alien_mame said:
Is now a good time to PM everyone reminding them about www.arcadeotaku.com
Very funny.
Anyway, I've now got a resigned approach to this whole thing. Instead of letting it bring a downer on how I feel about VAC and the community, I just laugh about it... Because it's all gotten very silly.
Originally I thought maybe there was some genuine malice and reason behind it all, like a senior person on one site had stolen cabs or something from a senior member on the other, or slept with his wife or something proper bad. But it seems it genuinely does only go as deep as forum pride
.
But this is how it looks to me, and I bet most people reading the Forum Wars.
1. Most people are on both forums, even if they're doing so by secret, using different user names and keeping a low profile, just to see what's going on on the
other side. Even new members to one site will most likely end up on both sites eventually, in a thirst for knowledge. It's hardly rocket science, just google! I check in here daily, and only discovered this place because of a spat with J+, so if anything, it's like all publicity is good publicity. Even when the sh*t is hitting the fan it sends people over to the other side, to see what's going on there.
2. Both sides protest their innocence and claim that recommending their forums via PM was an innocent attempt to help people. Even if people are playing down real motives, this is nevertheless, what they are claiming, so therefore, call each others bluff... It's the only way around the stale mate of words we're in.
Unblock forum names from swear filters and
both be more relaxed about things. If someone wants to suggest another forum via PM, then let them
, they'd probably sign up to the other site eventually anyway. Stop us all tiptoeing around the elephant in the room that is, the other forum in both cases.
Even go as far as letting them have the other forum as a signature on every post
!!! Yes, you heard right...
I mean, I've recommended J+ to one or two people here, and I've suggested to one or two people on J+ getting in touch certain people here in an attempt to help them. That's how I discovered the UKVAC swear filter, which I understand was put in place to counter spamming of the UKVAC web address via PM on J+.
But if both sides are as innocent as they claim, then neither have anything to hide, worry about or be censored for. It's also relatively fail safe, as if one site suddenly gets an influx of "spam" messages about the other site, the recipients of spam can state so publicly on the forums. Neither side wants that, as it will undoubtedly shame them for being petty etc...
So kind of like a forum cold war or dictated peace. Neither side can act on the other as it will portray them in a negative light and bring bad sentiment. Sort of like the
Mutually Assured Destruction policy between the US and Soviets during the cold war (neither side would act, as they knew to fire nukes on one side, would result in themselves being wiped out - Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD for short
).
I know this could potentially open up a can of worms, as neither side probably trusts each other enough to do this (they'd expect each to fabricate stories of spamming and get the ball rolling again with he said, she said sh*t).
So therefore I know I'm talking on deaf ears, but if anyone in a position to do something about all this can see any sense in my suggestion, feel free to act on it. If one person is prepared to take the initiative it could make the community a more pleasant place to be.
As always, unbiased and not taking sides, not interested in who did what, and who said what to who. Just trying to help for the good of everyone who feels this has a negative impact on collecting arcade machine in the UK.
Peace Out