- UL7IM4 G33K
- |
- Senior Legendary Member
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstien
Posted by: Saint
So you're saying that the Bungie community is elitist, and that's why there's elitism. Well let's take a look at that. If you are wrong, and it's the join dates etc. that bring out the elitist in us, then there's no point in having them. If you are right and we're all elitist jerks anyway, then there's definitely no reason to have them. If you'd like to read through the paragraph above that you wrote again, you may notice that you come across as exactly the kindof elitist jerk you are complaining about! There are the obvious insults at everyone - "...this community denies itself by being so stupid and ignorant", the specific stabs at people you think are beneath you in terms of maturity/age - "Its filled with half wit teens and prepubescent morons, or at least those with a mental maturity on par" and then, of course, the underlying tone of hatred because Bungie made a game that became awesomely popular, and you think that they are 'selling out' - "I honestly think that it was the fact you sold to a larger crowd that Halo 2 and these forums gained such a large supply of imbeciles and flamers". Your tone is disgraceful, and reflects exactly the kind of behaviour that denies this community the things you listed.
Im not saying the bungie community is entirely elitist, and in no way am I putting myself ahead of anyone here and using elitism to my advantage. While you are correct in assuming there is no point in giving elitist members something to promote further elitism, I feel it is more fear than prevention that keeps the b.net admins from giving the community the privilege of using them. They don't trust their community, so why should the community give anything back? If you are going to only attack me for being elitist when i am basing my argument on cold hard facts of life, the facts that not everybody is on par when it comes to maturity or age, and the fact that most of this community is on the immature side of the spectrum (most every respectable/sensible members agrees with this i believe). Im not putting people beneath or above me, because honestly I have no authority. It is you who are suggesting that I believe that I do have authority, which is merely twisting my comments and ignoring the more important ones just to make an attack at me personally.
Then comes the planting of more words that I never said. I NEVER EVER said bungie sold out, but that their intended aim was wrong, or a mistake. I'm not holding it against bungie for wanting to share their creation, but their actions unpredictably drew in the more generic person who takes advantage of everything he can. The average IQ of the American male is actually around 60 or 70, not near the norm. This isnt a basis for judgment, but a large and very significant number of the people in the Halo 2 live community do at least 5 different things to degrade their opponents, or even their own teammates. They curse, trasthalk, threaten to physically and -blam!-ly harm others. There is only one form of status on XBL, and that is rank, yet every single person save for a small percentage feels that it determines your superiority mentally, physically, and intellectually over your lowers. Why is this? Because the average player does not play to have fun with other members of the community, but to shame their opponent and prove that they are better as a person by defeating them in a game. They use it as a status quo. This is a known fact to any XBL player who isn't kidding themselves, and it spills over greatly into the b.net forums. Maybe not the Septagon or the Halo 3 forum, but definitely in others, although I think it has decreased in prevalence lately.
Oh, and my tone only reflects how you read it. Because I cant possibly have a tone with text.
Posted by: Saint
Perhaps that's because "wondering" isn't a good way to get answers? IP bans are useless, pretty much. A vast number of internet users have their IP address assigned dynamically by their ISP - thus to get around an IP ban, all they'd need to do would be to turn their router/modem off and then on again to get a new IP address. An ISP ban is another method people trot out when thy think they know more about managing a forum than the people who's job it is to do so every day (because they've posted on several forums, they should know, right?) - again, that doesn't work as you potentially are banning a number of other, innocent people who use the same ISP.
I wonder because all I ask don't give me a good answer. And IP bans are definitely a deterrent to any non-computer savy people who attend these forums, which i have seen quite a number of those members. They are far more effective than just letting them create a new account with the same IP, at least this way it makes it much hard for their random IP to get in each successive time, because you can only get a certain number of random IP's due to other systems (millions, even billions of them) using their own IP addresses. IP bans arent as inherently ineffective as you believe. ISP bans are stupid, becuase they block the provider, which is a crappy way to do things. If you get enough offenses though, you can have the ISP block the site for a particular user.
Posted by: Saint
The warning system in place since the site update is pretty much exactly what you just described. Something small gets you a warning, warnings are tracked and after a couple you get banned. Repeat offenders get perma'd.
What I mean is a physical bar under the username that only the moderators and admins can see. This way the moderators can mark a user for offenses, and. it could even be displayed to the rest of the forum if need be to show members who is the idiot who doesn't follow the rules and who isn't, although most people will cry "elitism" at this. That word is your own downfall, it destroys any chance at a dynamic community within the pre-made forums. People say that you only need to be an individual in your post, but there are mountains of ways to express yourself than just in text. Besides, post counts also give you a reason to stay and promote activity, as does ranks, etc. You have something to look forward to. But that word "elitism" has alienated you from what online communities normally have... trust in its members. I myself said you cant trust half the members here. If anyone abuses anything, you ban them. You don't just start taking things down to make sure it doesn't happen again. That is giving in to what they want, to ruin the diversity and freedom of this place. Banning people for rule breaking and abuse is an example that you wont tolerate it. All you have done is show that you just dont want to deal with it at all, and are giving in to them.