I think it does pose a problem, because it was where alot of the underlying 'culture' started. Alot of the habits and mindsets that create problems in N&P stem directly from the vs debating mentality - the 'Crush your opponent to win', the 'never back down or admit error because that's defeat', the 'pounce on any weakness and hammer your opponent mercilessly', I could go on. N&P was basically just an extension of the old VS stuff, Star wars vs Star trek dressed up in 'adult' topics.Darksi4190 wrote:Let's be honest. the SDN style of "lol owned the newbie trektard" doesn't pose a problem when you're debating about something that on some level, everyone involved knows is meaningless. Everyone involved knows that the SF and Fantasy discussion threads are just a convenient and fun means of wasting time, with the exception of the occasional outright loon like DarkStar or Batman. You can call someone a fucking retard in a Vs. debate and he'll shrug it off because to some extent everyone knows it's basically a game. When you take that same attitude into the n&p forum, and call someone a retard for a deeply personal political, social, or religious belief, it isn't a game, and that person is going to take it seriously. That's where the vendettas and feuds get started.
I would also add that the simple fact is 'mockery of stupid people' is an inherently subjective concept but no one (not even myself really) ever treated it as such. We were confident that the RABID TREKKIES (which morphed into ANY TREKKIE) were wrong and we were right, and there was no latitutde for that. With alot of the resultant chest-thumping and trek bashing, how do you think the resident trekkies felt? I bet we could ask (for example) Stofsk or Redimperator for his view of it.
Ultimately 'mockery of stupid people' became paramount to SDN, but noone ever realized that 'stupidity' and 'holding a different viewpoint from mine' are not the same thing. And once you start flaming and harassing people for holding divergent views, you've killed off any ability for the board to grow and develop. The fact that 'weakness' was exploited and noone could ever make (or admit to) a mistake only made it worse, becuase epeople learn from mistakes.
Part of it was endemic to board culture even when it was JUST vs debating though. SDN is organized that it needed to have someone to attack to give it a purpose of sorts. When it was the ASVS days (or thereafter) it was other forums, rabid trekkies, etc. When that got tiresome, it turned to other warsies (the 'minimalists', Traviss, ec.) When that paled it was N&P stuff, attacking religion, the wrong political agenda, etc. (which STILL happens, I might add. N&P is still a shithole and I don't understand why anyone ever wastes time there. Its just needless frustration and antagonism.) And when that fails? The board turns on itself.tl,dr: The creation of the n&p forum is what ultimately damned SDN. The style of discussion worked perfectly fine when people were just wasting time talking shit about their favorite franchises, but eventually those franchises either ended or stopped putting out quality material, and people started talking about shit that actually mattered to them. When that happened, the antagonistic style of discussion SDN had cultivated was bound to drive people off eventually.
If N&P calcifed anything it was the attitude that things should be taken seriously, and that there were ABSOLUTE TRUTHS. Conflict and yelling was something SDN needed LESS of, not more. It needed more of tolerance.
I think an irony of this is that there's often a 'blame game' to play when it comes to 'why did SDN fail', much as there's a blame game when it comes ot trying to explain what the problem with America is. And for whatever odd reason, people don't want to think it was endemic to the way the board (or its culture) was set up. To change the problems, you have to change the culture.. but thats much harder than having an ENEMY to blame it on.
I tend towards parody for N&P both because it's more fun to write and because a serious position;