Then please explain it to me, since I don't know what else to perceive this as.
Nope, I'm done. You haven't shown enough empathy for anyone else on these boards for me to want to take time to help you understand your problem. My guess is the only reason you haven't been banned already is because the designers are in Germany and they don't have time to hit you with the ban-stick. Go be righteously underappreciated somewhere else, please.
There are laws about "creating a public disturbance".
You want the right to say what you want to be unabridged, but that does not apply to privately held forums such as this board.
The Right to Free Speech does not entitle you to an audience.
Um...so let me see if I've got this straight (I live over here in England, by the way - hello, yes, other countries exist as well)...so you've come onto a forum dedicated to a card game and been rude to pretty much everyone who talks to you. You seem perfectly happy to stomp in on our conversations and say words to the effect of "Hey, I'm gonna be a total arse because I think everyone should do whatever they want which means it's okay for me to talk to you like crap and make you feel annoyed, because I don't care about anyone's feelings except my own". You even acknowledge that you're being annoying and making basically no effort to be friendly/polite. And yet you express confusion over the fact that no-one wants to talk to you and that you're a "loner".
It sort of sounds like you'd be happier in a place where you were the only person, so you could talk to yourself and be as annoying as you like but nobody would mind because there'd only be you there to risk annoying, and you wouldn't get annoyed because you're the only person who's okay with the fact that you don't mind showing basically no respect for anyone else.
I have a feeling that threads like this are probably gonna be deleted at some point - I feel like they're messing up the general "feel" of the forum because they all seem to end up with insults and stuff being thrown about. And that never used to happen :(.
I don't read other people well. I have trouble with unspoken communication, non-verbal signals, and subtle clues. I've spent my life slightly on the outside, watching and observing, and trying to develop ways to better understand the people I love and respect. I do this because while I have trouble understanding the nuances, I want to understand them. I try to empathize even when I don't understand, and slowly I've gotten better at it.
I say this because I hope that someday you figure this out.
I know; the only reason I was so "us=America" in the OP was that >G is headquartered here. And I was identifying with Legacy in that post (quite possibly an Iron Legacy on the verge of happening, but still). Wanted to have a picture of Inspiring Presence in the OP but I couldn't find one.
And yet you express confusion over the fact that no-one wants to talk to you and that you're a "loner".
No, that doesn't confuse me; I said in my last post that I fully understood and accepted that I was not going to be well-liked around here anytime soon. My thing has always been that people have a right to be disliked, without instantly being lynched by everyone around them. I don't even mind people calling me names (for all that the forum terms prohibit it; I have no desire for their protection); I just don't want to be subjected to the digital equivalent of "force", being rendered incapable of being myself.
It sort of sounds like you'd be happier in a place where you were the only person
I do spend a great deal of time in such places, and enjoy them immensely. I first came to this forum so I could ask rules questions, and it might have been best if I had refrained from ever doing anything else.
I have a feeling that threads like this are probably gonna be deleted at some point.
I hope not. Locked perhaps, and allowed to sink into the archives, but not deleted. And if >G decides they need to put a stop to my speechifying, I hope they will at least do as most forums do, and have an intermediate step - formal warning and/or temporary suspension - rather than a full ban. That would be highly unusual, to entirely throw out a community member after just one instance of them causing a bit of unrest in the community.
I hope I do too; I really am trying to, though I have a long track record of miserable failures in the effort, each of which makes me more despondent and frustrated than ever before thereafter. Very few people even try to extend an olive branch, so thank you for being one of those. (Foote was another one at one point, though his stance may have shifted in light of these latest developments, I can't really tell from his posts here.)
after just one instance of them causing a bit of unrest in the community.
Once again, you have no idea what's going on. You've been doing this for weeks.
Yes, one single period of time. Not a very long one by my standards; most of it is still quite fresh in my utterly atrocious memory.
Also, you can't be a member of the community if all you do is ignore the customs and desires of that community. You've made it clear on multiple occasions that you have no desire to take the necessary steps that any human animal takes to incorporate themselves into a community of other human animals. Hence, this community is not particularly interested in you sticking around.
I actually promised someone I'd calm down about this and am embarassed to see I've broken my promise. This is my last post on the subject. I think my views have been made clear.
Your standards don't matter. The standards of >G and the environment they want on this board, do.
There's a difference between "ignoring" and "being ignorant of". I have been trying to learn, but I'm not very good at it. You are now urging that I not be given the time I require to improve.
Okay, suggestion time: before you ever post a response, after you've typed it, read it, read it again. See if there is any possible way that what you have typed could be worded better, less offensively. Edit it. Read it again.
All before you ever hit "post".
May I suggest everyone stop posting in this topic? It seems to be getting nastier with each post.
Then my question is, whats the point? What good is it doing you? From what I can gather, it hasn't been working out so well.
We need to open you up to some different perspectives. Dr. Foote says to go chew on some psilocybin caps, wash down with some orange juice and come back with what you learn.
Envisioner,
And yet, after your behaviour has been pointed out as a bother, you go right on doing it. Why should we think you'll change and be more constructive or considerate? Everything you've said suggests the exact opposite. You seem genuinely incapable of understanding why what you're doing is so egregiously offensvie to people, so wy should we believe you'll change? As pointed out, you have managed to single-handeedly cause more frustration in the short period of time you've been here than the rest of us have manged in the years this forum has existed. Do you expect anything other than general approbrium for this behaviour? If so, you will likely be disappointed. The community tries to be welcoming, but even the ncie people here have limits which you are either at or have blithely sailed through.
And once again, you portray that as our fault for not understanding you. Well, to be honest, you're not worth understanding. Or engaging with. Can we please let this thread die, people? Envisioner won't learn anything from us arguing with him. This is teaching gorillas to fly time and we all have much better ways of spending our limited free time.
My family came to this country in 1640, they were Quakers and England stopped killing us, so we came to America where they were still killing Quakers. My family started all kinds of towns all across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Oregon. They weren't explorers, they just left whenever "bad elements" started moving in around them and went where no one else was.
Over time they ran out of places to go, and were forced to settle in and live amongst others.
The point?
This forum is a little village of people with one thing in common, we all love Sentinels of the Multiverse. That is what we have in common, we are from different lands and faiths, different social standing and political views, but we leave that all behind when we come here.
Here we are able to tune out all the other stuff.
That is the beautiful thing about gaming, and about the internet. We can come from all kinds of backgrounds and politics and beliefs, but here those don't matter, just the game matters.
The problem is you are a threat to that homogenous little community, not intentionally, but a threat nonetheless.
We don't discuss politics here because we don't want to fight about it. We don't discuss religion here because we don't want to fight about it.
Sadly there are fewer and fewer forums for those discussions these days, but if we turn this forum into one it will die.
That is why Threads get shut down, and if someone ever got banned, it would be why. The magic of the internet is you don't run out of land, and you don't have to live here. I can come and visit this little sanctuary from the rest of the world and only deal with Sentinels. I have all sorts of other places I can deal with other things, but that isn't here.
We have an obligation to protect this corner of the internet, because it is a good little corner, and we like it. We don't want that to involve being nasty to people, but trust me, if people think this community is at risk, they will get nasty.
I like to argue, and more than once I've crossed the line where I should have stopped. More than once I've simply stopped looking at a thread so I won't post on it. I do this because I've found that for me there is a thin line between the wierd but likable guy who likes to argue, and being an asshole.
What I'm saying is let this forum be what it is. If you have to step away from certain threads and arguments. Just stop posting on it, or even reading it if you have to.
We like the Envisioner that plays forum games and asks questions, but there is reason to dislike the Envisioner that brings the ugliness of the outside world into our little paradise.
It's a gibbon. Not a gorilla. And it glides. That's almost flight.
To quote yet another of the heroic figures I identify with, "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam". I don't choose to feel the way I feel; my feelings ARE me, whether I want them to be or not. I would love to be able to rearrange the pieces in my brain to my own satisfaction, but it can't be done, at least not by any mechanism I am comfortable with.
Dr. Foote says to go chew on some psilocybin caps
You wouldn't be the first to suggest that hallucinogens could be good for me. Unfortunately, I have an extremely strong aversion to the idea of any sort of drug (I won't even take vitamins). This is the main reason I'm not on depression meds, and if I were, perhaps none of this would happen. Then again, perhaps I would have had a strong side-effects reaction and have jumped off a bridge, or be locked in some cell drooling on myself. I'm not willing to risk it, for any sort of mind-altering substance. My mind isn't to be altered, except by my own conscious will (to the limited extent that actually works), or the organic processes of time (which I'm currently attempting to apply, if people like Spiff do not get their way over the cooler heads).
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It is extremely difficult for me to exercise that level of patience. But I will make an attempt. (I'm pretty sure all that is okay.)
Actually, the only mechanism that is required is the desire to change and applying the effort to do just that.
Finally, someone speaks my language. I understand and accept pretty much everything in the post quoted, but especially this line. (Interestingly, the guy who runs my weekly job-search club said almost the exact same thing: "the good version of you is the best participant we've ever had, and the bad one is the worst, so how can we make you be the good guy more often"? We had a really good, long conversation about it, during which no actual conclusion was reached, but it very much ties into where this stage of my personal self-improvement journey is at - that's an extremely corny way to put it, I know, I'm chiding myself for being melodramatic even as I'm doing so.)
I formally apologize for all of my nonsense, and will try really hard to avoid raining on the parade any more.
I have the desire; the effort is nigh-impossible for me. I am the sort of guy who would encourage a slave-driver to beat me, in the hopes that he renders me too crippled to work and eventually puts me out of my misery.
Quick clarification re: the misinterpretation of "freedom of speech." The first amendment doesn't actually guarantee freedom of speech. It says, "The government shall make NO LAW restricting the freedom of press, nor the free choice of religion, etc." The GOVERNMENT can't inhibit your speech, but that isn't to say that private groups can't. While on the forums, you must abide by the forum's rules, which are very particular about not starting political arguments intentionally, which you seem to make a hobby of. Sure, you can't go to jail for trash-talking the government, which is the intent of the amendment, but that doesn't mean the admins of this forum don't have the ability to stop you from talking about something if they want to. It's a non-existent argument to cling to "freedom of speech I can say whatever I want." The government may not be able to stop you, but they also provide no protection from the other citizens, who in this case just want you to shut up.
(As a side note, I'm fine with this having its own topic, I just speak against it in OTHER topics where it doesn't belong.)