Let Us Treat This Like We Were A Family: Cover It In A Dark, Hidden Place, And Never Speak Of This Again

Posted on March 16, 2008 by Scott Jennings| 185 Comments

So, um, yeah, 400+ comments. Let’s look at some takeaways.

Things We Learned About Yon Humble Correspondent:

Things We Learned About Yon Prokofy Neva:

Things We Learned About Games and Virtual Worlds:

Things You May Not Have Known About Yon Humble Blogger’s Comments Policy:

  • I really, really dislike censorship.
  • I will rarely, if ever, intervene in the cut and thrust of a good argument.
  • Sometimes I’ll break this policy to pour more oil on a fire.
  • Ironically, this may make this blog the one safe space on the Internet for Prokofy Neva to post in that she doesn’t own.
  • Incessant personal attacks (as seen on both sides of the previous post) may cause me to rethink this policy.
    • But probably not, as it involves a lot of work, and I’m pretty lazy.

Things We Learned About Ourselves:

  • Taemojitsu really, really, really likes posting comments on this blog.
This entry was posted in Prokofywatch, _. Bookmark the permalink.
Newer Comments →
  • Boanerges

    You forgot to add under Things We Learned About Ourselves:

    Flame wars are 10x harder to follow on a blog than they are in a forum (especially without pagination and some form of automatic quote). Eventually it all runs together into one giant page that just keeps getting longer and longer.

  • random poster

    Yeah, I watched my little slider on the side of my browser go from most of the length of the page to an itty bitty tiny sliver at the top of it.

  • rbtroj

    Generally, after the first 40 comments in a blog post, the only people coming back are the ones gnashing teeth at one another … and unfortunate newcomers. The rest of us moved on long ago.

    Honestly, for all the worthwhile discussion that MAY have (and probably did) take place in that post’s comments, it was all lost in the noise — which seems to be a tell-tale trait of anything the post’s subject touches.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    Good thing we have the internet; one misplaced EMP and we would all have to find real jobs to live and fry ants with a magnifying glass for entertainment.

  • http://tinytingod.blogspot.com/ Dave Rickey

    And some of us saw you waving a red flag at Prokofy, remembered the last time they tangled with her, and bravely ran away.

    Sorry, but there’s no winning with her, and in the end she always drags you down to the level of just spitting expletives.

  • Staryx

    I’m reminded of a famous quote(?)…

    “Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with years of experience.”

    What a glorious train wreck that was, btw. :)

  • http://hitnrun.blogspot.com HitNRun

    Ok. Since we’re self disclosing, I should come clean.

    –When I read the name “Prokofy Neva”, my mind’s eye reads it “Prof. Neva”.

    –This makes me think of Prof. Derek Smart

    –This triggers the realization that the styles of debate of Prof. Derek Smart and Prokofy Neva are not at all dissimilar.

    –This makes me laugh.

  • Ross Smith

    On a practical note, Scott, long comment threads would be easier to follow if the comments were numbered; that would make it easier to find where we were up to when we come back a few hours later.

    On the other hand, of course, I’m aware that it might be argued that making long comment threads easier may not actually be a net win.

  • Kayn

    It’s a shame. I WANT to read more of Prof. I honestly DO want to read more about people’s views of virtual worlds and like to get people’s opinions from both sides of the fence. I like hearing everyone’s views, because as someone who doesn’t play massively multiplayer experiences any more I feel I’ve lost touch with the scene.

    I just can’t get through the high barrier of entry that Prof’s posts demand. I have issues with Terra Nova’s higher level subjects at the best of times, so I’m lost when it comes to Prof’s walls of text and juxtapositioning of metaphors.

    Whether that makes me a misadjusted person with no place reading about Digital Web 2.0 or not is beside the point, I couldn’t follow the train wreck while reading the blog at work, and therefore probably missed out on a lot of theory and debate that I probably already know but wouldn’t mind having reaffirmed.

    It has, however, made me want to come out of my lurking shell and talk to people on the comments here more. and even gave me a reason to email Mr Bartle about where my own personal research should go for MUDs. So at least some good came out of the insanity.

    So I guess now’s the time to say “Hi there, I’m new and an ESKA type player. Can someone tell me what games are worth playing nowadays because my Puzzle Pirates subscription ran out and I uninstalled WoW circa pre-BC…”…

  • http://mythicalblog.com/ Jeff Freeman

    Word to strappin’ on your best hat and jumping in there,

    http://mythicalblog.com/images/stupid/dick_hat.png

  • Anticorium

    Fortunately, Kayn, there’s nothing Prokofy has to say that you can’t get from Morningstar and Farmer’s “Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat”, Raph’s “Story of a Tree”, and the archives of Lum, Matt Mihaly, and any two random people from Terra Nova’s masthead.

    Also, if you’re primarily explorer-socializer, people whose judgement I trust say that CoX is great for creating alt after alt after alt and then throwing them in the garbage can when the endgame approaches.

  • http://weblog.probablynot.com Jason

    Most people, in general, do wish to engage in debate or discussion. To achieve either of those, people on both sides of the argument talk and listen. Neither is possible with Prokofy Neva because he/she has no genuine interest in listening to anyone.

  • Taemojitsu

    “Yeah, I watched my little slider on the side of my browser go from most of the length of the page to an itty bitty tiny sliver at the top of it.”

    that is bad browser design tbh, there’s no reason to rely entirely on the scrollbar height for page size when simply navigating on the page gives you the same information. A good browser/OS caps it out at a still-clickable size

  • Tinman_au

    What I learned about Prokofy Neva (besides the tl;dr thing): from her comment about “What is your name for a closed, state-controlled economy with punishment of free market activity, a privileged avante-gard ruling class, and forced egalitarianism?” I learned she doesn’t understand the difference between a “state” and a “company”.

    If the statement was “What is your name for a closed, company-controlled economy with punishment of free market activity, a privileged avante-gard ruling class, and forced egalitarianism?” then the term “capitalism” would be a very close fit…

    She also doesn’t get (and doesn’t want to) the difference between a “game” and a “virtual world economy sim”.

    I doubt I could ever play chess with her, she’d probably buy 4 queens…

  • http://www.massively.com Tateru Nino

    All in all, an excellent summary I thought. And the timecube thing? That’s very scary.

  • Freakazoid

    In his criticism of our theory, Radek adds to it, as we have seen, also the ‘tactic derived from it’. This is a very important addition. The official Stalinist criticism of ‘Trotskyism’ on this question prudently limited itself to theory … For Radek, however, this does not suffice. He is conducting a struggle against a definite (Bolshevik) tactical line in China. He seeks to discredit this line by the theory of the permanent revolution, and to do this he must show, or pretend that somebody else has already shown, that a false tactical line has in the past flowed from this theory. Here Radek is directly misleading his readers. It is possible that he himself in unfamiliar with the history of the revolution, in which he never took a direct part. But apparently he has not made the slightest effort to examine the question through documents. Yet the most important of these are contained in the second volume of my Collected Works. They can be checked by anyone who can read. And so, let me inform Radek that virtually throughout all the stages of the first revolution I was in complete solidarity with Lenin in evaluating the forces of the revolution and its successive tasks, in spite of the fact that I spent the whole of 1905 living illegally in Russia, and 1906 in prison. I am compelled to confine myself here to a minimum of proofs and documentation.

  • http://blog.somniusonline.com VPellen

    When I first read her name, I thought it was Profky Nova.

  • hsinclair

    my takeaway from that thread: I’m going to see if I can get “game god” on my next set of business cards, because it amuses me to no end every time I see prof use that term, but somehow I don’t think it will fly.

  • Neil

    Re: Anticorium/Kayn

    Seconded on CoX (City of Heroes and City of Villains) being a wonderful game for those who have alt-itis and love socializing. The community is much more laid back and into having fun than, say, the cutthroat, take-no-prisoners WOW community is. Both games are great, but explorer/socializers will get more mileage out of CoH/CoV.

    Remember when WOW first came out it was so easily the LEAST cutthroat of the major MMOs? How times change…

  • http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva

    No, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

  • JuJutsu

    Wow, a 1 line post from Prokofy Neva. I’m flabbergasted. And hopeful…

  • Taemojitsu

    “Remember when WOW first came out it was so easily the LEAST cutthroat of the major MMOs? How times change…”

    /cries

    ((the reasons for the community shift can be traced, of course.))

  • TPRJones

    What I learned about Prokofy Neva is that the name is not PORKFRY NOVA. For some reason up until this long comment thread my mind has always read her name as Porkfry Nova and I never noticed in the slightest that that wasn’t right. I have no idea why that is.

  • Freakazoid

    (my post replaced with trotsky)

    Pushing catherine’s buttons isn’t hard.

    Pushing lum’s takes some work.

    And in the end, we finally got some trotsky.

    No need to thank me.

  • http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva
  • Kayn

    Anticorum, Neil

    First MMO I played when I reached university and started taking my gaming seriously was COH, and honestly I wish more games were like it. It was actually fun sitting down and spending millenia designing my Broadsword Wielding superdodging super jumping Natural Scrapper and ripping through hoards of Outcasts acting as secondary tank, or playing my blue skinned cyborg Tanker alt, or my green demon in the miniskirt Dark/Dark Defender, or any number of the alts I created. It might have been the character creation that appealed to me, or the complete lack of an economy, or the fact all the numbers were hidden away from me, or some other reason I can’t put my finger on at the moment, but the game actually kept me playing. It was fun.

    But everyone I knew stopped playing, and WoW was stealing the rest of my friends away. And my experience debt got too high to enjoy, and while I loved the endless recycling of characters, I didn’t want to pay for the privelege any more. Even City of Villains with its promise of giving me a demon ninja with evil looking claws failed to reignite the awesomeness. I probably should give it a chance again, now that a few major updates have passed since I stopped playing

  • Ironwood

    The Broken Children article is more insanity. You can’t actually believe that Stereotypes and Simplicity like that have anything to do with, you know, actual reality ?

    You’re in a bit of a mess, Petal.

  • http://blog.somniusonline.com VPellen
  • Erinan

    Can we please move to something else now, as the title suggests it? There are some things on the Internet that would better be left alone and away from everyone else.

  • Njal

    Aww, she tagged her post under greifers, criminals and scammers,how quaint.

  • http://www.bobsaget.com Beene

    I hit that link. Why, oh God, did I hit that link? (Not the dictionary.com link, mind you.) Where’s that picture about winning an argument on the internet when you need it?

    Thanks for the sandbox again, Scott. This reminds me why I’m not involved with “teh drama!” on message boards anymore.

  • http://metanomics.net Robert Bloomfield/ Beyers Sellers

    Before everyone descends into a frenzy of Prokofy baiting, let me remind you that this all started with an hour-long Metanomics (http://metanomics.net) interview of Richard Bartle that covered not only RMT, but also Bartle’s gamer types, the current state of the gaming industry, and other topics.

    We don’t always generate this kind of action (for which I think I am grateful), but we do have an interview every week. Transcripts, audio and video downloads of the interview are available on http://metanomics.net.

    Today, at 11am Second Life Time (Pacific Time) I am interviewing Nick Yee, who has been studying the behavior of people in virtual worlds and games for almost a decade. Come to Second Life and join us, or just look for the recap on the Metanomics website.

  • Walter Yarbrough

    tl; dr

  • http://weblog.probablynot.com Jason

    The one thing I learned… well, learned is too strong a word, because I already knew it, instead let’s say I “confirmed with many dozen examples” that the most common hypocrisy in the world is to demand that people not insult you while simultaneously insulting people. When confronted with this hypocrisy the offender will claim they are not being insulting, they are being honest, or that they are just “speaking normally” and that it should be clear to anyone with eyes that it is the other party that is being unjustly scathing in their punches below the belt.

  • http://bdadv.blogspot.com Bonedead

    Ahh that makes me feel soo good that you linked me first under the “Things We Learned About Games and Virtual Worlds:” section.

    Love yas!
    Bonedead

  • robusticus

    Yeah, that was a good post, bonedead. First honest objection to RMT I’ve seen after years of trolling these waters.

    I mean, if on average people pay upwards of $300 for these games, why should they have to pay more? It’s just a matter of commitment and how many lawns kids are willing to mow.

    Plenty of f2p and community supported games if the stakes are too high.

  • fleeep

    Just one point of order, I don’t know if you suck at moderating blogs generally, I just thought you did a poor job of moderating that particular thread. So it wasn’t a sweeping generalizing, in case that wasn’t clear.

  • http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva

    I learned she doesn’t understand the difference between a “state” and a “company”.

    No, you don’t understand “reasoning by analogy” which they teach in English 101 in college.

    >demand that people not insult you while simultaneously insulting people.
    Re-addressed to OP, let he who is without sin, etc.

    BTW, did you know that the Internet is like the Special Olympics? Even if you lose, you’re still special! : )

    Hehe I thought it was me, but it really is the template for posting comments. Unless you push the cursor all the way back to the top, it only posts part of the comment. Now is that special>?!

  • =j

    You know, the whole “wall of text” thing is a lot more bearable when the author has a point. It is frustrating, too. She clearly wants to communicate, but the post(s) are so full of spite, jargon*, and internal contradiction. Comparing Porkfry to Gene Ray is unfair, IMHO. Prokofy does have occasional moments of clarity. I guess that these moments that keep us coming back for more. (like some abused spouse (not that she is physically or even metaphorically beating us, but that we are doing something clearly not in our best interest))

    I confess that I hoped if we kept feeding the troll, she would eventually pop. I see now that this is a deeply flawed assumption.

    *”jargon” may be the wrong word, but in several instances her word choice did not really match up with the surrounding context.

  • http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva

    So…it’s not PORKFRY but ProVOKy. Fear my wrath.

  • =j

    did you know that the Internet is like the Special Olympics? Even if you lose, you’re still special! : )

    True. And how good can you really feel about winning when you just beat a bunch of retards?

  • http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva

    Every ruling class creates its own culture, and consequently, its own art. History has known the slave-owning cultures of the East and of classic antiquity, the feudal culture of medieval Europe and the bourgeois culture which now rules the world. It would follow from this that the proletariat has also to create its own culture and its own art.

    The question, however, is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Society in which slave owners were the ruling class, existed for many and many centuries. The same is true of feudalism. Bourgeois culture, if one were to count only from the time of its open and turbulent manifestation, that is, from the period of the Renaissance, has existed five centuries, but it did not reach its greatest flowering until the nineteenth century, or, more correctly, the second half of it. History shows that the formation of a new culture which centers around a ruling class demands considerable time and reaches completion only at the period preceding the political decadence of that class.

    Will the proletariat have enough time to create a “proletarian” culture? In contrast to the regime of the slave owners and of the feudal lords and of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat regards its dictatorship as a brief period of transition. When we wish to denounce the all-too-optimistic views about the transition to socialism, we point out that the period of the social revolution, on a world scale, will last not months and not years, but decades – decades, but not centuries, and certainly not thousands of years. Can the proletariat in this time create a new culture? It is legitimate to doubt this, because the years of social revolution will be years of fierce class struggles in which destruction will occupy more room than new construction. At any rate the energy of the proletariat itself will be spent mainly in conquering power, in retaining and strengthening it and in applying it to the most urgent needs of existence and of further struggle. The proletariat, however, will reach its highest tension and the fullest manifestation of its class character during this revolutionary period and it will be within such narrow limits that the possibility of planful, cultural reconstruction will be confined.

  • http://dailypeeve.blogspot.com/ Fr. Guido Sarducci

    Jesus…. Please stop the hurting. Though clearly it’s fun to listen to someone like Prokofy ramble on about geopolitical subjects without even a rudimentary rooting in actual fact, I think this whole thing has rapidly jumped the shark.

    The sea of 400+ comments does rather eloquently illustrate why democracy and capitalism in a virtual world is a pipe dream. Given that by and large there are no consequences for actions in cyberspace makes this an impossibility. Unlike MeatSpace(tm) where your actions can lead to incarceration, pain or death, one is not so quick to don the warpaint and charge forth to grief and bloviate.

    Thus is the slippery slope of law enforcement in a land of immortals.

  • http://bdadv.blogspot.com Bonedead

    If you’re just tuning in, you made it just in time for: Talking to ourselves! Where Prokofy Neva keeps talking, while no one even wants to consider listening.

  • http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva

    The Prokofy at 9:50 am isn’t me, but a spoof. I believe I see some other spoofs in here, too, don’t have time to mark them all. I think most people can tell my unmistakeable prose from the fakes, however : )

  • Makaze

    Well there is our long promised Trotsky! Question is did Prokofy post it or is that Scott?

  • Scott Jennings

    It’s actually the second Trotsky appearance in this thread. It’s disturbing that it’s hard to tell the difference.

    And yes, I’m starting to exert the STARK FIST OF OPPRESSION, because I don’t feel like perpetuating the madness being brought forth from either side.

  • ReptileHouse

    Dear god in heaven…. What is that timecube link? That page is painful to look at, let alone read.

  • http://weblog.probablynot.com Jason

    >demand that people not insult you while simultaneously insulting people.
    Re-addressed to OP, let he who is without sin, etc.

    See, Prokofy… its not about who insults first, its about who insults last. Its hypocrisy to be offended at insults while insulting people, it would cease to be hypocrisy if you addressed their insults without firing back. However, I doubt that will ever happen, especially if you insist on referring to people as “children” whenever the subject of games comes up. I realize that you don’t play games, but to be condescending to people who do play them is never going to get you anywhere in discourse that concerns them. Even if people act like children, calling them such isn’t “speaking the truth” it is inciting more pointless arguing. You cannot claim to be above it when you are hip deep in it… and pointing at the “OP” and saying “He did it first” or “If he stops, I will” doesn’t make it better.

  • Bregor

    What I learned:

    It is possible to say in enough words to fill a school essay this simple concept:

    Yay, Youtube!

Newer Comments →