Goonhub
10-05-2024, 08:52 AM
This isn't going to be easy to write, and there's a solid chance I'm going to stop writing while still having things that I ought to say. If I do, maybe I'll write a followup. Maybe I won't. I'm not really a fan of conflict or drama or any of that sort of thing. I might not even submit this. In any case my thoughts aren't overly organized and I don't think I'm going to go to the trouble to organize them.
I have been playing for, I believe it's been five years and nine months at this point. Not nearly as long as a lot of you folks, but it's what, a third of the game's existence? Not nearly as short as it feels. While I play, or used to play, pretty regularly, I don't really interact with the people here as a community. I post on the forum, sure, but I don't really use Discord. I don't know anyone outside of the game, nor have I ever made any attempt to. What I see about things that go on behind the scenes is scarcely more than any random person who drops in on a whim would see. All I know comes from OOC chat in-game and occasional snippets and hints of things in posts that, in all honesty, are probably made by people in a heightened emotional state.
A year or so after I started playing, there was a massive schism between admins. I'm not here to rehash it. What little I know and bothered to remember puts me on the side of the admins that stayed. However, this sort of thing is something that I've witnessed in online communities several times. They often don't survive. Those that do may bear very little continuity with what came before. I was worried that a place that I enjoyed being was going to fall apart around me once again. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
Now, I'm not sure if that sort of thing happened before I started playing. I wasn't there. What I do know is that since then, several high-profile admins have left, and the impression I got from what little was said about things it seems like internal disagreements among the administration team played a major part. Popecrunch made a whole thread about it. Was he right? How should I know, I'm working blind here. I do know that, after he left dramatically, Pope Crunch cereal got renamed and the ad spot about it was removed. Perhaps he asked for that to be done. I might have in his shoes. But to an outsider, who doesn't see any of that, it looks like a petty move on behalf of the administration team.
Warcrimes would leave later, and now Zamujasa. Now that's only three admins over four years; for all I know that could be standard levels of hemorrhaging for Goon. In both cases what little I saw mentioned suggested internal disagreements. I don't really know anyone here. I have fun playing with a bunch of people, I have fun talking with a bunch of people, and now people I have fun playing and talking with and fighting with other people I have fun playing and talking with over situations I know nothing about and never will. I cannot rationally take a side, since I know nothing about what's going on. I can't irrationally take a side, because I don't know any of you any better than anyone else. That said, I can look at patterns.
What I see strongly suggests that there is some sort of internal disagreement among the admin team, one that has been going on for a very long time and which has gotten very heated. We, the players - we don't really see any of it. It's like a bandage over a festering wound. We don't see what's under it, but that doesn't mean we can't notice that something is under it. Will antibiotics clear it up or is it fatal? Perhaps I ought to have used a less nauseating metaphor. Perhaps I ought to have brought it up earlier. Perhaps, ought, et cetera. There's no point dwelling on what ifs - they can never be anything other than what ifs.
Again, I cannot see this wound. I may believe that I can smell what is seeping out from under the bandage and infer that there is such a wound, but I could always be in the precursor to a migraine, or perhaps Eau de Rotting Corpse is the hot new fragrance. I am making an assumption that is, on the balance of the evidence I am aware of, a reasonable assumption to make, but that doesn't mean it's right. (It's only going to get less coherent from here.)
If I notice something, even if I notice it wrongly, then it would be reasonable to assume other people notice it, even if they too notice it wrongly. To stick with what might be the worst metaphor to ever exist in the English language, the rot's going to be noticeable no matter how tightly you wrap the bandage, and without treatment it's just going to get worse. If you know what the stench of decay is, then you're going to be on edge. Do we need to amputate? Will we even survive? If you've never experienced it before, well, that doesn't stop it from turning your stomach. You know something's wrong, even if you don't know what and even if you don't know you know. Maybe it's all a little less fun. Maybe you do something different. You find an excuse not to breathe in the miasma.
So what, do you rip off the bandage and bring whatever arguments and drama and ill-will that have been festering in the darkness out into the light? Will that make things better? Maybe it'll be nothing, and everyone will live happily ever after, except the people who implied that there was something, who are now shown to be filthy, rotten liars. Maybe it'll be something, and people will start taking sides as people are wont to do. There might be a situation in which everyone comes out looking fine, but personally I can't imagine what it is. Someone's getting hurt if the bandage comes off. Worst case scenario, everything you built, everything we built, it all falls apart.
So you leave the bandage on, and it keeps stinking, and everyone keeps being paranoid, looking askance at any departure, at any ban. Paranoid people get nervous. Nervous people get twitchy. Twitchy people make suboptimal decisions. Worst case scenario, everything you built, everything we built, it all falls apart, but this time in slow motion. Perhaps you can pick up enough new blood to make up for the hemorrhaging. But perhaps the blood willing to wade into an abattoir isn't going to help things.
Listen, I cannot offer a solution. I cannot offer hope. I cannot make things better. That's not who I am, that's not why I'm here, and frankly an amateur writer of nihilistic short horror fiction is just about the last person to ask if you want a path forward.
Everyone wants something different from this stupid farty spaceman game. Sometimes these wants overlap. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they contradict. They aren't constant either. What do you - not just you as in the admin team, but you as in everyone here - want most? The game? The community as a collection of a group of specific people? The community as an abstract concept, the individual membership of which may be completely replaced over time but which still possesses a sort of permanent identity? The community as abstract as possible, which possesses continuity as its only immutable trait, the Ship of Theseus rebuilt into the Log Cabin of Theseus? What are you willing to give up should your wants contradict? What aren't you willing to give up?
This is an incoherent mess and I'm not convinced it contains a single thing I actually wanted or needed to say. Perhaps I ought not to press "Post Reply".
I have been playing for, I believe it's been five years and nine months at this point. Not nearly as long as a lot of you folks, but it's what, a third of the game's existence? Not nearly as short as it feels. While I play, or used to play, pretty regularly, I don't really interact with the people here as a community. I post on the forum, sure, but I don't really use Discord. I don't know anyone outside of the game, nor have I ever made any attempt to. What I see about things that go on behind the scenes is scarcely more than any random person who drops in on a whim would see. All I know comes from OOC chat in-game and occasional snippets and hints of things in posts that, in all honesty, are probably made by people in a heightened emotional state.
A year or so after I started playing, there was a massive schism between admins. I'm not here to rehash it. What little I know and bothered to remember puts me on the side of the admins that stayed. However, this sort of thing is something that I've witnessed in online communities several times. They often don't survive. Those that do may bear very little continuity with what came before. I was worried that a place that I enjoyed being was going to fall apart around me once again. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
Now, I'm not sure if that sort of thing happened before I started playing. I wasn't there. What I do know is that since then, several high-profile admins have left, and the impression I got from what little was said about things it seems like internal disagreements among the administration team played a major part. Popecrunch made a whole thread about it. Was he right? How should I know, I'm working blind here. I do know that, after he left dramatically, Pope Crunch cereal got renamed and the ad spot about it was removed. Perhaps he asked for that to be done. I might have in his shoes. But to an outsider, who doesn't see any of that, it looks like a petty move on behalf of the administration team.
Warcrimes would leave later, and now Zamujasa. Now that's only three admins over four years; for all I know that could be standard levels of hemorrhaging for Goon. In both cases what little I saw mentioned suggested internal disagreements. I don't really know anyone here. I have fun playing with a bunch of people, I have fun talking with a bunch of people, and now people I have fun playing and talking with and fighting with other people I have fun playing and talking with over situations I know nothing about and never will. I cannot rationally take a side, since I know nothing about what's going on. I can't irrationally take a side, because I don't know any of you any better than anyone else. That said, I can look at patterns.
What I see strongly suggests that there is some sort of internal disagreement among the admin team, one that has been going on for a very long time and which has gotten very heated. We, the players - we don't really see any of it. It's like a bandage over a festering wound. We don't see what's under it, but that doesn't mean we can't notice that something is under it. Will antibiotics clear it up or is it fatal? Perhaps I ought to have used a less nauseating metaphor. Perhaps I ought to have brought it up earlier. Perhaps, ought, et cetera. There's no point dwelling on what ifs - they can never be anything other than what ifs.
Again, I cannot see this wound. I may believe that I can smell what is seeping out from under the bandage and infer that there is such a wound, but I could always be in the precursor to a migraine, or perhaps Eau de Rotting Corpse is the hot new fragrance. I am making an assumption that is, on the balance of the evidence I am aware of, a reasonable assumption to make, but that doesn't mean it's right. (It's only going to get less coherent from here.)
If I notice something, even if I notice it wrongly, then it would be reasonable to assume other people notice it, even if they too notice it wrongly. To stick with what might be the worst metaphor to ever exist in the English language, the rot's going to be noticeable no matter how tightly you wrap the bandage, and without treatment it's just going to get worse. If you know what the stench of decay is, then you're going to be on edge. Do we need to amputate? Will we even survive? If you've never experienced it before, well, that doesn't stop it from turning your stomach. You know something's wrong, even if you don't know what and even if you don't know you know. Maybe it's all a little less fun. Maybe you do something different. You find an excuse not to breathe in the miasma.
So what, do you rip off the bandage and bring whatever arguments and drama and ill-will that have been festering in the darkness out into the light? Will that make things better? Maybe it'll be nothing, and everyone will live happily ever after, except the people who implied that there was something, who are now shown to be filthy, rotten liars. Maybe it'll be something, and people will start taking sides as people are wont to do. There might be a situation in which everyone comes out looking fine, but personally I can't imagine what it is. Someone's getting hurt if the bandage comes off. Worst case scenario, everything you built, everything we built, it all falls apart.
So you leave the bandage on, and it keeps stinking, and everyone keeps being paranoid, looking askance at any departure, at any ban. Paranoid people get nervous. Nervous people get twitchy. Twitchy people make suboptimal decisions. Worst case scenario, everything you built, everything we built, it all falls apart, but this time in slow motion. Perhaps you can pick up enough new blood to make up for the hemorrhaging. But perhaps the blood willing to wade into an abattoir isn't going to help things.
Listen, I cannot offer a solution. I cannot offer hope. I cannot make things better. That's not who I am, that's not why I'm here, and frankly an amateur writer of nihilistic short horror fiction is just about the last person to ask if you want a path forward.
Everyone wants something different from this stupid farty spaceman game. Sometimes these wants overlap. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they contradict. They aren't constant either. What do you - not just you as in the admin team, but you as in everyone here - want most? The game? The community as a collection of a group of specific people? The community as an abstract concept, the individual membership of which may be completely replaced over time but which still possesses a sort of permanent identity? The community as abstract as possible, which possesses continuity as its only immutable trait, the Ship of Theseus rebuilt into the Log Cabin of Theseus? What are you willing to give up should your wants contradict? What aren't you willing to give up?
This is an incoherent mess and I'm not convinced it contains a single thing I actually wanted or needed to say. Perhaps I ought not to press "Post Reply".