THIS IS NOT A COMMUNITY

This is not a community.

Might as well break this to you right now, right off the bat. If you’re looking for a fuzzy-warm place to hang out and chat all afternoon at work while you’re supposed to be entering an endless list of numbers into Mocrosoft Excel, share some insiders-only cliquish humor and goofy pics and trendy animated gifs, chat with your buddies and make the time fly by, then you’re in the wrong place.

We’re not a community. This is a rant/opinion and possibly news site with a FORUM about online games. That’s right, a good old-fashioned forum. No daycare provided, no wetbar, no grill on the deck in back. Your friendship and comraderie is meaningless here. What matters here are your ideas. Your l33t personality and your cool inline graphical signature doesn’t mean jack.

See, that’s the difference between a forum and a “community”. Forums are about ideas. Communities are about people, groups, personalities. Many sites start off being about ideas. Usually, they end up being about community. While that may be great for those that come online to get their dose of touchy-feely acceptance and recognition, you can be sure that ideas .... real ideas, that is ... and the intelligent discussion of them - die out in “communities”, slowly eradicated by the protection of friendships, the support of comrades, and endless banter that buries every meaningful point and discussion.

We’ve all seen it. That chatroom or message board titled “Philosophy” has 200 posts about Mary’s baby, Joe’s birthday party, and an endless scroll of one-line insider quips and phrases. And none of it is actually about philosophy. Except when they’re bashing some noob for bringing it up.

Eventually, everyone with a serious point to make about what a site was supposed to be “about” in the first place becomes a troll. Why? Because they don’t allow the community to dictate the fate of their topic, or their point. They refuse to join the “community” and insist on substance. They refuse to allow the parade of personality, banter, and community approved spam dilute the importance of their topic. When a community icon decides that the thread is “over”, then you’d better shut up and post some really neato pics, maybe make some rude and dismissive comments. The more banal and flip the better. Dood. Quit taking it so seriously, Ralph. Quit whining. wtf is rong w/ u? STFU. Sum 1 ban this troll!!!!11 Don’t u know who u r talking 2?

This isn’t a community. There are no community icons. Here, the heroes are ideas. Here, reason and logic mean more than your vast collection of Atari 2600 screenshots. This is a forum, not a photo gallery or comedy venue. This is where reasonable people discuss ideas like intelligent, mature human beings. This site isn’t about flashy front pages, or forums with bells and whistles, fancy graphics and cold fushion menus. If that’s what you need, then please head on out and save yourself the trouble. We’re not going to waste our time, and your donations, on bandwidth-consuming eye-candy and slick designs meant to attract the interest of teenagers with ADS just so they can waste MORE of your time and money with chain-posts of pictures they think are “cute”and one-line quips they think are obscenely endearing.

This is a forum. If you can reasonably discuss ideas about the MMOG industry, online games, etc., then please, by all means, stay and contribute. If, however, you’re searching for the attention and acceptance your parents never gave you, or if you just need someone to LMFAO at your clever insult, then please go find a “community” somewhere.