CONVERSATIONAL SINS

Once a conversation is going, beware of these besetting sins:
Irrelevance. This takes several deadly forms. One is preceded by, “That reminds me . . .” When this urge strikes, make sure you are reminded of something relevant before you plunge in. If a discussion of French painting reminds you that your father was in Paris during the way, grit your teeth and resist the urge to say it.
Perhaps worse in the way of irrelevance is the anecdote reciter who must digress endlessly to fill in irrelevant facts about each character he introduces: “Then I ran into Bill. (Bill, by the way, is a Smith on his mother’s side--or was his mother a Smyth?--well, anyway his maternal grandfather came over here from England.) And I said, “How are you Bill?”
And he said, “Well . . .”
This brings us to another conversation killer. The man--or perhaps more often woman--who must recite every word of dialogue he has participated in within the last three days. Unless dialogue makes the point, ignore it or summarize it.

Snobbery. Perhaps the worst offender here, is the pseudo-sophisticate who must lapse into French every now and then because English “just doesn’t have the mot juste” for his purpose. Competing with the foreign-language snob is the erudite snob who sprinkles his conversation with rare or obsolete English words, usually in a playful manner: “And you know what the varlet did?”
Another of this tribe is the quotation pedant, who gets his conversation out of Bartlett: “As the Bard said,” he starts off. When he can’t find a quotation to suit his needs he invents one. “As Chaucer might have said . . .” And what he follows is the pedant’s own epigram couched in what he supposes to be Middle English.

Forcing Response. This is the next-to-the-worst of all conversation offenses. It takes some such forms as: “D’ya get it, huh?” “Ya see my point?” “Do you follow me?” or just plain “Right?” to which you are expected to affirm, “Right!”

A milder, but no less offensive form of this disease, is to be found in the man who repeats the point of a joke several times because he feels you didn’t laugh hard enough the first time.
There is even a way of forcing response practiced by the timid man. It takes the form, “Am I boring you?” This question has no polite and honest answer.
And last, for the greatest of all offenders against conversation, we nominate the woman who recites the plots of old movies.

DISCUSSION

As amusing as small talk can be, there are times in the life of a rational creature like man that conversation must tackle the serious discussion of serious subjects.
When conversation reaches this point, you want it to show some progress.
It is too much to expect that discussion will lead to agreement, but it is too little to expect that it can’t accomplish anything, because “everything is a matter of opinion.” This implies that one opinion is just as good as another, which makes discussion pointless.
A discussion can be regarded as worthwhile if it can only uncover the exact points at which disagreement occurs. Quite frequently it will be found that there is no disagreement once everyone understands the terms of the others.
To find out where disagreement lies, it is necessary to know what you are arguing about. The best way to make this clear is to state the issue.
Take up one point at a time starting as far back as necessary to get a complete agreement. Argument must start from a point of agreement. State what your assumptions are and ask the other fellow if he will agree to accept them for the sake of argument.
Make sure you understand each of the other person’s points before you agree or disagree with him.
Make a careful distinction between matters of fact and opinion. Never argue about facts, They are either true or false and no amount of arguing can change them. We have all heard long haggling over some such points as whether New York is east or West of Rio de Janeiro. This kind of talk is not argument because it can’t progress. If you can’t check a disputed fact at the time accept it for the sake of argument or else establish that the discussion rests on this fact and call it off until the fact can be determined.
Most important of all, don’t get angry in a discussion. This is much easier to say than to follow, but it will help if you start out with a reasonable attitude. Don’t enter an argument to win. Discussion is not a form of warfare.You want to reach an understanding out of it, even if the understanding is merely the agreement that you disagree and where.
Angers creeps up on us in argument, but it has some obvious symptoms. When you see them in your own talk, it’s time to try to call a halt. Here are some symptoms:
You feel the urge to make remarks against your opponent rather than his ideas, such as, “Anyone who thinks like that is worse than Stalin.”
You find you are talking louder and louder or saying the same thing over and over.
You find yourself refusing to admit it when you see you are wrong.
Discussion is obviously not possible with all groups in all situations; sometimes small talk is enough. But the person who can’t contribute to an intelligent discussion among intelligent people is missing one of the better things in life.

1) NEVER DEFEND YOUR OWN POINTS
2) CLAIM YOU WORK IN WHATEVER FIELD YOU'RE ARGUING ABOUT.
3) IF LOSING AN ARGUMENT, FEIGN FRUSTRATION AND THEN CLAIM YOU'RE BLOCKING THE PERSON.
4) AT SOME POINT IN TIME, CLAIM THE OTHER PERSON IS A NAZI.

4

Please capitalize your sentences, separate them appropriately into paragraphs, and use proper punctuation. Sloppy writing is just hard to read and reflects badly on myself and the site. So please do your best to make each and every post as legible as possible. The exception is one-liner joke posts, in which obviously anything goes. But when you are posting seriously (which should be most of the time) you must take as much care with each paragraph as the people who write the articles and reviews on this website. It's nothing more than common courtesy. If we take the time to go through every review and article a hundred times to make sure everything is perfectly well-written, we expect -- and in fact demand -- our readers to spend an extra minute or two to do likewise with their replies.

5

Please do not overdo it with the smilies and the "in my opinion"s. Smilies look dumb and yes, we already know that everything you type which is not in quotation marks is your goddamn opinion. If you are not secure enough about your opinion to post it without adding "in my opinion", then you're better off not posting it in the first place. Ask a question instead.

6

Do not, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, quote people if you are posting right under them, except if they posted a whole shitload of stuff and you want to comment on one particular point. In that case, QUOTE ONLY THAT POINT. I have edited people's posts so many times that I am pretty sure I've had about enough by now -- from now on I'll simply start banning people. So please: DO NOT DUMP IN THIS f---ing FORUM.

7

The above quoting policies apply to quotations of posts made IN THIS FORUM. In such cases the rule is: quote as little as possible.

When the quoted material is hosted on ANOTHER SITE, however, the rule is reversed. It then becomes: quote as much as possible.

The reason for this is simple. Websites, as I have noted elsewhere, are often extremely ephemeral entities, so it makes sense to copy-paste into your post everything that is necessary for your post to keep making sense -- even after the site linked to has gone offline for good. Oftentimes it is a good idea to simply copy-paste entire articles into the forum, as I have done on a number of occasions, and will no doubt keep doing.

Do not worry about copyright laws. As long as you provide a link to the original page, no one will worry about copyright on the internet, and especially for stuff copy-pasted into forums.

The above applies mostly for USEFUL information. I.e. for posts/articles/etc. which one might want to save because one deems that they are worth something. For stuff we link in the lol thread, on the other hand, it's not so important. We don't need to have entire shitty articles copy-pasted in here in order to make fun of them, nor will anyone shed a tear if they disappear off the internet and our resulting lol pages make a little bit less sense afterwards.

So basically, as always, use your judgement.

8

Another major stupidity many people in forums seem to commit is this:

They post something that doesn't make sense, or perhaps they make a typo of some sort, then someone replies pointing it out, and then they go back and edit the original post, so that the other person's reply no longer makes any sense.

If you notice a typo or a mistake in one of your posts by all means correct it -- BUT NOT IF SOMEONE HAS ALREADY POINTED IT OUT FOR f---'S SAKES. Bottom line is that I want the threads in this forum to make 100% sense, and whoever tries to mess them up, for whatever reason, will simply be banned. So whenever you feel like editing one of your posts, THINK: is this edit going to f--- up the sense of this thread? If the answer is yes, DO NOT f---ing MAKE THE EDIT.

...

11

Please note that each game can only ever have a single thread in this forum. So before you start a new thread please use the search function (it's powered by Google and works amazingly well, in contrast to those of other forums) to make sure you are not starting a duplicate one. If you do end up starting a duplicate one it's no big deal -- I'll simply delete your thread and direct you to the existing one. But try and do your homework first so as to save me the time and trouble.

12

When you post you should VOLUNTEER information -- just like I do. Asking questions is okay too, but only in specific threads (discussions, for example) at specific times. I.e. it's NOT okay to bump a thread asking "Has anyone played this?" -- if someone HAS played it, and if they feel like posting about it, they will do so of their own accord. On the other hand, if we've reviewed a game, you can of course ask whatever question you want -- at that point that's mainly what the thread is for: for people to ask questions (and of course to volunteer opinions/additional information, etc.).

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15

I had originally posted this in a forum thread, during a particularly nasty exchange between two users of this forum, and I figured I might as well throw it up here for the benefit of newcomers:

Newsflash: The point of discussion

Because of some recent goings-on in another thread, between two respected members of this forum, I feel the need to make a quick note about this.

People. The point of discussion is not to CONVINCE the other participants that their opinions are wrong, but for the participants to exchange opinions. As long as you have stated your opinion as clearly as you can, and as politely as you can, you have succeeded. Whether the other person changes or modifies their opinion afterwards is their own business.

Moreover, discussions can only take place between people who respect each other (which is why I immediately ban whoever I don't respect or whoever has lost my respect). So if you don't respect the other participants, DO NOT ENTER INTO DISCUSSION WITH THEM. I don't care how you are going to accomplish this -- the bottom line is that the only person with a license to be rude in here is me. And I am usually only rude to people right before I ban them.

So, discussion presupposes:

1. Respect
2. Mere exchange of opinions

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17

Ports and remakes basically do not count as new games, and in fact do not warrant new threads either -- they are discussed in the same thread with the original version.

One more thing. Threads on specific games should also include all news/links/discussion on each game's incremental updates. Of course clearly defining "incremental" updates as opposed to major updates (which get new threads) is not possible, so you should exercise judgement. The Suggoi! version of Arcana Heart 2, for example, does not deserve a new thread, whilst Biohazard 5 does.

18

I get lots of stupid messages from deadbeats who don't "entirely agree with everything" I've ever written, but who of course do not bother mentioning which things those are and why they don't agree with them. So let's make this explicit:

Whoever posts in this forum that they don't "entirely agree" with something one of us has written, without pointing what those things are and giving EXTREMELY DETAILED REASONS, will be immediately permabanned with no appeal. I don't care if it's your first post or the 20,000th -- there are only two ways of responding to this website's articles without getting banned:

1. "Awesome stuff, I agree with everything! Keep up the good work!"

or

2. "I did not agree with this, this and that point, for this, this and that reason."

Of course it goes without saying that if your reasons are retarded you'll still probably be banned, if not immediately then certainly at some point down the line.

39. One reason why so few people are intelligent and attractive in conversations is that almost everybody thinks of what he wants to say instead of how to answer properly what has been said to him. Even the cleverest and most tactful people think it enough to wear an attentive expression, while revealing no real interest in what is being said, and a show of haste to get back to what they want to say. To strive hard to please yourself is a poor way of pleasing or persuading others, and to listen and answer well is one of the greatest achievements you can boast in conversation.

Jeez this thread is absolutely horrible to read. It really is a shame because there are some really interesting and well thought out posts in the middle of a cacophony of shitposting. The point that Miyamoto is making is not that Nintendo is king and bulletproof. Its that developers creativity is being stunted because there are too many publishers making games based on market trends rather than because someone has come up with a unique and interesting gameplay idea.  I agree with him and agree that Nintendo are not blameless in this. Itd be great if this conversation stopped being about whos gaming habits are better than whose with a lovely dash of Nintendo hate and started being about the best approach developers could take to diversify the market and bring the 100s of millions of candy crushers back to console gaming to ensure our hobby has a long and prosperous future.

Before you pursue a line of reasoning you need to ask yourself "Why am I pursuing this line of reasoning? What do I hope to gain from it?

...not in the mood to perceive such fine distinctions. "Ah!" he cried as soon as he appeared, in a tone that sounded angry and exultant.

Meaning, for its part, is always unhappy. Analysis is, by definition, unhappy, since it is born of critical disillusionment.

Negativity
This applies to both group and two person conversations. If you criticize things, talk negatively, or complain, people won’t like being around you. Negativity restricts the ability of other people to be happy. If you are preventing the happiness of others, they won’t like you. This can happen on a subconscious level, but be aware that you never score points with anyone by criticizing things (even if they completely agree with what you are saying). Losers are naturally critical/pessimistic for a number of reasons (in addition to the pain of having to live their pathetic, miserable lives). Many losers criticize because for them it makes easy conversation. It is easy to think of something to complain about. Losers are thus using it as a defensive mechanism to awkwardness or lack of conversational ammo. In this way, it helps them move conversations along and gives those who are scrambling for words something to say. The problem is that doing it hurts your overall success rate in terms of people liking you.

Losers who frequently use critical comments to contribute to conversations are doing so largely out of habit. Somewhere along the line they have discovered how easy it was to point out negative things other people can relate to. When you point out an obvious negative you don’t have to worry about other people missing your point – this is why I say it’s easy. For the critical speaker, there is an ill-perceived notion of success. They see other people react to their comment with agreement and falsely believe to be scoring points with the other person. In reality, they are contributing to the other person’s dislike of them. The illusion of success leads them to repeat this behavior and eventually a habit is formed.

An example would be perhaps you’re stuck in traffic and you say “god, I hate all this traffic we’re going to be late”. And the other person is like “yeah, I know”. The only thing you are doing is stating the obvious and dragging the other person down unnecessarily because you are pointing out a negative thing. When you depress people around you, they don’t associate being around you with being a good thing. People want to be around people who make them happy. You have to stop doing this by monitoring what you say and screening out the negative. Comment on good things instead. “I like this song”, “What an amazing day”, “They have the best ice cream there [pointing to ice cream store], or whatever. These types of comments will increase likability towards you.

535. The idea of writing in a depressed state seems incomprehensible to me. What is the f---ing point? It is even indecent, in the sense that it can't possibly consist of anything other than whining and hatred, both of which are almost as bad for the reader to read as for the author to feel and communicate.

What about when things get one-sided? -tba 2014-

You mean like this topic?

It would probably help the discussion if you started off a bit smaller instead of posting a wall of text. I doubt you are going to get much interest from a forum based around pop culture. Trying to get people to compile a list and discuss "conversation sins" when most people don't know how to communicate properly in the first place is an adventure in wasted effort.

I suggest reading Language in Thought and Action by S.I Hayakawa, as it covers everything you are trying to discuss here.