Re: OS X compile

The Wanderer wrote:
[snip]

I thought I said this conversation was over.

George Smith wrote:
I don't care. I am here to discuss Angband, not to discuss Neo or
have my own identity questioned. This is all off-topic, apparently inflammatory, and counterproductive.

Then why are you continuing to respond to posts on the subject?

Because people keep posting them, and their posts are wrong and need correcting.

Go away, you're bothering me.

By behaving as you have been, you are bothering multiple people.

I have not been "behaving" in any particular way. I try to discuss Angband, but people keep trying to change the subject to whether I'm this Neo guy or not, for some silly reason, and the ones that think I am keep pestering me because they don't like him. It's all rather ridiculous, especially when anyone that finds me bothersome can probably filter out my posts somehow.

Please do not be rude.

After you.

If you don't like it, don't post slurs.

I had not.

Obviously, you had.

If you call me names, I will respond to dispute what you said. This applies to everyone.

This is supposed to be a forum for discussing Angband, not a forum for discussing Neo or for calling people names that you think might be Neo.

If you continue to misuse it, perhaps I will need to have a word with whoever runs things.

My point is that, *regardless of whether or not someone else has been
offensive to you*, behaving in that fashion *is* offensive.

So it's OK for someone to be offensive to me, but it's not OK for me to simply tell everyone, in response, that whatever nasty stuff they said about me isn't true?

You're warped!

Why do you find it shocking that when you're rude to someone, they
might actually reply in a manner that you find rude?

I don't.

Then why did you behave otherwise?

I do expect them to behave in a manner which is *reasonable*

And I do. I, unlike you, don't find it unreasonable for someone to publicly dispute it when publicly maligned.

I give explicit warning of the fact that I am not going to be reasonable
on the specific point in question, and if anyone else continues to
expect me to then that becomes their problem.

Oh, so this is about "being reasonable", and "compromise", and "going along to get along" now, is it? In other words, if someone is nasty to me and publicly insults me, I should compromise and accept *half* the insults even if I honestly believe ALL of them to be baseless slurs?

Sorry. No can do. I will stand up and call a spade a spade even if no-one else will. And apparently there IS someone else who will -- the much-maligned Neo.

Are you genuinely that used to people just bowing and muttering
apologies anytime you treat them poorly?

No, I'm not. In part, this may well be because I tend to treat people
fairly well. When I do treat people poorly, I expect them to call me on
it.

Then why did you write a book-length diatribe when I did so? Oh, right, because it's OK for OTHER PEOPLE to do certain things that it's not OK for ME to do. Why? Because you think I'm Neo, I suppose? How stupid. You can take your double standard and shove it.

I don't like Neo because he is continually, repeatedly, consistently,
unoriginally, and unreasonably rude to everyone I have ever seen him
interact with.

I haven't seen very many posts by him (I assume several of the "something@xxxxxxxxx" personas are him?) but those that I have seen and that I'm fairly sure were him have been a mixture of rude and not-rude, and all of the rude ones that I saw were in response to someone maligning him or mistaking me for him.

Perhaps if you left the poor guy alone instead of behaving vindictively, rude postings by him would stop.

(Admittedly many of them are not particularly polite to
him, but I gather that most of them are so in response to his having
behaved this way on previous occasions.)

Someone has to break the cycle. My own rule is to try to always be civil, but especially to never, ever lash out at someone unprovoked. If you don't like him, but he posts a perfectly on-topic and reasonable post about Angband, don't flame him in response. Either respond civilly and without impugning his honor in any way, shape, or form, or just ignore him. Is it really THAT hard to ignore someone?

This was true before I ever
posted anything to or about him - though it was not as strongly true as
it has become since his responses to me have convinced me that he is not
even slightly amenable to reason in this matter

You will find that quite a lot of people are "not even slightly amenable to reason" when your definition of "being reasonable" is "let me call you all sorts of names in public and don't say anything to contradict me", as seems to be the case. More generally, people that are quite reasonable and willing to compromise on other matters will not be when their own name is being dragged through the mud; then they will fight, and fight hard.

It's one thing to debate which weapon is better, Ringil or the Glaive of Pain. It's quite another to debate whether or not such-and-such a person, who reads the forum, is evil/bad/whatever. You will find the subject of discussions of the latter nature often unwilling to "compromise"; he's not evil or whatever and that is non-negotiable; he's not bad and that's final.

Debates on such a topic are singularly unproductive. I recommend that you not waste your time on such debates in the future.

I also consider you to be more reasonable and potentially more
worthwhile than Neo.

Insulting Neo is counter-productive; see above. Giving me back-handed compliments is not much better.

Neo has proven to be impervious to attempt to
convince him that this behaviour is not the best approach

Why continue trying, then? If you genuinely think he has nothing to say that you'd find worth your while to read, then don't. Ignore him completely. Certainly don't provoke him; pestering and provoking someone chronically will eventually turn anyone, even a saint, into a curmudgeonly *** who says little of benefit, and in a shockingly short time, too. The saint just might take longer than most to transform in this manner.

And mentally transferring his alleged deficiencies onto completely innocent third parties is even more pointless and counterproductive. Keep it up and before long you now have TWO curmudgeonly bastards that have little worthwhile to say anymore. By the time you're done with them, you see, they've both learned that spending the time and effort to compose and submit a worthwhile, informative post on the subject of Angband is a waste of their time because all they'll get in response is several variations on the theme of "you suck" and one or two long, nit-picky dissections criticizing every last thing, with predominantly specious and trumped-up charges, no less.

Most likely, he doesn't even play anymore and only hangs around so that he can respond when publicly badmouthed instead of risking letting the chronic badmouthing go unchallenged with who knows what long term consequences for him. Perhaps a waste of his time, but I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same in similar circumstances. Regardless of any possible long term harm from being chronically badmouthed (I'd think there might be none in such a small, esoteric forum as this, but then again who knows how findable it might be if someone googles him someday? At least he's insulated by using a pseudonym. Several pseudonyms, actually.) I expect there's some satisfaction to be derived from catching people that go to badmouth him "behind his back" red-handed and calling them on their behavior.

In extreme circumstances, doing something like that *once* to cut
off a conversation which plainly is going nowhere good might be
acceptable.

That's what I tried to do, but people keep not getting the message
and continuing the conversation that is unwelcome and off-topic.

Then the appropriate thing to do is ignore it from that point.

You just don't get it, do you? I do not want people discussing me behind my back any more than Neo seems to. I am not a subject. I am not open for debate. I am a person and I demand the minimum level of respect that is automatically owed one, and that includes not being treated as a public figure unless I'm also getting a seven-figure salary as compensation!

> If you do
not do so, then you have not "cut off" the conversation.

If it continues at all, then clearly it has not been cut off. Even if I ignore it, other people will read it, and may read, uncritically, some insulting slur directed against me. And *won't*, if I'm ignoring it, read any rebuttal of same. And that, my friend, poses a serious problem.

(Actually, you seem to have done that with this
very post, though it remains to be seen whether you will follow through
on it by not responding.)

No can do -- you didn't stop posting about me, and suggesting things about me that simply aren't true, so I'm clearly not done correcting you yet.

If someone is reading this and reads some slur against me I don't
want them to also read an incriminating silence from me. They must
see me making at least some token objection, or I will look like I am
tacitly accepting what was said about me.

I'm not even sure I recognize the concept of an "incriminating silence"
in casual discussion.

Casual discussion? Who knows how easily all this crap might get dug up by someone's google search some day. As near as I can figure, almost anything that occurs in a publicly accessible space or forum goes on some sort of "permanent record" these days -- you may be randomly photographed in the street, cameras surveill stores and many other open-to-the-public spaces, and google archives darn near everything that happens on the net. As a result, all public badmouthings have the same potential for doing damage as does a libelous hatchet-job in the New York Times, given that anyone particularly interested in a person will probably google their name, at minimum, and perhaps dig deeper than that.

Perhaps I should follow Neo's example and adopt a pseudonym, or even a whole passel of them that I use interchangeably. Perhaps we all should. Not that the multiple-nicknames thing does him that much more good than using a single one, since everyone just calls him "Neo", and anything bad said *about* him can be found with a single search.

On the other hand, that same search will find a truckload of irrelevant trivia. Matrix movie nonsense plus things relating to however-many zillion other people all jumped on the "Neo is a cool handle" bandwagon because of the trilogy.

So maybe we should all use a single pseudonym each, but make it a widely used one that is unique in this one forum but will not be anywhere close to unique otherwise.


Certainly I do not recognize it to the extent of
posting such a response to every perceived slur, rather than (at most)
intermittently when some especially egregious slur is made.

The last time I looked, there's a quite successful multi-billion dollar industry whose business model is predicated on the belief that endless repetition of even a silly, inane, or downright wrong message will eventually cause people to at least half-believe it more or less by default, and induce in them a desired knee-jerk reaction to seeing the message of the subject somewhere, e.g. on store shelves.

From that, it follows that constant repetition of even minor slurs against a person's character, and tied to that person's name, might (intentionally or otherwise) induce in the general populace a knee-jerk reaction to seeing that person's name, and one not very beneficial to that person.

It also follows that a comparable amount of repetition of an equal and opposite message might neutralize that undesirable effect. Certainly, the afore-mentioned multi-billion dollar industry does that, too, badmouthing the competition and suchlike.

The one remaining question is: Which equal and opposite message would you prefer? A steady series of comments denying that there's any truth to your slurs, or a steady series of counter-slurs sullying *your* good name?

I think you're currently getting the better deal, from me if not from Neo. But that can change in a hurry, if I feel you have done something "especially egregious" to deserve it...

Furthermore, while posting some response to even most such comments
might not be unacceptable (I am honestly not certain), cutting the
comments themselves out in the way that you have been doing would still
be just as rude.

If someone calls me an idiot, say, I am obligated to either silently assent to the charge or else to repeat it and thereby give it double its original exposure? According to what insane rulebook?

I will not give any slur against me some extra free bonus advertising space. If you want it repeated, you can do your own damn dirty work and write it twice.

It would, moreover, be significantly more effective in most cases to be
reasonable, open, and relaxed about the matter.

I am "reasonable, open, and relaxed" about most matters. I will not compromise on questions about my own character or honor, however. You have no business raising such questions about a non-famous person in public, especially not in any forum that is likely being archived for posterity. Famous people become topics of household and public discussion, and the subjects of sleazy tabloid journalism in questionable taste. They also make multi-million-dollar salaries, as a rule, and can hire armies of their own PR flacks to publish counter-spin and lawyers to pursue libel actions.

When people are permitted to post slurs about ordinary workaday people on the internet, on the other hand, they are creating a world in which no person is free of the ever-glaring eye of tabloid-style journalism, not even that vast majority that are dependent on the goodwill of employers, prospective future employers, prospective dates, and so forth for what quality of life they do enjoy, rather than being able to buy such things or trade on fame, and who furthermore do not have the resources to litigate every written, archived, public misuse of their name or to launch their own PR campaigns in their favor.

In short, the internet has had the unfortunate side effect of making it possible for anyone to ruin just about anyone else, and difficult for "anyone else" to fight back. They can take protective measures, such as using a pseudonym; I don't think I will be making many more internet posts under my real name, fairly common though it is, save to defend myself against any further slurs here. Not after what I've just seen, and after finding and reading some of Neo's posts where he expressed similar concerns.

In the meantime, it behooves you and everyone else here to act responsibly and not attack anyone else's reputation, except maybe if they're a) famous, b) wealthy, and c) deserving of your wrath, so for instance George W. Bush.

Responding to
accusations of being Neo (which I agree would constitute a pejorative)
by behaving something like how Neo would is not a way to convince people
to stop making such accusations.

Here you go again, gratuitously insulting Neo again, while also contributing nothing either a) on topic or b) worthwhile to this forum.

I have given logical reasons why a) such accusations are wrong and b) making them is pointless anyway and shouldn't be done. One reason that in my mind suffices on its own is that it's not on the subject of Angband, and therefore it's off-topic here.

> As noted briefly above, I had a good
impression of you before this thread, so I did not expect you to respond
to that accusation by behaving in that way; I was surprised, and
somewhat disappointed

Then you are wrong about that behavior being "bad". It is not. In Neo's case, it may be questionable seeing as he isn't posting under his real name, but even then, I don't see anything wrong with responding to insults to debunk them -- it seems more dangerous to let them go unchallenged, especially in a place where they likely get archived for posterity. It would be like failing to respond to a gross mischaracterization that was published in the letters column of one's local newspaper, rather than like failing to respond to someone casually badmouthing you in passing in the street or some of your enemies privately sharing jokes at your expense with one another, out of the public view.

(On the other hand, if people casually badmouth you in passing in the street, then you're already in deep trouble. Perhaps you failed to respond in your own defense when badmouthed in the press?)

Plainly they are not being effective
when he uses them; why then would a sane person, which you appear to be,
try to use them?

Effectiveness has to be judged based on results. If he's trying to convince you not to hate him, he's wasting his time, but if he's trying to defend himself in front of the same audience in front of which he's being badmouthed, then his behavior makes much more sense.

My guess is that you have forgotten that our audience probably is vastly larger than just the people reading this forum today, particularly for anyone posting under his or her real name.

If this were a chatroom where everything disappears five seconds after being said, then you'd have some valid points; it would be better to let insults slide, if they weren't too severe and the wrong people weren't present to see them.

(Or are even chatrooms being archived these days? Who can tell? There's often at least one guy in one that just sits there and doesn't say anything. Is he really a recorder or camera of some sort masquerading as a human being? Paranoia ... but then just replace "chatroom" with "barroom" in the preceding paragraph.)

See above. The conversation is supposed to be over, but then someone
writes another slur. THEY are continuing it.

Then that's their problem.

Except that when someone badmouths me in public, especially in a forum that is probably being archived by Google or somebody, and especially if they badmouthed me using my real name, then it is also my problem, as explained above.

If you have refuted the accusation once, and
indicated that you consider the matter done with, then as long as you do
not see any place to inject further constructive discussion you should
leave them to flail about as much as they want to.

What happens if someone reads only the newer stuff and sees another stupid accusation but not the refutation that is now collecting dust? Even someone searching some archive years from now might sort by date and ignore all but the most recent material; or a recent accusation and its set of zero replies might come up as highly relevant while an old accusation and its freight of replies that rebut it languishes somewhere around result #3,565,578 of 8,331,586 in some Google results.

> By doing that, you
leave them looking like the fools, and you come out looking like the
superior and more mature person.

So you say. Since you were recently calling me names in public yourself, though, I have a pretty good idea of just how far I can trust you to have my best interests at heart when suggesting something to me.

Now this entire line of inquiry is both unwelcome and off-topic for
this forum. This conversation is over, and none of this off-topic
nonsense is up for further debate.

Sorry - that is neither possible

Unless someone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to write stuff to post here, it sure as hell IS possible.

Now what part of "this conversation is over" don't you understand?

I am not a public figure. I have not consented to become the subject of tabloid journalism or anything similar. I am not a subject for public discussion at all, and I am particularly not one that's on-topic in this forum. I am not open for debate, and neither is whether or not I am bad/evil/good/honorable/or whatever. This discussion is CLOSED.

> No one, except a moderator in cases where that applies, can
declare a conversation over for all participants

Now see here. In my country, we have these nifty fellas called "lawyers". Much as I might hate the expense, if a week or two from now I feel that I am still being subjected to unwanted, intrusive, and incorrect sleazy tabloid-style reporting in a public, archived forum, I may very well hire myself one and prosecute you, this forum, your moderator, and whoever else seems appropriate for defamation. Then we'll see who has the power to declare a conversation over for all participants.

As far as I am concerned, and as near as I can tell, as far as the law here is concerned, if the subject of a conversation is a person, and that person is not a "public figure" by some particular definition (that certainly doesn't apply that label to me), then that person has the right to declare the conversation over, AND to have the last word in it (that last bit is called "right of reply"). That power is exercised, from time to time, against print newspapers in certain cases when they publish something out-of-line about someone in the editorial column. (Even public figures can sue and force them to print a retraction, and even get damages, if the statement published was clearly injurious to their reputation and was clearly false.)

As near as I can figure out, this forum is not much different in actual practise -- what's said here is potentially being archived forever, and is potentially searchable in the future. If anything, a libelous remark posted here that names names is potentially even more injurious to its target than one in a print newspaper, if the latter is not also reproduced on the newspaper's google-searchable web site that is.

Libel laws, it should be noted, were formulated based on a press that did not at the time possess web sites or any method for searching their archives more convenient than visiting the local library or the paper's own physical place of business to manually search through archives. If they seem necessary to counter defamatory statements made publicly in something whose archives are that clunky, then they are certainly even more so in the Google Age. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's so easy now to defame someone in ways that once only newspapers, with editor approval, got to do, that there should be free legal representation for pursuing libel actions now, the way there long has been access to free legal representation for those accused of a criminal offense. (I'd further suggest that the lawyer recoups his costs from whoever posted the defamatory comment, in the case of a finding for the plaintiff, and only from the taxpayer otherwise.)

This lets the other person have the last word
if they want to; that is, frequently, the only way to actually stop the
conversation.

Well, then, if you want it stopped, you know exactly what to do, now, don't you?

I have done this before many times, for inflammatory and offtopic
threads alike; it is frequently painful to not respond to the responses
other people make to such posts, but it is effective.

Perhaps it is when you are using a pseudonym, as seems to be the case for you. Even so, perhaps someone will put your pseudonym together with your real name somehow, some day, and later someone else might search google for you and find a) the pseudonym and b) posts that badmouthed you, and for which your only response was an incriminating silence. Perhaps they'll find the badmouthings believable. Perhaps they're in HR somewhere you submitted your resume, doing background checks -- no job for you. Perhaps they're women considering dating you seriously -- that's your love life down the toilet.

I did another google for Neo, and saw places where he (or someone using that name, anyway) was accused on the 'net of various perversions. Most likely, poor Neo can't get a date anymore, at least not from anyone who is able to connect those accusations somehow to his real name, whatever that is. Given the viciousness of some of the things said about him I can definitely see where he's coming from. It's a shame you can't, and it's a shame you apparently feel none yourself when you post more slurs against yet another person.

This is a forum about Angband. It is not supposed to be used as a no-oversight registry of offenders of any sort, and particularly not as a no-oversight public registry of alleged sex offenders. It's shameful to see people willing to despoil this forum by using it as such, and furthermore by asserting some supposed inviolable right to do so and to blast anyone who tells them to shut up and get back on topic.
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