OMG, this is freaking hilarious. Gellerman is now viewing the Dear Stu thread!!!

I love this place.

It is best to be both compelling and right.

What I am referring to is the overwhelming desire for most to flame others for the decisions they make. This leads potential writers who could better explain their decisions to shy away. I mean, why bother explaining it if all that is going to come out of the "argument" is how extremely "wrong" they are..... regardless of their record with that particular card or strategy. Case in point.
Statement Look at this moron for playing Death Trap in his deck. Response: It does what it needs to do.
Statement: Its so bad compared to RFC
Response: In most situations it does the same as RFC. No one said it was good..... It just does what you need it to do.
In this case, who is right? I mean, a pile of poo is a pile of poo, but that doesn't mean monkeys cant have fun flinging it at each other once in a while.

Too true. These forums have killed more good writers than they have created.

1. yeah, i see that now. plus, badger is a loaded word.

2. well, most people don't post but prefer to lurk. so neither one of us, or anyone in this thread actually, will ever be able to prove the other wrong. so, i'll stick with my opinion if stu doesn't mind.

3. wait, if the majority of realms doesn't know what we're talking about then how can it be popular? OH SNAP!

4. pretty irrelevant and i should be doing something else so let's just say you won and move on. if you come to LA, i'll be you a slurpee.

Here's the deal: I don't like Lost. I've tried watching the show several times, and just never been able to get into it. Does that make Lost a bad show? Hell no! I know a ton of people who are addicted to it, and that's perfectly fine. Similarly, it's fine that I don't particularly enjoy the show. In the end, it's all a matter of opinion anyway.

Alex, your commentary on which Vs. System writers you like and dislike is very much like my feelings towards Lost. The difference is that I recognize that just because something doesn't particularly appeal to me doesn't mean that it doesn't have merit to others.

Maybe your point was that there wasn't enough Vs. System media that appealed to you personally. If that is the case, then you need to phrase your comments as such, rather than spouting rhetoric like "he rights articles which r terrible". Not only do such comments do NOTHING to advance your cause, but it is personally insulting to those writers and makes you look like an idiot (horrific spelling and grammar notwithstanding).

There's a HUGE difference between constructive criticism and thoughtless flaming. Sadly, it seems that too many members of VsRealms opt for the latter. Grow up, kids. If you are truly are requesting a referendum for change, then you need to learn how to be a LOT more diplomatic and logical, and quit making comments that you know full well will simply provoke others.

This ain't Pokemon... so quit acting like a kid.

Only if you accept an unnecessarily broad definition of "good writers".

See what I mean?

People would rather be trolls than contributors. You, sir, have done some amazing work lately around here. You should think about writing articles for this or some other site. Instead of taking shots.

I already write on a professional basis (script doctoring, mostly). What I write about cards, I write to unwind.

My point wasn't that the writers here or on Metagame suck, per se; my point is "good writer" is a meaningful term, and not just an idle compliment. If you compare the stuff written about VS to any reasonable magazine freelancer's output, the freelancer's going to come out way ahead in terms of quality.

The thing is that you're looking at it from the perspective of the small pool. Most VS writing is decent on the "writing about gaming" level, but that level is way, way down on the scale because the pool of talented writers writing about gaming is practically nonexistent. I'm specifically refraining from calling out anybody in particular, but I've seen chunks of text on Metagame - arguably the most professional of the sources for VS opinion writing - that just made me wince, they were so bad. (Like Stephen King once pointed out - there are people who write poetry about "my angry lesbian breasts", and then there are writers, who understand that although one may be angry or a lesbian, one's breasts remain breasts.)

And if that sentiment dissuades people from writing, good. People who get cowed by such idle, nonspecific criticism shouldn't write. They should paint pottery at those pottery-painting places.

To quote Janes Addiction - If you have some big secret then why don't you sing ME something."

I just wanted to say that I tried to rep Foilz for this one and couldn't. It's like he could write an article talking about the different types of articles (it would belong in the genre "metaarticle").

As for the Dear Stu thread, it is clearly a big hit. It sees play from, like, 4 or 5 different people...CONSISTENTLY! I'm not sure how many people are actually ON this website, but I'm sure that number is over half the number of people I look forward to reading posts from (with the missing people being Gator, Kamiza, RDG, and Biz).

Okay, so Big Spooky deserves to be on the list of people I look for posting.


As for what articles I like, I gotta go with LJ on this one. Preview articles. Their very genre implies a style that is the most guaranteed to combine humor and usefulness. I am almost never dissapointed with a preview article unless both the writing is just that bad AND the card sucked, but if either one is good it MORE than covers up the other (at least on Metagame; I know when I look at Magic previews I get pissed off at the articles and just skip to the card).

EDIT: The following was added for random mockery purposes:

You mean Stu's classroom?

And enforcing your elitist personal judgements does what to encourage potential "good writers" to join us?

Do you honestly think you are contributing something other than a sense of your own superiority to the community?

Should we just let you decide who should be allowed to write and have one article per week to read, since that is all that meets your standards?

I don't believe you, put your money where your mouth is. Prove it.

Unnecessarily broad?

I think 'unnecessarily' is a poor term. Vs writing isn't exactly a saturated market. I and probably quite a few others are of the opinion that any readable--not good, readable--article should be published.

TCG writing is for two groups of people. The first group is those that want to be entertained. This group doesn't care about the hottest tech. They read an article to be entertained. This class of writing wants good writers and not necessarily good players.

The second group wants the cutting edge tech. They want to hear why Vidi Wijaya made this play and why Jason Hager put this card in that deck. People reading for tech could care less how good a writer the player is. Here we don't need writers--we need players who have a vague idea how to write. Let the editor do the rest.

People seem to be clamoring for more of the second group.

chdb actually makes a valid point, possible elitism aside. The real worry I'd have is that people are holding back directed criticism for some indeterminable reason. I'd gotten some pretty strong comments earlier in my run at writing here, and I'd tried to take them into account, even though I was positive at least one had been intended entirely as a put-down. Everyone loves getting a bit of acclaim, but when that's not the case, at least being acknowledged for writing and offering suggestions for improvement are generally appreciated. Oh yeah, and 'suggestions for improvement' isn't a pleasant euphemism for spiteful bashing. Nor is suggesting someone use less dog excrement in their breakfast food of choice a valid suggestion. ^_~