OMG, HoS Mod. I'm still kinda sad that it never happened

Welcome back, Kenzuki .

No need to apologize, all of us had our flaws when we were young .

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Pleased to meet you! Let me know if you want to argue religion sometime.

K-Pop is awesome. Why do you say this as if it's derogatory.

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You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.

Yeah well most of us... a few? but you can't say that. Although it's true I can't remember you being childish about anything so maybe you've not

I would, but only reading new posts already takes a lot of my free time. I blame my job, my sports and my gamer life.
However I'm always here to vote for old-timer friendly laws and to grab my checks

And I remember you being rude to me after I told you the major lore characters' deaths to players were canon


You did come from the old white wolf forums, IIRC. To think those books are completely useless now

Apologies for the egregious thread necromancy, but I was going on something of a memory trip and was pretty astonished to find this post. It's just not that often that you see people apologize unprompted for five-year-old trolling.

In the event that Kenzuki is still around 7 years after posting this, I really appreciate it as the person who was possibly your primary antagonist in online debates circa 2007. I was a teenager myself back then, and probably often more combative than the situation warranted. My own politics haven't changed too much -- if anything, I'm somewhat further to the left than I was then, as a result of meeting a lot of people with backgrounds very different than my own. I expect we still disagree on way more things than we agree on. But the notion that I could probably have a reasoned conversation with somebody whom I primarily associate with vitriol-filled online debates about the innate morality/intelligence of orcs is somehow really comforting to me, especially in the present political moment. So thank you.

Also, hi other people I knew back in the day if any of you are still around (Aldrius? Timolas? Kerrah? Omacron? ARM?). What's new?

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Many thanks to handclaw for his amazing rendition of Kargath Bladefist, which is now my avatar.

Yes, no, no yes, yes.

Well now, I don't recall you at all, and judging by those names you might've been before my time, but you seem a very friendly sort, nice to see you.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

I remember your fan-made map. Do you still have it somewhere?

Yup; actually it was up on my wall for most of the past decade; in the last two years when I've been living in smaller apartments with less space I've tucked it away for safekeeping...

Warcraft was probably the first game whose lore I really fell for in a big way. WoW in most ways initially helped with this -- I loved the vastness and openness of the world. But the relentless logic of the expansions eventually got to me (I loved the way Outland looked, but the utterly botched characterization of the Illidari was very disillusioning). There are certain kinds of stories that MMOs are good at telling and others that they aren't well suited to, and I feel like increasingly they have been trying to tell the latter stories.

For the past ten years or so my main fantasy world outlets (when I have time for them) have been Elder Scrolls lore and Magic the Gathering (the actual story isn't my thing, but I appreciate the interplay of flavor and card design).

All this is to say I don't forsee hanging around here for the long haul but thanks for indulging my resurrection of a seven-year-old thread!

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Many thanks to handclaw for his amazing rendition of Kargath Bladefist, which is now my avatar.

Wow I can't believe it's been 8 years typing at you chuckle heads, Sometimes I miss you muppets. <3

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“Listen to the Chair Leg of Truth! It does not lie!”

i hope you all die tonight in your sleep.

8.

Also, Gurzog gets another warning.

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So you wish to join the unofficial SoL Discord? Say no more!

I'm with Gurzog.

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But why porque?

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My Worldbuilding:
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Long time no see bronze one

I really like threads like these. Shows a small history of the forums. Many of the forums I killed my time at are long gone. It was mostly Marvel (and other comics in general) related Russian speaking forums. I dont even remember the names of some of them, but I felt great sadness when I learned many have been deleted and the biggest one (Spidermedia.ru) was also purged of forums.

As was mentioned elsewhere, this is a dying format and I am yet to lear how to use Discord.

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Someday I will finish this...

This is indeed a dying format, but I feel that SoL's decline was mainly because of two main reasons-
1. The Discord
2. The toxicity of political debates.


The Discord offers a platform where none of the latter happens. And whilst we can definitely say that you cannot ignore politics, and we can definitely say that everything is political to a certain extent, the kind of rubbish that people were flinging at each other was a turn-off for many, me included.

People who I once respected for their opinions on WoW turned out to be some of the most volatile. I do not like speaking ill about posters who are mostly gone but the kind of stuff from all sides of the political spectrum(yes, there are more than two sides, let's stop acting as if the Centre is not a side) that I used to see down here was one of the main reasons why I stopped posting frequently.


Why am I digging up old wounds now? Because Scrolls of Lore is an interesting case study. This forum(and many other World of Warcraft sites) was at the heart of it, not just since Gamergate but before as well. It was always a hotbed, but during those times it became something entirely unexpected.


I am a frequent poster on British political subreddits that have learned moderation the hard way. And I honestly feel that this forum's moderation was unprepared for how volatile things were going to get. Weirdly enough there seems to be a good deal of correlation between World of Warcraft forums and these kinds of discussions.

No, this is everywhere right now. A couple of rare exceptions to moderation popped up that allowed people to do and say whatever they want as long as it wasn't legal. Suddenly a bunch of nerds thought the rest of the internet had been like that all along and pretended to be outraged when they couldn't spread their bullshit everywhere.

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Those British subreddits help in that they basically end up downvoting, well, anything shocking to oblivion. And since they are dominated by young people, they tend to be pretty heavily left of centre.


And those subreddits are actually the main subreddits for the United Kingdom and UK Politics.


With that being said, after the last 9 years that the Tories have been in power, you could hardly blame the British youth for being so left leaning.

Hell I used to be a Tory supporter back in the early days of my time on Scrolls of Lore(when I was close to 18 years old), but now I'm pretty firmly inclined towards Labour or Greens. The only issue I have with the Greens is their frankly naive Defence policy and their stance on Nuclear Power, so Labour it is.

The decline started waaay before that, and the main culprit was excessive moderation.

Originally, you wanted to win an argument, you fought for it.

Then, when everyone and their mother started getting moderator rights, many went the easy route and started abusing their moderator powers to cheat and win arguments.

We started getting new rules like "don't post too much", "don't post too many memes", "don't be annoying", which anyone with half a brain could see were manufactured on purpose to target specific users.

It became even more egregious when said rules were only applied to part of the posters, while the rest, specially the mods, got a free pass.

I can be annoying and I can spam memes all I want, but get ready for an assing if you dare to do the same.

Speaking of which, many of the "punishments" created to enforce these new rules were far from fair or even moral. Most of them sought humiliation, demonstration of power, etc.

The forum was on the way to its deathbed far before SJW culture outrage stepped in, which only helped to reinforce the ongoing direction, since the main culprits didn't even bother trying to hide their intentions anymore.

This place was great in the beginning. It was wild, it was savage, and that's what made it special, since you had a level of freedom nonexistent in other places like MMO-C or the official forums.

Power-tripping assholes ruined this place.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I think this highlights the problem with arbitrary, non-rule based moderation. I brought up that I think such moderation should take place on the Discord as well, but I quickly got shot down, but my opinion hasn't changed.

Clear, consistent rules make it easier for everyone - It's easier on the mods, it's easier on those who are governed by the mods, and it nips issues in the bud while not inviting questions of bias.

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I mean, I feel the toxicity became a problem long before the moderation was.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

Now this is some next-level delusional nostalgia.

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Now imagine a music, dear readers, heavy with cellos at a rapid staccato. Cellos held between thighs in a dark room. The little room of Harry's chest as he walks with his teammates to the opening gate of his first Test of Cribbage. They are a rag-tag group of champions, this bunch, and with Harry, the near-perfect new god, they know they will dominate the day. Harry is a world laced with rivers of wizardly blood. He is ready.

I feel that the harsh moderation was because of the extreme toxicity. Unless that's what you were saying and it went over my head.

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