- Anonymous users? Everywhere!For some personal reason I write as an anonymous user. I see that quite a number of people see a problem in this anonymity.
Hmm, could you tell who Vector gaming forum user 'bigballofyarn' is? 'bigballofyarn' is registered for over a year, now. What do you know of user 'session'? I could list the user names of most Vectorgaming forum members that registered and even posted here and I'm sure most users couldn't name the first name of that forum member. If you're lucky the user has the first name in the user name. Or you can see some info in the user profile. Gender, date of birth, and home location? That’s still pretty anonymous. And if you are even luckier, the forum user uses the same user name throughout internet. So you can search the internet and may even find out his/her real name and address. In the end you still don't know much about this user.
So I'd say:
Most registered users in a forum are anonymous.
- Anonymous users? No, please!What makes anonymous users unwanted? It's probably because some users misuse full anonymity and behave in a bad and inadequate way. Such anonymous users do harm to a forum. I guess mean and bad postings will be deleted by moderators, be it from a guest, an 'anonymous' or a registered users. And the user account also might be deleted. So there are means to handle this.
- Any blue meanies around?Yes, we have some guest posting and my explicitly anonymous posts. But were these guests and anonymous users really bad, wrong, or mean?
One guest user asked for the status of the Warrior shipment. Another guest user asked for the current Warrior serial number shipped. Last not least there are my postings, especially my slightly mean initial posting.
- My bad initial posting - Discussion techniquesIn the past I've read an ugly communication, see the dispute between
Fury and Frank Sapone/Mara'akate at rec.games.vectrex.
This discussion of Desfeek and Fury, here, resembles that former discussion in some ways:
At first, when reading about the Warrior refund, I guess most people thought that the refund was not o.k., suspected a misunderstanding, and felt sorry for Desfeek. Then, Fury started with arguing and challenging Desfeek verbally.
The discussion got unfair and made me angry. This was the point where I registered as a forum user and made my slightly mean statement:
'Fury doesn't like if people criticize him, his products, or his processes. And sometimes he even takes measurements. People have to cope with this.'What I did in the statement is applying a discussion technique that has been used quite a lot in the previous dispute between Fury and Desfeek: Write something, that is not 100% right and just a little bit wrong.
Fury got it right; there’s a wrong part in my above statement which is the generalization that was applied. Indeed, I have no proof that Fury has made more unwanted refunds or has taken other unfair steps in the past. And Fury even writes (and I believe him) that this happened during many years of business only twice.
The right part in the statement is all the rest. And actually, this rest does not contain much special: I guess no one likes being criticized and anyone would take measurements at some point.
You can see, this was not a really special statement with much truth and some untruth in it. But together with posting anonymously, it was enough that Fury wrote "I think "vective" is a genius. … …to post one stupid message...".
And after my second post the first post was enough reason to answer not at all to my thoughts and suggestion. Instead, Fury wrote "So it's really hard to even bother responding to your points". (Actually, this is another discussion technique: Only reply on those things that you want and that help you in your position: After all of Fury's postings we still don't know what the status of the shipment is, but I'll look at this later.)
My correct statement should have been:
'George doesn't like if people criticize him, his products, or his processes. And in your case he even took measurements. There's not much you can do about it, Desfeek.'.- Writing and reading between the linesYou probably wonder now, what I want to show here and what I'm driving at. What you can do is write between the lines. I.e., you write things that are mainly right and a little bit wrong. Or perhaps even right from your perspective.
Everyone will read the almost correct text and in most cases no one will complain. And if you repeat this multiple times, a person who is fully or mainly right can get very upset, do something really wrong, and get into a bad and wrong position. In some way this happened to Frank Sapone and this definitely just happened to Desfeek.
- The Status of Warrior shipping?When looking at all the Warrior posts, I see very few people reporting about their Warrior copy and quite a number of people wondering what the status of the shipment is. Some people have contacted Fury to learn about their shipment, some just wait and see. And some have asked here. What Fury keeps writing is that you can contact him telling your Warrior serial number. And you can get a refund at any time.
Fury doesn't want to conduct business via this forum. O.k., but why not post a single and short business post with the current serial number shipped to the forum? Or a short note on his business webpage and he's done?
We have lengthy posts and long answers from Fury, here, don't these posts reveal a lot about Fury and his business and customer relationship. Why not inform people about the shipment status? What can be the secret of posting the serial number currently worked on?
To be honest after this enduring dispute about the refund and the lack of information on shipping, I suspect the truth is that only very few copies have been shipped so far. I'm even tempted to ask the Vectrex community and find out, but I better leave this as a speculation to avoid more trouble.
BTW, the special touch of all this dispute and criticism is that most people (including me) are aware and thankful for the extraordinary and unusual work and effort of the remaining Vectrex developers and wish them to live long and prosperous.
- Why all this mud, again?Last not least be sure that I wonder myself why I'm writing this. My motive here is that in the past I've seen quite a number of discussions and experienced how people who were mainly right became mainly wrong. And many people, sometimes even a whole community believed that this person was (mainly) wrong after that discussion.
Perhaps you haven't notice and don't see this, now. Wait a longer(!) while and reread through all the posts that have been made during this 'refund' dispute. Then, you might see the challenging, the demounting, the offences and accusations, and finally the faults and fall of a person who initially was mainly right.
- Often, there's no wrong and right I don't claim that Fury was completely wrong doing the refund and Desfeek was completely right. But I claim that Desfeek was dealt in an unfair way doing the refund and in the way the discussion was lead. He was driven into a discussion he never intended and wanted, including posting his initial mail to Fury. I don't like that at all.
And moreover, I don't claim that I'm right in writing all the above and give a partly speculative insight of the dispute and potential for more unwanted dispute, here. Because I know well that we all have our personal background, our live story, and character, which other people don't know and what makes them misunderstand or even not understand at all.
What it really comes down to is that I wish that people act in a fair and understanding way; respect other people; and believe in the good in other persons. Be it in real life or this Vectorgaming forum.
- vective
