Y'know, sometimes, sometimes, you read through all of the most recently replied to threads, and quite by accident, they mesh together.

Endarr, lemme know where you start to build? I'll gladly help finish any job, collect wood and stone, whatever you like.

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

Somewhere off the beaten path and away from NewHome, if you don't mind.

Sounds like a terrible idea, if I'm being completely honest. That's what gtalk is for. An Argument Clinic would pretty much have an implied "it's okay to be a dick here" rule written all over it, which is so against the point.

Not everyone has or wants this chat program or that chat program, so that's not really fair; besides, some people WANT to talk with the community at large (raises his own hand for an example).
Could it go wrong? Sure. So could anything. Rather than doubt the community's ability to pull this off, look at it this way: ground rules! One way to do it is have those ready as soon as it's built. (i.e., No Profanity! ). Which leads into tthe fact that the tone of a situation colors our perceptions pretty readily. You've done plenty of things with friends or family that you'd never do with strangers, and often they've been just because the atmosphere was one you were comfortable with, right?
I know I have.
Examples here could include making it clear that it would be a place for arguement- nothing more, nothing less, and setting the whole thing up to inject some humor into the setting would go a long way toward keeping everyone on an even keel too.
Even when you hate someone's jokes, you're still more ready to listen to someone who's trying to make you laugh than someone who's just getting angry, right?

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

No, gTalk's for private discussion. If you're arguing in a public forum, the point is for the public to see it.


Like Harris said, that's just assuming the worst. It's not like people aren't going to report someone for being a dick just because they're in a certain Place.

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For rent: one skull, in serious need of dusting.

I'm gonna side with Matthew here, if for perhaps different reasons. I don't think, for starters, calling something an Argument Clinic is a good start. Argument already starts things off on- on, I guess, a slightly aggressive footing, and if there's something that the internet at large is really really good at, it's taking piddly little things and escalating them way out of proportion. Maybe Discussion Clinic could go better. It'd be a quiet reminder to keep things civil, hopefully. Secondly, I'm incredibly opposed to the idea of entirely OOC Places in general. I dislike the vast majority of the Places already (simply because I'm a terrible and awful person), and adding one that offers my characters nothing seems to me to be extra clutter on what is fast becoming a very cramped Island. That's a different issue though, so let's not get sidetracked.


Personally, my biggest thing is that we do have a set of forums, right here. I don't see why we simply can't direct people here to talk about issues where they might not agree and want public input. I don't think anyone on the Island should have to cater to people too lazy to make a forum account. If you're not willing to make an account, then it's clearly not very important to you. And, if you're not willing to talk about it in the forums for whatever reason, maybe it's not a discussion that needs to be in the public eye at all?
As an addition, the forums are much easier to get to for everyone than a Place that is far out of the way of outposts, and I personally think the forums could use some more discussion, and encouraging new people to make accounts and be active here could be, in my opinion, a good thing.

I think the Argument Clinic could be a good idea. For starters, if it's remote enough, the people who think it isn't don't even have to go out of their way to avoid it.

If anyone is interested, I have a few Places that are out of the way that I haven't used in a while that could lend themselves to this. There's the Quarry at the base of the mountain, or Ko's mansion at the south-eastern edge of the Island that could house it. I don't know who proposed it, but you can distract me if interested! I'll keep the rent cheap

My idea in suggesting a Place was that within very broad already-discussed limits, what goes on inside a Place is pretty much up to the owner of that Place. They can turn on a Place-wide banter and have chat in every room. They set the tone. They set the rules. They have full powers to delete any comments that go beyond what they want to see. In effect, they are local moderators for their own Place. (And they will get full backup from any mod, I can promise, if the situation ever goes beyond what a Place-owner's powers can handle.)

My suggestion of "Argument Clinic" for a name was facetious. It was only intended to suggest that any such place would be a lot more fun if it wasn't always dead serious. There could also be exaggerated, silly, over-the-top arguments in the style of that ==> famous Monty Python sketch. <==

In actual fact, if I were naming it (which I'm not), I wouldn't use "Clinic" at all, because that would be expecting everyone to pick up on a pop culture reference, which... yeah, it's Monty Python, so almost everyone would get it, but it would be really misleading for anyone who didn't. I do think that the Place's name and description ought to let players know somehow what they're getting into before they walk in. Fair warning, and all that.

I don't think the Enquirer is a very good option for this sort of discussion. A forum is much harder to moderate fairly than the Island. Geeklog doesn't offer nearly as many fine-tuned tools as even the more modern BBSs, let alone the excellent ones CMJ has written for us on the Island. Moreover, any opinion posted to the Forum will remain here and searchable for as long as the Enquirer exists. I think discussions on controversial topics should be more ephemeral than that. A player's possibly-ill-thought remarks on a hot-button topic will exist for at most seven days (or less, if the Place owner happens to take exception to them). They won't stick around to haunt the player forever.

I'd say we actually agree for a lot of the same reasons.

Yeah, I do assume the worst, and if I wanted to be catty I might say something like 'you don't? Welcome to the internet, enjoy your stay!' Maybe I don't have enough faith.

But I guess my main point is that literally anywhere else than Improbable Island is a much better place for Serious Discussions about religion and philosophy. However, I'd be totally okay with seeing how a board like that on the Enquirer would work out. Perhaps we can call it Serious Discussions For Serious People. Put a joke in the name. Start it out light-hearted before you even click the link.

Now that Sessine mentions it though actually roleplaying a Monty Python style argument clinic would be pretty fun.

Having a non-mod be in charge of this sort of thing is instantly a huge turn-off for me. I feel like this invites an incredible bias in any argument- or at least the appearance of one. Say it's me in charge, and there's a topic I'm very invested in. Don't like the post? Delete it! Who cares if it's a decent point, I'm in charge. I'm also not a mod, and I have absolutely no need for any sort of restraint in the use of my power because, hey, it's my place. I'm not saying everyone (or even anyone) would necessarily do this, but I don't think it encourages all viewpoints.

That comes down to me being pessimistic about the internet, sure. But I've seen things like that happen on the Island, just a good deal less often than elsewhere.


I'm not, however, at all knowledgeable about working the forums- though I still think they'd be a better place for it than some podunk Place plopped out in the wilderness.



Also, if all it is is arguing for arguing's sake (which it seems like it would be, if it were left under the jurisdiction of a random player and the conversations didn't stick around) I guess I just really don't see a need to make a specific Place for it. You can literally walk into any Place one of the arguers owns, and have essentially the same situation. Don't have a Place? We have Distractions- they're a bit slower, but entirely viable. There's also any number of messaging services available off the Island (there's also Loc 4, though maybe that's discouraged{technically it's just for general OOC whatevers}).


Of course, I'm also very much for nuking the vast majority of the Places out there and letting the wilderness reclaim the land, so uh. I suppose I'm carrying a sort of bias into this discussion anyways!

Politics / religion / fandom / operating systems / whatever other topics tend to cause pointless arguments, in a Place? Sure, if that's what the Place owner wants - we're not gonna get involved. Not our circus, not our monkeys, at least up until the point where the drama starts leaking out onto the rest of the Island (at which point it's no skin off our nose to go "Experiment failed! HULK SMAAAAAAASH!").

Topics like that, on the Enquirer? Nope, no chance, never gonna happen.

Topics about things we need to talk about for the good of the game? Etiquette, policy, whatever? Yeah, those're best on the Enquirer. There's a two-minute barrier to entry in the form of an additional account signup, which helps keep things thoughtful, and stuff sticks around here so it can be checked out later and reflected on.

Sessine and Kolojang said it best:

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

There was, for a short period, an "argument clinic" at Byte's Place. In practice, it was a pretty terrible idea. Maybe as a standalone place it would be a little better, but... ugh. It was bad.

Places like that do exist on the Internet. I've yet to come across one that isn't a cesspit, but I've also yet to come across a baby pigeon, and I'm fairly sure they must exist because there are pigeons.

Nothing actually useful to add, just that I hadn't seen 'em at all until last year, and while adult pigeons surely are goofy-lokin' creatures, baby piegons are cute and fuzzy.

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead