Apologies to Eric, as I'm about to seize on his signature line to launch in another direction:
I have something to say about these little battles I keep getting into with various people. Eric's signature line gave me the spark; why? Because when I read that line, I already knew (pretty much) that Eric felt that way, via my perusing his posts for a few years and reading between the lines. I also have a pretty good notion about how Nick feels on various issues, how Alex feels, etc. I have *another* pretty good notion that most of you here on the digest, being of above average intelligence (I'm guessing here at the average digester's profile in a horribly general way), have a pretty good feel for where I'm coming from by now.
Most of these threads follow this general pattern (note that this cycle has been co-authored by an anonymous source :)...):
Why, if I'm aware of this cycle, do I bother posting just to go through it again and again? It always comes down to when I'm reading something that I having another viewpoint on, and nobody else is saying anything about it. If somebody says something in the same vein I'm thinking, then I feel fine about it. If nobody says anything, then I post, because somebody has got to say something. The fact that sometimes people chime in to agree only proves that it's not just me and that, while a valid opinion was out there, it was going to go unheard for some reason.
"For some reason" is an interesting issue. Like or not, there are a number of people who read the digest who don't feel all that comfortable posting opinions that are contrary to the prevailing wisdom of the moment. I know that many members of the digest, responding to grumblings of an oppressive atmosphere, go out of their way to be helpful to combat this perception. BTW, Nick is one of the best at this (surprised I could say something good about you, eh Nick?). Even so, that general feeling, be it based on reality or perception, seems to continue. That should not be the case; on this I'm sure pretty much everyone agrees.
My answer to this is that people will post more freely if they see other people who are willing to "mix it up" with the digest old-timers and icons. So I do. Does this mean I never agree with anything? Do I only post just to get myself into trouble? Not really. With X amount of time to read and post to the digest, I only jump in when I feel strongly about something, and more often than not, that means disagreement. Nature of the beast. In spite of comments about my lack of positive contributions, I do post tidbits occasionally, they just get lost. The last time I got a positive response to something I put together for the digest was a few nice comments about my story during the Onslaught saga (thanks Joerg and Martin, and anyone else I've forgotten). Other items like my short piece on Godtongue, or comments on Chalana Arroy, or whatever it may be, tend to get buried. The stuff I have to contribute in this area does not seem to jive with the kind of submissions digestors like (too rules-y, seemingly). Sadly, more of my contributions were to the RQ rules digest a few years back; sorry, but I tend to prefer the RQ *and* Gloranthan contributions over pure Gloranthan ones. Nature of the beast :).
As far as the flame wars/discussions go, I consider those positive contributions as well, actually...just ones that few can appreciate. However, if I ever start getting enormously negative responses and zero positive feedback, you can be sure I'll stop. That hasn't happened yet though...
I also feel fairly confident that my various opponents in these threads have an innate understanding similar to what I expounded upon at the start of this post, and do not hold grudges too long. If/when we meet at a convention or something, I doubt you'd catch me singing Lunar drinking songs with Nick, but I'm sure we'd be able to have a cordial, intelligent conversation :)...
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