Gosh that feels better.
A while ago I was listening to Bill and Jay over at the Gamers Lounge and they were discussing how they very rarely use forums, prefering instead to read blogs. At the time I didn't think very much of it. But I guess I have had a moment of clarity.
In part this relates to my decision to devote more time to this blog. And one of the ways of providing content to readers, and in theory generating more traffic, is to link to other blogs. Which makes it sound like a tawdry exchange, and me like a traffic whore. The reality is, that leaving aside the potential for mutaul traffic sharing and communication, providing links is an easy way of filling the void of the sidebar.
That said when I started searching around of links to stuff I thought interesting, what struck me was a diversity of voices. And perhaps more important that diversity did not set define itself as mutually exclusive and mean spirited.
Hence my summoning of the Burna Boyz.
I decided that what was needed was a karmic realignment. If I am to truely free myself from the narrow toxicity of forums that has been slowly poisoning my enjoyment of the hobby I needed to take a dramatic step.
Therefore I have been working my way around all the forums I have joined over the years and asking them to delete my account. And boy does it feel good. One might almost say that I have succumbed to the fluff and turned my back on chaos.
Yeah I know it sounds dramatic, but really I am doing them a favour, since I'm sure if everyone who has had enough of a particular forum were to do the same the administrative task of managing the database would be much simpler. And who knows if large numbers were deleted it might do something to make forums less pointlessly poisonous and more socratic. Idealistic I know, but hey! If you don't try it, then you will never find out.
The irony of this is that the piece I wrote yesterday was picked up by a forum in Malaysia and true to the posionous form of forum junkies was twisted into being 'rant' supposedly about people playing with unpainted models - whereas I was of the opinion that I was lamenting the fact that gamers don't get to play as much as they like, and therefore wargaming takes on a greater importance than being simply a game: with victories and defeats magnified.
Still it did give me a wry smile, as I bathed in the anti-oxidant goodness of my new macrobiotic forum free hobby diet.
So I guess I should thank Bill and Jay for planting the seed of liberty in my hobby soul and freeing me from the daily questions like, 'I'm a new player and I want someone to tell me what army to buy?' or 'is the thong of Sheleba better than the Codpiece of Ra?' These questions always struck me as odd, because the answer to just about all such queries is, 'I don't know, since I don't know how you like to play your games or what is that you are trying to achieve with your army.'
Which is not to say that bloggers or their commenters don't discuss such matters - or indeed rant about GW prices or people playing with unpainted figures or whatever - it's more that they only do it once in a while - not every single hobby soul destroying day.
Oh and your opinion doesn't depend on the number of comments under your hokey avatar and anonymous moniker.
peace:)
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