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A thread from Sufficient Velocity, for recreational purposes

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2015 10:35 pm
by Mr. Oragahn
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/t ... 987/page-4
Many spit posts that refer to SFJ and old grudges (I guess). Gets even better at page 6.
Enjoy. :)

Re: A thread from Sufficient Velocity, for recreational purp

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2015 3:25 am
by 2046
Apparently Athene/"Athenatos" is exceedingly sensitive, to the point that my use of that name combo was taken to be an anti-trans attack instead of a combo of the person's two most known names, Athene and Thanatos, which was contextually relevant at the time given that both names were being discussed regarding the history.

Hell, I have done that to myself before, using DSG2k simply because of Darkstar and the old Guardian 2000 names. If someone came up saying Guardian 2046 or DSG2k46 I would not presume it was an attack on some condition or status of mine.

I feel for someone whose history may have engendered some hypersensitivity ... and indeed, re-reading that, I imagine one could even cry foul at the word "engendered" ... but I make no apology for imagined sleights. If anything, I am reminded how "reporters in the field" was taken as a racial slur by the Virginia guy who killed the news crew recently.

That said, I would be opposed to any use of a person's clothing or body modification choices, whatever the underlying cause, as a retort in a versus debate, as was claimed. That has as much to do with the argument as the price of tea in China. However, I have also seen no evidence of that occurring even via a search, and Athene has provided no such evidence even via my PM request.

Does anyone here recall such a thing? Or are we all inhabiting such a haven of super-transphobia that we would be unable to recollect one of the myriad examples?

Re: A thread from Sufficient Velocity, for recreational purp

Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 4:31 pm
by Mike DiCenso
You have to remember, Robert, that these people are not rational, despite how they try to portray themselves. I also noted how one of them even quoted me out of context from the "spacebattles has splintered" thread to try and broad brush stroke us all as reactionary paranoid conspiracy theorists where the VS Debate is concerned. Isn't that old canard getting...well... old?

Oh and I gotta love Athenatos' Appeal to Popularity bit there by cherrypicking a point when we only had 3 users online. I wonder how many dozens of page refreshes had to be clicked throughout an entire day or more before she got what she wanted and then comparing it off to one of SBC's better showings as metered by Alexia. This forum's traffic really just rides a huge roller coaster; we might have a global rank of 12,000,000 one week and 2,500,000 the next. We might only have three users online on minute and 20 the next. That's the way it's always been with this forum.
-Mike

Re: A thread from Sufficient Velocity, for recreational purp

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2015 12:31 am
by Mr. Oragahn
Their thread is a remarkably concentrated source of nonsense and false claims. In many ways, it just feels like reading old time SD or the more SD-sounding of SB posts related to Darkstar or, to a much lesser degree, this forum.
As for the idea that we used the transphobic card to win in VS debates, I can't recall any such thing. Namely for the fact that it only became a topic once Athene got demoded and that it was both short lived and that any talks about transsexuality were contained within a very few threads at most, none of which had anything to do with VS debates per se. Not to say, btw, that the only transsexual person to come here as we knew of, Athene, hardly engaged in any formal VS debate. So that's one less occasion for this person to have been the target of any pseudo transphobic tactic in order to win any discussion.

In any case, Athene hasn't even bothered providing the slightest piece of evidence for such an accusation.
As far as I know, it's nothing more than a bold faced lie hiding behind an appeal to victimhood.

Regarding this forum's activity, yes it's very small. Sometimes it feels more like cooperative blog than anything else. It's been getting less busy year on year. It changes nothing to the quality of the threads that were found here.
Perhaps the only way it could get rejuvenated would be through a broadening of its scope and some pimping. Hard to tell. I am personally not sad as all things end one day. Time will tell.

Re: A thread from Sufficient Velocity, for recreational purp

Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 6:15 pm
by Jedi Master Spock
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Not to say, btw, that the only transsexual person to come here as we knew of, Athene, hardly engaged in any formal VS debate.
I believe you're getting things mixed up. Serafina didn't engage in much VS debate. IIRC, the last time Athene was here was under the handle of Thanatos back in 2009, back when she was not publicly identifying herself as a woman. Back in her Thanatos days, she participated extensively in VS debates, although earned the board's first ever temporary ban for repeated misconduct.

I considered this a pity, because she and I had a lot of fun in a highly formalized debate format. A pity about the temper, because it's really not often that someone will stick it through to the end of one of those - few people ever challenged me to a structured debate, and fewer still followed through.

As far as Serafina goes, anyone needing review of exactly what those topic involved should go here. And here. And here. Serafina and two of her opponents (Kor and Oragahn) managed to earn themselves temporary bans during that adventure.

Looking back on that, it's rather funny to call this place a "hugbox," because in spite of the fact that we do have rules that talk about being polite, it's actually pretty hard to earn more than a short-term temporary ban here, and even one-day bans have been pretty rare. SDN and SB both banned people quite routinely on the basis of someone being stubbornly on the wrong side of an argument as far as insiders were concerned. (I haven't looked around enough on SV to know if that's the case there or not.)

It's also funny to see someone link to a thread and pronounce it proof that we all thought that the Culture would get roflstomped by the Federation when the poll at the top of the thread shows a 13-4 popular opinion in the other direction and the thread is almost entirely just Narsil vs GStone.

OTOH, I'll leave this quote here in SV's favor:
RogueIce wrote:I agree, I bring it up mostly because it's how I'd rather do things, but it's also illustrative to a point you need to understand about Legends EU.

George Lucas was Star Wars. Full Stop. And he didn't care too much about the EU.

He allowed it, certainly. But the EU was never going to take the place of his movies, and if he did return - as he would in the PT and later TCW - to making Star Wars again, he was free to ignore it.

This, clearly, has impacts upon the body of Legends as a whole. Because at the end of the day, there was only a single overall creative vision for Star Wars - and the holder of said vision did not bother himself with the EU. Which, I think, is where a lot of the slapdash, wonky, all-over-the-damn-place feel of it comes from, because nobody was around to veto the weird shit. I'm not even sure anyone was really paying attention! Sure, there were a couple rules here and there: don't discuss Luke's mother pre-PT being one (making that entire subplot of the BFC Trilogy useless to those who knew about this). But overall, it was pretty much free to do whatever.

Which of course could be good or bad, depending on who was unleashing their creative energies at the time. And is why in the latter stages of the EU we got all those "Essential Guide to..." books trying to fuse it all together. Somehow.

Of course, when @Kylar gets to the PT is when things get interesting, because that's where Lucas took an interest again. I already made the observation about Ki Adi Mundi and his family and how that had to be retconned when it turns out George had other ideas when it came to the Jedi Order. Of course, when TCW came on the scene, well...let's just say there was a lot of salt on the TFN Lit Forums back in the day. Jedi Master Even Piell and especially Barriss Offee are two of the most notable examples there, but others exist.
Speaking of being stuck in 2005, or 2006, or 2007, if you deleted the word "Legends" that post would have fit in perfectly back here during that time with what various of our collection of dissidents... and garnered a pretty angry response on SB or SDN.

Re: A thread from Sufficient Velocity, for recreational purp

Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:18 pm
by Mr. Oragahn
Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Not to say, btw, that the only transsexual person to come here as we knew of, Athene, hardly engaged in any formal VS debate.
I believe you're getting things mixed up. Serafina didn't engage in much VS debate.
That is actually pretty much what I said. The sentence you quoted, in full context, is clearly refering to any VS debate Serafina/Athene would have been part of in parallel to the nature of Serafina's transsexual nature being known, and supposedly used as a point of pressure to harass and win dishonestly.
So yes, Thanatos' posts are irrelevant. Back then, Thanatos was just some guy on internet calling himself Thanatos here and there. He's indeed one of the few who even tried to come here. And incapable of winning, he attempted to trash the place before leaving and, iirc, claiming on SDN that he had the upper hand (usually according to the age old argument that since SFJN is a fringe forum full of cretins and weirdos, whatever happens at SFJN is just not relevant anyway and proves nothing at all).
The context is important because of the false accusations Athene made on the quite freshly created SV boards back then. He/She mixed things up, conflating strictly VS debates with other debates (shitfests in truth) and creating that kind of realm where he/she was supposedly taking some kind of anti-LGBT fire in VS debates.
As far as we know and can show, this is totally false. It's even more absurd considering how we cherished proper debate here because of what many of us had taken elsewhere for defending facts and sound logic against bias and mod abuse.
Besides, it would be rather hypocritical to use minor flaming as an excuse for not pursuing any discussion here any longer considering the kind of abuse one would easily get at SD or SB, times a thousand.
IIRC, the last time Athene was here was under the handle of Thanatos back in 2009, back when she was not publicly identifying herself as a woman. Back in her Thanatos days, she participated extensively in VS debates, although earned the board's first ever temporary ban for repeated misconduct.
Indeed, and that was quite telling because the rules here were quite generous to begin with. We know that, we've seen said rules being pushed to their limits years ago, even before Serafina came.
I considered this a pity, because she and I had a lot of fun in a highly formalized debate format. A pity about the temper, because it's really not often that someone will stick it through to the end of one of those - few people ever challenged me to a structured debate, and fewer still followed through.
But that is the problem, since we actually made the effort of having structured and documented arguments, the tricks could be used on other boards didn't work anymore here. The bar was probably quite high.
As far as Serafina goes, anyone needing review of exactly what those topic involved should go here. And here. And here. Serafina and two of her opponents (Kor and Oragahn) managed to earn themselves temporary bans during that adventure.
Since the thread I'm mentionned in doesn't feature a link, I can't even retrieve the thread where I lost my temper. That's the way I am anyway, mods know it here, I always have a tendency to speak my mind a bit too harshly, up to get getting a warning. When things are generally civil like they used to be on this board, it's OK. But when a troll and troublemaker enters the party, it takes a lot of restraint for things not to go south quickly.
As I said here:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:In that case where do the board rules stand on harrassment as he is obviously pushing for this ban to score a victory that he failed to gain in the thread, he is essentially using the letter of the law to ignore the spirit of the law.

A temporary ban is supposedly a punishment like a driving ban but for one driver who drives sometimes multiple times every day it is a punishment, but for another who drove only once (the time of the incident) it means nothing, in fact due to the circumstances it is at least a double reward as it is punishing a person they dislike and they know that person is aware they would gain satisfaction from it.

If you can come up with a punishment that has a equal negative effect on both of us i would not bother arguing, but as it stands i would be being punished twice, once by the ban and once by knowing that he is gaining satisfaction from it. While he would not give a damn about the ban but enjoy the fact that i was inconvienienced and enjoy the fact i know he caused it.

Double punishment VS double pleasure that is not the reality of SFJ justice.
Stopping arguing with Serafina and solely showing the insults contained in her posts would have probably been far more efficient in retrospect.
But don't do that over more than one post. I was getting swallowed into such a maddening spiral of spending most of time chasing the strawmen and showing the insults, although not in a detailed manner, and it was really tiresome.
At some point, when I realized that in order to merely explain the strawmen upon strawmen and the fact that she was arguing over misinterpretations, a single section of a post dedicated to one single quote was growing out of reasonable proportions, I knew it wasn't worth it.
I'm a human being after all, I don't enjoy being treated like shit: and it's quite clear that I took a lot in that thread. I also probably have been quoted or replied to in more than half a dozen obscure private boards I don't even know about.
So I walked out of that retarded nonsense.

It is right that proving an act of trolling is hard, but when you get the feeling that you're dealing with it, I suppose the best thing to do is play by the rules and show what's wrong, and refuse the debate, even if that comes after a couple of insults from both sides. If the troll, or person perceived as a troll, then claims a victory by using your refusal to partake in his games, you report the person.
That's why I suggested a lock of the thread, because it was clear that you were not cold blooded enough to not getting dragged into this silly dance, and the dishonesty and lies might have just been plain enraging.
It wasn't worth it anymore.
Seriously, SFJN never had it that hard.
That was probably my limit at being civil and I think, iirc, that the "debate" involving went on. This person doesn't deserve any respect IMHO.
Looking back on that, it's rather funny to call this place a "hugbox," because in spite of the fact that we do have rules that talk about being polite, it's actually pretty hard to earn more than a short-term temporary ban here, and even one-day bans have been pretty rare. SDN and SB both banned people quite routinely on the basis of someone being stubbornly on the wrong side of an argument as far as insiders were concerned. (I haven't looked around enough on SV to know if that's the case there or not.)
That's the point. Arbitrary, half-hidden in-house rules enforced under the mood of mod A or B were tactics that weren't going to work here.
That is probably why the vast majority of the "debaters" didn't dare registering here. Because, frankly, creating an account is just damn dead easy. But what's easier is to stay on the otherside and make all sorts of excuses to be lazy and coward.