Lord Fowl

[Conspire2Ignite]

Allow me a moment, if you will.

I easily understand where Fowl grates on you. He grates on me. Hey, Fowl, you're maybe a bit of a douche. Sorry. But "mountains out of molehills" is very apt. Most everyone on the server knows to ignore you when you chime in with something off-the-wall, such as when someone asks what the in-game year is and you give a number that I raise my eyebrow at and promptly correct. A little eyeroll "that's Fowl for you" thing and we all go on with our day with a small chuckle or an irritated huff.

At least, that's how I saw it until we got an ahelp from a player that was extremely distressed in thinking you were serious in yelling about banning them. It felt like I was punched in the face.

Not everyone on our server is a "regular." They don't know everyone's quirks and BAN HE jokes. Everything that you say can be taken 100% seriously and that has repercussions you don't see. Tone is impossible to convey over the internet. Anything you say can be turned against you and you can protest "I didn't mean it that way" until you're blue in the face, but no one ever sees your blue face. They only see their perception of your words. You have got to learn to think more before you type.

Yesno Dood, I would also like to order some constructive criticism with a side of positive thinking, hold the needless vitriol. Remember that tone thing I just spoke about? It applies to everyone, including you and including me. Your words are all we have to go off of and right now, you're looking like the asshole you claim Fowl to be. If this topic can't be discussed calmly and without excessive anger, the point of the matter is lost in the mudslinging.

[Guest]

Personally? I'm pretty neutral when it comes to this complaint. There are some things that would make me support either the plaintiff's side or the defendant's side. But, I think I'll list them quickly so that I don't start rambling.

So, first off. "Lord Fowl is pretty much a big jerk to everyone on the server."

Thiiiis is not an issue that just so happens to be isolated to Fowl. As seen many, many times, even in this very thread, just about anyone can be a gigantic dildo.

"The first thing is how he constantly keeps running votes for a round end, and he does that every damn thirty minutes or less to the point administrators do not even stop him."

Because it's kinda within the borders of the rules in which you can run votes for a round end. I'd consider it bending the rules without actually breaking them, but some people want off a 2 hour ride when security has to deal with 4 detainees screaming about Marxism and 'freedom' on a corporate-owned space station. In some instances, yes, it's fine if people want to transfer out of a shithole poor excuse of a round. Majority votes, and everyone leaves. The end.

"When asked why is he so obnixious, he claims it is his duty to keep calling the votes, and that he should in fact do it more frequently."

Because when he says this, he totally means this. Yes, tone is very difficult to convey over the internet, but just about everyone should be taking any person's opinion or statement with a grain of salt unless they have a position of power, authority or immense respect in the community.

"Second thing is how Lord Fowl is being a jerk to some players on the server. Yesterday he simply could not drop his shit with Bokaza after the latter has made some grammatical mistakes during one event. Bokaza is not a native English speaker, and so I understand why he might make a grammatical mistake or two, but when Lord Fowl was asked to stop, he kept pointing that out in a very assholish way that could only mean he had malicious intent towards him."

This is where I will agree Fowl went wrong. It was not his place to piss off and otherwise antagonize someone who was making grammatical or spelling mistakes, of all things you could be pissing a bitch or trolling over. There is pretty much no reason to do so, and there's no reason not to take anyone's roleplaying ability seriously just because, oh, they made typographical errors because they aren't fluent English speakers. Guess I'll just... be a troll.

Eh. Agree that this particular instance was uncalled for. However, one isolated instance does not a literally Hitler make.

"Please make him stop being stupid, people are tired of his shit."

Okay. Here's where I disagree in that we need to start signal-boosting or have some sort of call-to-arms to... stop someone from being trolly and otherwise unserious? Oh, so, instead of being less sensitive to the content and context, let's just be completely alarmist to... uh. Words. Yes, words. Signal boost, go, go, go, lynch Fowl.

 

---

---

 

Then there's... Fowl's first response post. You know, Drew and I actually made a dramatic reading of it because, really. It was just too absurd to read. You want another unpopular opinion? I think you all like to overreact over very silly things. Fowl in that, despite not really believing nor being passionate about the 'mountain he makes out of a molehill', and the rest of you carrying out this complaint in calling him a dickweed troll with no empathy.

Let me tell you about one of the earlier communities I was apart of. It was a small Starcraft 2 Arcade game community, focusing around coding, maintaining, and playing/testing a fun Cat 'N mouse RTS simulation. Though much of the community interaction was forum-based, it was still quite tightly-knit in that retrospect. Ideas were pitched, changes were made, and shitposting was absolutely not allowed except in the indicated "Slushbucket" subboard, which was a subforum for little else than for shitposting to get all of that trolliness out and to have fun. However, it was not /b/. It was close, but. Still, not.

However, as the game aged and changes were made, the community started hating and getting jaded on the game. They got bitter and sour and developed fuck-you-all attitudes. Eventually, the entire infrastructure fell apart and the game stopped developing. People left, though I check back from time to time to see that the same people I knew for four fucking years are still shitposting.

Honestly, that community pretty much changed me. At first, I was an extremely sensitive, no-nonsense person. Eventually, that snobbishness got broken down and it left a very silly man that almost never gave a shit or took people seriously. To be fair, though, I still retain some serious characteristics and utilize them when it's prudent.

So. On with the point here. I come from a very 4channy community that outshitposted each other whenever they could and almost never took each other seriously. There were no boundaries, and if there were, we crossed them for lulz. Given the experience with this kind of entourage of attitudes, I relate to Fowl in some instances where he's being very obviously sarcastic (to me) and glib. Every person is different, and not many people can even interpret tone or meaning from cellulite words.

I'm not going to outright blame the community or Fowl, though admittedly both parties have their serious issues. Fowl doesn't know when to quit while he's ahead, and the community doesn't fully understand what it means to not give a shit.

I'm not suggesting aaaaaaaaaaannny solutions here. Fuck no, figure this out for yourselves. But figure something out for the best interest of the community, not just the plaintiffs, not just the defendant. I'm talking about everyone who plays this stupid game.

Find a medium, why don't you all?

[Guest]

Well with the risk of sounding like I have Stockholm sindrom, I agree with 1138. Don't know how many of you read what he posted, but he pretty much apologised and admited he did wrong. Will he change? Probably not. Does he deserve a chance either way? Yes, in my opinion. Everyone deserves a chance, because banning people for unintentionally being assholes seems a bit stupid.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

So, after reading this a bunch of times, it got really hard to keep track of things

So, Jackboot,yesno,furry and boka all have a problem with Fowl's attitude. Wether it be called trolling, unwelcoming or rude and annoying. I've personally never had a problem but is this really something that needs to be curbed. Is it really that bad that we need a watered down version of fowl?

Metagaming doesn't seem deserving of the title "heavily". The example provided isn't even metagaming. That's completely normal thing to ask imo

Yesno seems overly spiteful, fowl didn't deserve that level of near harrasment. Vote end is an interesting point, bt i guess he's not trampling any rules.

Why does fowl write like an edgy teen applying for a custom item. A run throughhis other posts really makes that one stand out lol

Grammar thing was just dumb. No dancing around it. Just don't. Unless the character is /supposed/ to have an accent, just ignore it. I don't think there's one other person who would support you on this, it just sounds dickish.

[Guest]

Having actually re-read the second page, I noticed it derailed from meaningful discussion to a fallout of flaming.

Uh-uh. This is not okay, you guys. You don't fight fire with gunpowder, folks. You're making it harder for a lot of people that read through these complaints expecting others to bring up valid points and issues, but instead have to deal with immense headaches because of people insulting and attacking each other.

If ya ain't got anything nice-ish to say, don't post it. You'll really regret it when a mod or seven goes over this entire complaint. It's bad enough when the OP themselves leaves their head unscrewed and completely nulls the complaint because they did the exact same thing as the 'offender' did.

[Doomberg]

Alright, Fowl was spoken to about this and acknowledged the fact that his behavior has been disruptive and offensive to some. He has been issued a warning, along with a guarantee that failing to adjust this behavior will result in more severe consequences.

Now, I'd like to address the rampant aggression and spewing of vitriol in this complaint, despite previous warnings. This kind of attitude is not acceptable and never will be acceptable. I will elect not to take any sort of disciplinary action at this point, but should this issue resurface in further complaints, I can promise that action /will/ be taken against the offenders.

With that aside, I'll be marking this complaint as resolved. If the author wishes to contest this, he is more than encouraged to PM Jennalele or myself.

Locking and archiving.