Art De La Guerre

[vexillia]

Am I the only one disappointed at the degradation of this sub-forum in recent months?

I have one plea to all forum members. Before posting ask yourself: is my question (or reply) clearly stated and expressed in such a way that it will assist others, especially new or occasional players, to grasp the issue and help me?
_________________
Martin Stephenson

[vexillia]

Just me then.
_________________
Martin Stephenson

[Longtooth]

It's not just you, Martin. I think this forum would benefit from a separate sub-category for 'theoretical wargaming'.

Jesse

[vexillia]

_________________
Martin Stephenson

[Snowhitsky]

Put it this way, I no longer read posts from certain individuals nor respond to their philosophical ramblings. Don't feed the trolls.

[lionelrus]

[MC_Delicatessen]

An active moderator with merge thread, delete, time out etc. capabilities would be welcomed by me.

About 50% of posts are totally useless, about 25% are just wrong or misleading... then there are a tiny amount of genuine, well pitched questions, and a tiny amount of concise answers.

Sadly it's practically impossible to marry the sensible questions with the sensible answers.

And the trolls pray on the lack of answers from authoritative sources.

Sad really. This is my only experience of being "into" a ruleset. But no wonder the landscape is such a mess if this is the general attitude - and it's like this in the best community!

[vexillia]

I agree but would like to re-iterate:

[1] Your points are compounded by the very low ability of people to express themselves clearly and in a manner easily understood by others. Generally, the grammar, sentence construction and overall logic is truly shocking. No wonder people are confused. I feel for any moderators having to deal with this.

and add:

[2] Most people don't know how to create a text diagram in a fixed font with the [code] tags and persist in writing malformed text diagrams in a proportional font (which are rubbish) and yet they still expect people to grasp what they mean.

[3] Writing a statement and sticking a question mark at the end is never a good way of asking a question in writing. Doing so repeatedly, is shoddy. You may speak like that to another person and get away with it but, in what is essentially a technical discussion, it doesn't work and merely adds to the confusion. It begs the question "are you asking me or telling me?".

There are people using this forum who need to take a break and ask themselves if they are part of this problem or not.
_________________
Martin Stephenson

[vexillia]

On more technical note it would be much better if the forum software was updated and the "Friends & Foes" function was enabled so you could easily block people.
_________________
Martin Stephenson

[lionelrus]

[vexillia]

[vexillia]

Not just me then:

[Za Otlichiye]

Martin, please don't personalize things, although I'm more confused than I am offended.
Your frustrations seem to have arisen in the Does a cancelled ability still cancel abilities? discussion. Which is weird because I didn't ask the question; It's a fundamental and important question that has been kicked around before; It is a simple question and I don't have a position on it - I thought the consensus was "no"; I didn't upset the applecart; I did try to illuminate both sides of the question, along with several others.
I guess I didn't help you, but I'd be happy to try again, in the forum or in PM. It's a frustration all around, but please don't shoot the messenger.

[vexillia]

[Zoltan]

@ Vexillia

Thanks for your post Martin; you have expressed what others amongst us have been thinking and discussing via our own networks around the world. Please be reassured that your frustrations are shared by others.

The impression I have formed is that there is a small group of posters who never actually play this game with others, and certainly not in multi-player events. I simply don’t buy the “It’s important we sort this matter out in the forum beforehand, so that all players know the correct rule before the game” BS. 

Maybe some posters only play by themselves at home? Or maybe they just like spending time trying to find perceived gotchas in the rule book that are very easily resolved at the table when (or if) they arise in an actual game, at an actual wargames event.

Being a self-proclaimed pedant, I too roll my eyes at often incoherent posts and appalling “diagrams”. These often cause a wave of unnecessary posts either answering the wrong problem or trying to fathom the question.

I much prefer to use the Facebook forum as it is so easy to create, and upload, a photo of toy soldiers to illustrate the question at hand.