Tagged: Netiquette

Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark

Jimbo Wales discusses trolling in a special se...

Jimbo Wales discusses trolling in a special session during Wikimania 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This evening I logged on to The MUD Connector, arguably the top MUD portal, and possibly the top MUD gaming related website on the net, and found that there discussion forums were completely gone without a trace, with no warning or explanation.  Now, this is no huge loss to me personally.  I have never been all that terribly impressed by the forums on that site.  They are often a cesspool of trolling, and self important MUD admins who think far to highly of themselves.  However, I do tend to at least peruse the top threads their ounce every day or two.

Over the last several days, a very heated religious debate broke out on the site between the site owner, who apparently is now on some big born again evangelistic kick, and decided to plaster his religious advertising in the midst of the MUD banners that are on normal rotation on that site.  It is very much his right, as site owner, to do so, and it is very much my right, as somebody who has a healthy skepticism of this type of pseudo-evangelism, to distance myself from the site and it’s owner if this debate, as I feared and suspected it would, quickly degenerated into something that would harm the integrity of the MUD community as a whole, which it did.

I have no way to confirm my suspicions at this point , but I think it is safe to assume that the flame war this religious debate has sparked has ultimately led to the removal of the entire MUD Connector forums.  It is unfortunate that this site owner, and the collection of petty, bickering, trolling wastrels who populate TMC’s forums, allowed this debate to degenerate to this level.  It should have been obvious to all parties involved, right from the start, that this would quickly turn into a massive flame war, and that each side of the debate was already deeply entrenched in their respective positions right from the start, and no amount of whining, bitching, trolling, or otherwise acting like a bunch of cunts would in any way change anyone’s mind or sway anyone from their original positions, and would only serve to piss a whole bunch of people off.

This whole incident is a black mark on the MUD community as a whole.  We should all be ashamed of ourselves.