cast in a somewhat harsh light.

I have to heartily agree with Hoikas on this point "we're damned either way".

Here is some back-story you might not know about the GoW:

Back up about a year. We're the butt of jokes between all the other guilds because we're "unstructured". Everyone is pushing for us to "get a structure", including Cyan.

Then, after long heated discussions about how we should be organized we finally get a structure.

THEN, people seem uninterested in the politics. This is fine except for the fact they'd said they wanted to be part of the political system.

We have a disfunctional structure document that needs rewriting.

I write up my vision for how the broken political system could be fixed. I send to to Trylon. I works on it and shows it to the councilors (or i assume what happens).

We get the representative system after the proposal is approved for implementation.

No one seems to even know about the representative position. BAD posts about needing reps. He was offering info that people seemed to have overlooked before.

I think I've covered the most important events in the political past of the GoW.

It may have appeared to be a simple argument from the outside but in fact it had to do with 1+ years of frustration at and disagreement on various aspects of the GoW.

Let me make this last point very clear: You should not in any way be subject to these particular disagreements as a member of the GoW or any other guild.

Part of the vision I had for the restructure was to allow people the option of staying out of the politics if they so please. The way it is, you must all be very interested in GoW politics. Might I say: You asked for it? :P

BAD said...

Nisan Said
"I am shocked by how rude and mean-spirited these people are. I'm not thankful enough for mostly having to interact with people who are reasonable or at least good-natured. It is hard to imagine why someone would want to put up with this sort of fighting all the time."

What, may I ask, convinces you in any way that this is how we have acted all the time?

Once again, someone with zero experience makes a sweeping generality about a whole group of people.

The bigotry and prejudice in this community has always startled me.

You wouldn't say the above about the Jewish community, nor black people, but you instantly brand the entire GOW, and all who are affiliated with it, because one person made up stuff about it.

That is incredibly sad and discouraging.

Nisan said...

Of course, just because BAD and Hoikas were mean doesn't mean that other people in the group they belong to are mean.

Anonymous said...

I love these little tiffs, they are utterly pointless.

Can I suggest you take a look at the GoW forums & Wiki, everything you will need for age writing is there.

If something is not working though, try chase up almlys http://alcugs.almlys.org/

Sadly the most of the GoW could'nt really program anything if they tried.

And while they have kindly documented everything on age build, we might as well leach from them