User talk:AnticDevices695

Hey
This might sound a bit out of place, but here it goes. I don't really know who you are or where you appeared from all of a sudden like this, but I'd like to say that I personally really appreciate the way you are dealing with the builds wipe. I may disagree with what you're saying, but I have to respect that at least you're not only listening to what the others are saying, but you're also listening to your own thoughts on the matter (as opposed to many others on either side of this debate and other debates of this kind, that neither really pay attention to what arguments the others are bringing to the table, nor pay attention to their own logic when they state their opinions). I hope you'll stick around here even after the wipe (if it happens, and seems it will). Editor or not, it doesn't really matter much since there's enough users around here to get everything done a hundred times over. It's sane voices that are always lacking in numbers. --Dirigible 10:25, 18 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Sorry about the way I’m formatting this. Your comment inspires a number of different thoughts & responses, and I can’t think of a better way of organizing them:

-- AnticDevices 13:27, 18 April 2007 (CDT)
 * 1)  Not out of place any.  I very much appreciate that you’re taking the time to leave a comment.  Being told I’m appreciated is always awesome.
 * 2)  Who am I?  Oh hell, who knows?  I wonder about that myself.  I’ve been playing GW since the pre-release of Prophecies, so I’ve been lurking around the GW community since the end of Beta.  I work full-time, go to school full-time, have a family, and live in New Orleans.  Between my schedule and general Katrina-recovery, my playtime is sporadic and very limited.  I was for a while an officer in the ULGG guild (Zerris’s guild), but my inactivity led to an amicable parting there.
 * 3)  Why did I appear all of a sudden like this?  Well, I prefer to think of it as de-lurking, but the ‘why’ is because this build wipe hits me hard.  I am not active enough to have the advantage of belonging to an active and/or populous Guild. I’ve found the builds section here on GuildWiki to be the most organized and comprehensive source of builds.  Is it perfect?  Oh God no.  It’s just the best of an imperfect, scattered lot.  It’s the best resource for a person like me, who otherwise has incredibly limited access to talk about builds.  And no question about it, it’s the build aspect that I find to be one of the most attractive features of GW.  When I first saw the notice of the build wipe on the main page, my thought was, “ZOMG, better save all of this to my user page!”  I looked into doing that and realized it would be an enormous effort.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would at best only have marginal utility anyway.  Builds evolve.  Anything I save wouldn’t evolve.  Saving builds doesn’t give me access to the process of building, the thoughts behind the builds, which I find as interesting as the actual builds.  Since I almost never use builds ‘as written’ anyway, essentially all I would be saving is a quickly out-of-date reference.  Since NOB seems to be the most popular replacement policy, and since NOB is the exact opposite of what I’m looking for in a builds section, I de-lurked in an effort to at least register the perspective, “Yes, I’m on the margins.  And you’re marginalizing me further.  Is that really where you want to go?” The answer, obviously, is ‘Yes’.  And if it really is best for the community (while sucking out loud for me) then why should I expect otherwise?  On the other hand, if the policy is best for the editors/admins, while sucking out loud for me, then we’re pitting one minority against another.  That has the distinct impression of powerful minority vs. less powerful minority.  And that REALLY sucks.  What Tanaric said (not, clearly, what he meant) strongly gave that impression – and that was the tipping point where I felt I had to chirp up.  To be fair, given the whole Katrina thing, I’ll be the first to admit that I may have a warped perspective as regards the concept of ‘benevolent leadership’.
 * 4)  Thanks again for your kind words concerning my thoughtfulness.  I honestly believe that the people who support the wipe are almost certainly correct that it will benefit them.  I also think it’s clear that the wipe won’t benefit (at least!) a small minority; in fact it'll hurt them.  I don’t think that it requires a Buddha-like non-attachment to shrug and realize that that’s life.  If there’s a compromise here, I don’t see it.  Unfortunate.  My only hope is to convince people that the loss to the minority is greater than the gain to (what appears to be) the majority.  That’s not going to happen if I rant.  If my goal wasn’t to persuade in the most effective manner of which I am capable, I can almost promise I’d come across as more of an ass.  Just cut me off in traffic sometime for a demonstration ;)
 * 5)  As for sticking around, I’m sure I’ll continue to lurk about.  Less frequently, obviously, because I spend a fair amount of time here checking builds and clearly I’ll be doing that elsewhere, at least for a while.  Possibly longer, if a NOB-like build policy is instituted.  I’m looking for creativity (and mistakes).  I can’t imagine I would spend too much time pondering the FotM.  I mostly PvE, so designing counters to the FotM isn’t a priority.  Since my interests here are (in no particular order) skill descriptions, elite locations, mission walk-throughs and builds, I am unfortunately not seeing a great deal of opportunity for me to register my sane (if mistaken) voice.
 * 6)  Having said all of that (and God, at length, too.  I need a couple of editors of my own.), please allow me to return the compliment:  Despite holding in this case a popular and mistaken ;) opinion, as a general rule I find your input quite sane.  If I don’t chirp up, please imagine I’m somewhere in the background saying, “Yeah. What he said.”