Yes, this is hard, but the reality is that Ian is not breaking the rules, his posts are well written and the very harsh reality is that we are the ones that start the fights (I include myself in this, and my "No Ians allowed" mural in City Folk is proof enough of this ).
Why even start fights in the frist place? Why start **** that is going to cause problems in the first place? Have some common sense.
Perm: The only controlling I'm trying to do is make people act civilly to each other. If someone thinks something someone else said is wrong, disagree with some class.
So why has Ian not been held to this same standard?
So what you all are saying is, Bill should have waited till GDC
That would not have mattered because Ian would have still gotten away with the same thread derailing and "why-aren't-nintendo-making-my-games" **** he always has gotten away with.
I've been here at this forums for most likely longer than more than half of the members, and seemingly bout half the staff by now too. I've been here since at least 2000 on ezboards. I believe almost to fact, that this site/forum will never be like it once was.
Fact is, when you see issues coming from different places, with a single person involved in those issues developing its time to kill that problem. That problem all these years has been Ian. He made everyone feel belittled. You try and talk to him logically and he ignores it disappearing from the thread or changes the topic completely while ignoring those who responded to hom. Its like his sole purpose on these forum is to instigate and antagonize others. All the while he gets a blind eye from just about all the staff.
Since volunteering my time as staff at GCA/AMN/Kombo the last 5 years, I know that content is very important to getting an audience, however you have to also provide a fun place to your viewers to interact. if you don't engage with your audience you will lose them. That is what has been happening here the last few years. "The Funhouse" was an attempt to recreate some of the fun and it has worked decently well. But that is only contained in that forum.
Its like the forum and to a little extent the staff as well aren't as proud to admit their Nintendo fanaticism while also playing other system. Nobody looks at facts and trends to drive discussion. Folks like Ian come in, blow some smoke from the first few posts, and then vanish.
At Kombo, we had a forumer who did similar things in posting stuff to try and entice arguments, not discussion. Other members started to leave. We got rid of the problem, and things went back to normal.
What Mario, Bill, Deg, Infernal, Shifty, and myself have tried to do in the past is try to point out how Ian was ignorant in his posts. I know that he and I are about the same age. His actions aren't excusable for an adult of almost 30 years old.
He provides factually wrong information and states it as fact ignoring others when we try to show him how and why he is wrong. Its like he cowards into a little corner when he is shown he is wrong and and can't admit it. But then comes out again when he has found an opening in another topic.
Don't you (Lindy, Pale, etc.) notice that this thread is largely based around issues that surround Ian and the likes?? Shouldn't that raise a little flag in your eyes? When threads are intentionally derailed time after time, illogical and wrong statements are made, it doesn't help to raise the interest for others to post and participate.