Thanks for that reply sugr, i appreciate how you always take the time to talk about things objectively and politely. You've always made a point to make me and other new-comers feel welcome on this board so i thought you were the safest bet to question the recent 'lets make friends with spider' development. Actually when i first starting posting here, spider wasn't around and some posters (maybe tongue in cheek) expressed that they wouldn't mind him coming back with his pessimism due to the hit and run trolls. He's a pessimist for sure, but i don't think a troll. And i think some other regulars think the same way what with the genuine attempts to engage him in DT conversation.
Not a problem! :) Given that civility on the internet - and especially on message boards - can be hard to find at times, I’ve always appreciated your civility and your thoughtful, reasonable, and nuanced responses. In short, the feeling’s mutual.
Ha - and yes, I remember some people were a little bored when
Spider disappeared for a bit some months back. I guess some find him entertaining. *shrug* I don’t really think he’s a troll necessarily, but he’s as dogged and obsessed in his pessimism as Roland was in his search for the Tower lol.
I honestly don't mind spider and his pessimism (and as you said, this would be quite a boring board if we all felt the same way). I actually kind of like spider in a 'Karl Pilkington' way (no offense spider, i'm a fan lol). We all have that one friend that can be counted on to complain on a lovely sunny day (it's too hot), they just won the lottery (i wanted to win more), just got a promotion (i don't want more responsibility) etc. We make allowances and their behaviour is acceptable "that's just John he's always like that" while laughing. In saying that, i'm not suggesting other posters do that, i just personally find his dedication to pessimism to be more amusing than genuinely irritating. I also agree with the same 2 or 3 points he makes but gave up on it as futile a while back. And this isn't "IRL", so no friends here. If spider is going to only contribute negativity to the board (and has done so for as long as you say), i totally understand the backlash he gets. But he's a big boy, i'm sure he can take it and as far as i've seen he gives back as good as he gets.
To be honest, I don’t care if he disagrees with my opinion, just as I’m sure he doesn’t care that I disagree with his. But as one who’s often been on the receiving end of his antics, I do tend to take issue with the way he disagrees most of the time. Being pessimistic is one thing, but the unwillingness to be civil, the lack of respect for valid points of view that differ from his, and the name calling that come along with that pessimism are quite another. On top of that, there’s also the fact that he and a few others here have been harping on the same two issues (Roland’s race and the alleged destruction of the Roland-Detta-Eddie conflict) with a vengeance ever since Idris Elba was rumored to be the frontrunner for the lead role...so for almost a year. That kind of thing gets annoying, creates hostility, and sucks the fun out of discussions, when all most of us here want is to have interesting exchanges about a great story we love.
But as far as
Spider being able to take the backlash he gets, it seems that isn’t necessarily the case as of late. The usual comments I see directed at him aren’t any more abrasive than what he typically posts himself, but he’s started announcing that he’s reporting people who’ve gone toe-to-toe with him. And even though he hasn’t announced it to me as he has with others, I suspect he’s reported me recently too. (A few weeks back, not too long after getting into it with him yet again, I suddenly started getting a warning message regarding TOS rules and such whenever I replied for a while, which I’ve never seen before in all my 10+ years on IMDb.) So yeah, there’s that.
I guess the issue i took with the friendly approach was that it appeared tactical by some. I had also recently engaged in conversation with another poster that was a friendly and interesting exchange of ideas and opinions about TDT. Well it was until another poster stepped in to expose this person as once vehemently hating on TDT (with their little minions intact to keep it rolling), with the implication that their new views were hypocritical to their old views thus undermining the posters relevancy. Pleasant posting over to rehash an old fight *sigh*. It makes me wonder if spider would actually get a fair 'hearing' without being attacked for it.
Yeah, I can see how it might seem that way. The thing is, we’ve been stuck on the Roland’s race/Roland-Detta-Eddie conflict train with him for waaaaaaay too long IMO, and much like Blaine, it is a pain. So as for me, I decided to try switching up the approach a bit mainly because I’d really like to see him get “unstuck” so we can all discuss much more interesting topics that haven’t already been beaten into the ground.
As for people rehashing old fights, I’m not a really a fan of that, but if you’re talking about the recently resurfaced poster I think you are, I definitely understand where that harshness comes from. (He interacted with people a lot like
Spider does). But as for whether people would give
Spider a fair shake if he did decide to participate in one of the more neutral threads, I think some of us would - as long as he’s civil, at least. Others might not for obvious reasons, but we’ll never know either way since he’s repeatedly declined.
But oh well. Such is life.
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