[OT] Re: Sushi != sashimi {still: YAAP: Spork Rogue}

Unless you enjoy reading arguments on the Internet (if you are reading
this via UUCP, "arguments not on the Internet"), you should just delete
this post and move on. :)

On 2007-12-04, Kent Paul Dolan <xanthian@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <rac...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Philip Potter <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Henry J Cobb wrote:
Derek Ray wrote:
Henry J Cobb <hc...@xxxxxx> wrote:

(In spork I've taken to using Conflict ONLY in
water.)

I suspect you misapprehend the way conflict now
works.

Not if it works for him as he intends, he hasn't.

Just because _your_ intent for your changes goes one
way, that most profoundly doesn't mean that players
will not instead find some much more clever way to
(ab)use them.

Since this is an ascension posting, odds are
conflict did work _exactly_ as HJC intended.

Well, obviously if he was able to ascend, it worked well enough.
That doesn't mean that he necessarily understood how conflict
works in spork --- though in his defense I think he actually does
and Derek just misunderstood his earlier post.

So I get the water-Es to make sushi.

Why do you talk like this?

Probably because he has the skills to do so.

Having the skills to turn every line into a labyrinthian pun is one thing;
having the skills to communicate clearly and concisely to an international
audience of varying age and experience is another.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Why not? It's obvious as heck given the context.

Obviously it's not, or Mr. Potter wouldn't have said that; unless you
think he's lying?

Because he values clever language over the
conveyance of information. Either that or he
misestimates his readership's willingness to pick
apart implied meaning.

Except that I've never been within about 75 DLVLS
round trip of the Planes, and _still_ knew exactly
what HJC meant, immediately.

Well, that's great for you, but obviously not the case for everyone.
I understood it too, in fact I even thought it was pretty clever;
that doesn't mean it's the best way to communicate on this forum.

A willingness to read with understanding even if the
usage is strange to ones base language skills in
this highly mixed "first language" newsgroup, and
just to accept that some clever usages will fly high
over ones head, rather than to quibble or whine over
trifles, seems like a necessary mindset to help keep
the peace in rgrn. In reality this is just more
obnoxious "context, damnit!" whining, where now the
demanded "context" is the OP's entire base knowledge
of a human language and special skills in its use.

Let's don't go there.

Oh, no, let's go there.

(Do you really think that saying "Let's don't go there." is going to
stop _anyone_? :)

I expect most people who can't tell what Mr. Cobb is saying just ignore
his posts at this point. That's fine, and if it doesn't bother him,
hey, more power to him. If he wants to be the RGRN Joyce wannabe, it's
no skin off my back. There are some gems in there. However, that doesn't
mean that he is being a successful communicator.

Communication has many goals. The primary goal for most people in most
circumstances is conveying the information being communicated directly,
that is, _the text_. There are always secondary goals, usually conveying
information being communicated indirectly: issues of style, choice
of topic, choice of when and to whom to speak, &c. --- _the subtext_.

When Mr. Cobb speaks, I sometimes find that the subtext, whether it be
his desire (as I'm sure you share and appreciate) to needle Mr. Ray or
just his desire to twist and pivot the English language (which I share
and appreciate, and it seems you do) can get in the way of his literal
meaning. For skilled readers like ourselves, this is at most a minor
annoyance and at best a pleasure; for readers with English as a third
or fourth language and little literature background, it's like slogging
through Gehennom uphill both ways with no magic mapping.

Whining about context that is upthread or in the subject of the message
is a technical issue; the poster has inconvenienced users of certain
software who have to put in more legwork to understand what the poster
means. In this case, however, there is a clear plce that the reader can
get the information: The subject line or antecedents of the post. I do
agree that it's polite not to make people do this work, but I don't care
enough to whine about it; I'll either go find the information or just
ignore the poster, depending on how much time I have that day and how
interesting the question looks.

Whining (I'll accept your word and run with it here) about language is
different --- here, there is nowhere to _go_ to get the information of
what that means. When language is being used in nontraditional ways, the
reader can't take advantage of technical tools to solve her problem ---
babelfish, say, or a dictionary, isn't going to help with puns. (Usually.
There are certainly exceptions, but in almost all cases it's not something
that is going to be solved in two minutes like "call up Google and read
the whole thread" can be.)

I'm not saying that no one should use puns on RGRN and, indeed, I've
observed in just my few years here a number of great examples of pun
explanation. I do think, however, that expecting all or even most readers
of RGRN to decode a string of riddles is unreasonable, and that asking
for an explanation of one of these riddles when it might be directly
relevant to a player's future experience is not only resonable but one
of the good things about this newsgroup.

Now, Mr. Potter could have said this more nicely, framing this debate in
a totally different way --- "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean
here, and I think it might be relevant to a game situation I expect to
run into. Could you explain it more simply, please?" We probably wouldn't
have ended up here (if for no other reason than I wouldn't have taken the
chance to take a jab at Mr. Cobb :) . I'm going to hazard a guess that
he didn't do this because he sees Mr. Cobb's posting as a long pattern
of things he can't understand and is frustrated with them. (I'd love
to hear his take on this, if he enjoys arguing on the Internet.)

It's also worth pointing out the likelihood that Mr. Potter is a
native English speaker --- obviously, I can't speak for him, but the
..uk address means the odds are good. Assuming that Mr. Potter actually
wanted to know what Mr. Cobb was saying, chances are he sat and _tried_
to understand the intended meaning and was unable to decode it. If that's
the case, it speaks to a failure in communication in the intended text
of Mr. Cobb's message.

Of course there's nothing to stop Mr. Cobb from writing however he wants,
and he wouldn't be Mr. Cobb if he didn't play with language, I'm sure.
I expect that he realized a long time ago that he lost people this way
and decided it wasn't valuable to him, because he enjoyed writing his
way and communicating with closer-to-like-minded people. Frankly, I make
the same value judgement and choose to discuss NetHack here instead of
on a web forum or facebook or something --- these, you, are the people
I'd rather be talking to. (And rather be flaming and flaming with.)

That's fine; everyone doesn't have to be friends, especially on the
Internet. (Otherwise you and Derek would need some serious couples
counseling.) However it does imply to me that he, in this case, "values
clever language [and its social, subtextual effects] more than conveying
information [to a larger body of people]. Either that or he misestimates
his readership's willingess [or perhaps ability] to pick apart implied
meaning" and thinks that, because this is a forum full of people who play
a roguelike game full of puns, most everyone gets it.

I could have said that better, it turns out, but I still think it's true.

-r.
.

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