Friday, February 8, 2008

Retraction and Clarification

Retraction: All previous references to The Older Gamers (TOG) as a "gaming community" are hereby corrected to "gaming clan."

Clarification: Recent internal changes at TOG have established this change.

Seems all the previous gavel-pounding about new people not being able to come in and change the rules are out the door (in fact the former admins that said this are out the door too - I just wasn't aware until now*); new rules were quietly added via an inserted link to the FAQ. So in light of these changes, I voluntarily requested that my forum access be revoked, and the request was quickly granted.

*{Edit/Added: Although this now makes sense why I was treated so rudely. My dissatisfaction was apparently thought to be related to others' dissatisfaction - of which I was blissfully ignorant. And so I was treated as though I was part of some grand conspiracy to destroy the group, all the while I was completely unaware of all the other goings-on, and getting paranoid thinking all these changes were solely because of me. I still don't know what happened to make the others unhappy, but I just found out last night that a lot of others had also left without me knowing.

I am just flabbergasted. Here I was acting independently, filing complaints against angry posts that were written to me, seeking administrative protection from what I saw to be as actions against the community rules that were being directed at me, and I was being ignored and my complaints dismissed lightly all because of some other shit going on in another division that I had no clue about?

So the division I once captained gets to twist the rules however they see fit to get rid of me because the admins are distracted by some other fuss and assume I'm part of it and so they ignore my complaints and tell me to sit down and shut up? Aigh I am so annoyed that they could just so lightly dismiss the validity of my concerns!

The saying goes "ignorance is bliss" - well it sure wasn't so damn blissful for me. It was painful, confusing, stressful, and damnably mystifying why some of the stuff going on in our division was endorsed. Now that I know there was other stuff going on elsewhere, I see that to the admins, it just made me look conspiratorial. But actually it now shows the current admins are just plain paranoid and prejudiced. End Edit}

I choose to invest my time in a broader more open-minded community that does not exclude other guilds and clans from their association. TOG used to be all open arms and welcoming, but that has gotten perverted by newcomers in the last couple of years. I tired of hearing the anti-pug sentiments a year ago, among other diatribes about 'how things should be run.'

So now they are free to be as exclusionary as they wish to be, and I am free to be as welcoming as I wish to be.

I've PUGged (played with general members of the public) Norn point farming in Olafstead already half a dozen times this week, and I haven't been ashamed to say so to my guildmates, and haven't had to be afraid of guild backlash, or someone posting a sad face that I didn't play while they were awake (when their timezone is 6 hours ahead of mine, duh, I was working then) instead of being happy for me, and having the balls to go PUG themselves!

It's so great to be true to myself again.

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