I’m surprised it took this long, actually.
The news of LPJ Designs termination from RPGNow finally broke as a topic of public discussion, over on RPGnet.
Background, for those who are unaware: I stopped posting at RPGnet almost 2 years ago (as described in this entry on my old blog), mostly because I felt that the identity of “GMS” was frighteningly growing into it’s own thing, quite separate from the actual person that I am. The popularly-held image of me as “GMS” had become a sort of catch-all villain for the site…viewed, depending on the outlook of the particular individual, as anything ranging from a bluntly-spoken harlan ellison-esque figure, to the Sum of Everything That Is Asshole. A few days later, a site administrator with whom I had a personal conflict took the opportunity to permanently ban me from the site (as described in here, at the bottom of the entry), to make it look like my leaving was officially-mandated.
Since then, my prediction that “GMS” would continue to be a presence, even without my participation, has come true. I am the Internet Boogeyman of choice on RPGnet. I’m still talked about, and still blamed for things, even when I haven’t posted there in 20 months.
So, you can imagine my utter exasperation, when somebody in the thread about LPJ Designs, makes the accusation that I was somehow behind LPJ’s termination:
“It sounds to me more like RPGnow has just decided to back their bud Gareth-Michael Skarka over Louis”
The conversation which spun from that even featured someone posting a link to this journal as “evidence.”
God’s teeth….it’s almost two years later, people. Isn’t it about time you found another Boogeyman?
It’s been an interesting demonstration of Skarka’s Law as well, as well-respected PDF publishers like Phil Reed and Steven Trustrum point out the many problems folks have had with Porter for over a year and a small minority tenaciously bend over further and further backwards to rationalize their increasingly unsupportable POV.
If it’s any consolation, it hasn’t been the flame fest I’d anticipated.
RPGnet
I’ve almost ceased looking or reading there, or most other boards, I need to turn that back around next year to get more of a brand name really.
I never got why they villified you (or me) for being ‘assholier than thou’ but tolerated and encouraged that from ‘certain others who shall remain nameless’.
Its weird.
Oh yeah….I forgot about the fact that my name has also been attached to an internet law, as well.
Well, yeah. But as laws go, it’s a good one. Remember, there is no bad publicity.
My dear, you voice an opinion, and people will react. You voice an opinion where others can find it, they’ll bring it up.
Sometimes not rising to the bait is the hardest thing to do, but it can be the best course.
However, if you had nothing to do with it, you know it, but people will believe whatever the fuck they want to, no matter what you have to say about it.
D.
What she said. Hell, at least you know that people will bring this stuff up. Unlike, say, Jim Pinto, who seemed to think that anything he wrote in his own blog wasn’t subject to being dredged up and discussed to death.
You omnipotent bastard!!!!
It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law
“On the internet, there is no position, no matter how heinous or idiotic, that someone won’t show up in a given thread to defend.”
I hear ya.
Re: It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law
Wow. I’ve never had anyone quote a law named after me, TO me before.
It’s kinda surreal.
Now that I think of it a little further, it sounds something like being the Internet version of Bill Clinton, whom Republicans continue to blame for bad stuff that happens on their watch, no matter how ridiculous they have to get in order to make some sort of ominous connection. Though it doesn’t sound like you’ve been blamed for knocking anyone off yet.
Give it time.
Re: It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law
It’s the CIRCLE OF LIIIIFFEE!!!
Gareth shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. I know this because I had to help schlep the body out to the desert. Bastard still owes me gas money too.
It’s like the old saying goes: a good friend will help you move, a really good friend will help you move a body.
at least you are a famous asshole. I am just an asshole.
Wait, you have a LAW named after you??
….Huh.
Figures.
Someone ought to come up with a boardgame about the Internet. It’d play much like a combination of “Telephone” and Chutes and Ladders.
touche
Isn’t it about time you found another Boogeyman?
If there is one thing the Right-Wing Noise Machine has taught me, is that new Boogeymen are never found; they are manufactured and thrown to the masses like raw meat to starving dogs.
If it happens, let me know if you want to borrow The Claws(tm) for pics. Glad to lend.
… and that was Martin Scorcese’s Casino, starring Johnny Cash …