Soap

~ gives a rather blank, yet cock-eyed smile to this fiasco of a 'Newbie Help Desk' ~

Uhhh . . . if you guys need help, I would be more than willing to supply myself as a tutor or knowledgeable staff. I've been doing this for so long, it's nearly second nature. And I don't typo as often as ... some other people that I have noticed on this site, whom are supposed to be "teaching" others the right ways.

-boots .Enzeru- Call it a fiasco again and we'll release the hounds. Don't bash the program while it's still in its infancy. It actually can work.

If you would like to teach, please go to Azmodai2 or if you can't get a hold of him, Eric aka Master. You'll be places on a probation period while you have a student.

Note that as a student or a teacher, you have to be posting once a day or in the least send in notice of when you'll be out.

Ichigo, you slacker, if you're reading this, that applies to you too. Tell me if you need time.

Hunter, Dreadlord, you two also have been absent.

Edge wrote:-boots .Enzeru- Call it a fiasco again and we'll release the hounds. Don't bash the program while it's still in its infancy. It actually can work.

If you would like to teach, please go to Azmodai2 or if you can't get a hold of him, Eric aka Master. You'll be places on a probation period while you have a student.

Note that as a student or a teacher, you have to be posting once a day or in the least send in notice of when you'll be out.

Ichigo, you slacker, if you're reading this, that applies to you too. Tell me if you need time.

Hunter, Dreadlord, you two also have been absent.

Then pose this question.

Would you have a Nurse train a student to be a Doctor?

Yes or No.

Yes, actually. Many nurses are about as knowledgeable as the doctors, also many doctors had to train as nurses to further their studies.

Again, if you want to teach it's up to Eric or Azmodai. Not up to me. Please go and contact them.

Edge wrote:Yes, actually. Many nurses are about as knowledgeable as the doctors, also many doctors had to train as nurses to further their studies.

Again, if you want to teach it's up to Eric or Azmodai. Not up to me. Please go and contact them.

I'm talking about absolutely no schooling to themselves in the artistry of getting your doctorate in Medical studies. That's like saying a nurse can operate because she watched the doctor do it once.

Doctors are not taught by nurses -- they're taught by years of training and schooling.

My point was, why do you have unskilled people who aren't grammatically correct or coherent enough to even roleplay themselves, and yet they're teaching. It's just a little unnerving to see that "help" is just as bad as the one's asking for it.

That's like training someone to do a crucial job only half way...so that when the dangerous part comes around, they fold because they don't even know - themselves.

And no thanks. I came to role play, not to baby sit. If kids want to learn what I have to teach, then they will join me in RP and I will educate them in a Hands-On Tutorial. A how-to while they're building their own characters.

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My point was, why do you have unskilled people who aren't grammatically correct or coherent enough to even roleplay themselves, and yet they're teaching. It's just a little unnerving to see that "help" is just as bad as the one's asking for it.

Having seen your efforts, which make you a fine candidate as a student in this academy, I label your comment as exceedingly arrogant. Even your charge of RPA tutors using improper grammar is grammatically flawed. As to qualifications, many of our tutors and administrators of the Growth section of the GWing forum are English majors at universities or are in training to become teachers.

Now let me educate you a little, .Enzeru: role play is not about perfecting the nuances of the English language, rather, it is about story telling.

Circ wrote:

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My point was, why do you have unskilled people who aren't grammatically correct or coherent enough to even roleplay themselves, and yet they're teaching. It's just a little unnerving to see that "help" is just as bad as the one's asking for it.

Having seen your efforts, which make you a fine candidate as a student in this academy, I label your comment as exceedingly arrogant. Even your charge of RPA tutors using improper grammar is grammatically flawed. As to qualifications, many of our tutors and administrators of the Growth section of the GWing forum are English majors at universities or are in training to become teachers.

Now let me educate you a little, .Enzeru: role play is not about perfecting the nuances of the English language, rather, it is about story telling.

Heh. Attempts of belittling have fallen short, guy.

It's the internet. I don't give a shit if you're the President of the United States or a college professor -- I've seen you do absolutely nothing, so where on earth do you have room to talk?

What I see is obviously, what I get in this instance. And your leadership by "example", if that's what you think you can call it, is merely rectal discharge at it's finest. Instead of feebly attempting to badger someone over the internet for putting direct criticism into what you're doing badly and pointing out your flaws, why don't you change it.

Get your head out of your ass; if you think being an English major makes you any good at writing and storytelling, you're SEVERELY mentally handicapped.

*Note: Unless you're trying to teach how to act in Flame Wars, this shit doesn't belong here.

That being said, .Enzeru, what the fuck is your problem? Ever since you've joined RPGateway, you've been acting so high-and-mighty and you've shown no indicator as to why you should be talking like that. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I'm crazy, but I think the way you've been acting has been totally inappropriate. Sorry, just thought I'd add my two cents while I'm still angry about my dad. Anyway, hope everything can be worked out, and sorry if I sound a bit preachy, though I'm sure I do.

.Enzeru, your only purpose here, thus far, appears to be stirring up discord. I recommend you start making adjustments to your blindly egotistical behavior before you end up blocked from participation on this forum. Your diatribe is hardly worth rebutting, because it is juvenile rhetoric. Your words have no substance.

You questioned the qualifications of the RPA tutors, I gave you their qualifications, and now you're throwing a tantrum about it. Stop.

I have moved this because it definitely belongs in flame wars.

Enzeru. If you want criticism to be effective, it should not be delivered in a manner that makes the person defensive. Constructive criticism goes like this:

I have seen ___. I disagree with it because ____. Here is some evidence: ____. Some suggestions are ____.

Sometimes, the evidence is presented in that first part. Nowhere in there should be anything about idiocy, lameness, or other name-calling, either towards a person or towards the forum.

Also, have you read published books lately? There's a ton of typos there. Even respected authors have one or two in their works. We have something called the edit button. I cannot claim that my posts are perfect the first time I post them. That is NEVER the case. I typo, or don't know that I'm misspelling something. Luckily, the people to whom I pm critiques have the decency to tell me when something's wrong with my post so that I can edit it. They edit mine, I edit theirs. It's more like a doctor operating on another doctor.

The point of the rpa as I understood it was to take roleplayer's who knew next to nothing about roleplay, and help them grow to the point where they aren't pulling the rp down by posting there. To that extent, the focus is not on grammar and spelling (that's what spell-check is for), but rather on using descriptions, and on character building and story-building. The focus should be on how to write a post that enables the rp to continue without the other players having to dig for hours on end to figure out where to go from there on a regular basis.

The truth is .Enzeru, that your comments really are insignificant.

The people chosen as Tutors in the Academy have proven themselves through their Role Playing posts throughout their time here. And what has been proven is that they are skilled Role Players, who can, not only develop interesting characters, but also bring stories along.

As well as their Role Playing skill, they are people who take an active role on the site. Nay, a pro-active role, even. And have shown dedication not only to the Role Playing side of the forums, but other aspects as well, along with the chat service we provide as a medium for Role Playing and general chatter. And as such, are valuable, well known members of the community.

However, for yourself, you seem to be using this site mainly for advertising your own enterprises and generally trolling. And despite your claims of being a skilled Role Player, there have been very few posts from yourself to prove this.

And, as you refer to the Role Play Academy as a "Newbie Help Desk" I will let you know that you are completely wrong. The RPA was founded, not just for new people to the site, but for everyone. What you would notice of you were to take a look is that, in fact, there are several people who volunteered to join the Academy as students who have been on the site for quite some time. The reason they joined was to be given the opportunity to improve their Role Playing skills.

In this, those people who are Tutors are in a good position, seeing as they are already proficient Role Players.

What I don't think you have an understanding of is that Role Playing is about building your characters and the story. It doesn't NEED perfect English. Although, of course, basic things such as capitalisation, punctuation etc are needed to ensure a level of readability and understanding between players.

The RPA serves that purpose: to help people be able to develop characters and storylines along with a basic understanding of punctuation, capitalisation etc. The purpose never was to churn out people who can write totally perfect English.

The RPA was developed, as mentioned by Miyumi, as a measure to ensure that people were not pulling down RPs they are/were/intend to be part of due to lack of skill.

Luckily, the staff of this particular site, unlike so many others, realise that skill in Role Playing is not a natural thing. They realised that some people, especially the younger members of our community, need tutelage and guidance in order to acquire the skills necessary to Role Play with proficiency.

In conclusion, again, as mentioned by Miyumi, if you felt that there were things that could be improved in regards to the RPA, you should have voiced them. Why did you choose to instead troll the establishment?

In all honesty, it has achieved nothing except demonstrate your now obvious arrogance; along with ticking off several of our members. And not just those involved in the RPA as Tutors, either, but the students, and other members of the RPGateway community.

Overall, the RPA has been a success, and since Azmodai2 had taken Principality in its early days, which it still is in, the RPA has proved to be efficient and an obviously successful endeavour. Having rather dramatically improved the Role Play posts of ALL the students involved.

What I don't think you comprehend, .Enzeru, is that, unlike some sites, RPGateway is a rather close knit community; and in all aspects, what you will find is staff supporting members, and members supporting staff through various methods. For someone to come along and suddenly troll a project that had been in the works for a VERY long time, and has proven successful, there is going to be a somewhat large amount of resentment coming your way.

I am more than sure that things can be resolved in this matter, knowing that the staff are a friendly bunch. And I am also sure that, if you were to ask, Azmodai2 or Eric would be willing for you to become a Tutor, as you initially suggested.

However, your comment,

"I came to role play, not to baby sit. If kids want to learn what I have to teach, then they will join me in RP and I will educate them in a Hands-On Tutorial. A how-to while they're building their own characters."

That is EXACTLY what is being done in the RPA. Hands on learning. The difference being that the students will be Role Playing in a separate Role Play, so, as mentioned before, they do not 'pull down' other Role Plays. And at the same time, they are getting the guidance of a close watcher, who will critique their posts. Allowing them to not only be able to grow and gain these skills, but to also be able to Role Play at the same time.

One other reason that the critiques are done in public is so that others, not involved in the RPA, can actually use them as references. Take for example, Edge's teaching methods; I found the lesson structure, and the 'lecture' beforehand quite useful for myself.

I am confident that I can say that, here at RPGateway we aren't elitists, and we accommodate for all people, of all levels of skill, and aim to welcome them into the community. The RPA is a means for people both new and old to the site, can improve their skills, and develop as Role Players. In essence, it is a learning centre.

The rest of the growth forum is intended, should the person so wish, to be a place where works can be critiqued. So, perhaps you could look around in there, and if anyone is wanting critiques, you could give them. And maybe even write a few things yourself.

Well, I guess that is my two cents. To sum up, your comments were rude, unnecessary, unfounded, and in some cases, down right immature.

Lord Saladin

First off, I'm not going to flame you or return any insults because I don't think that's the way to go about this. However, I will say I found some of what you said rude and insulting, not only to me but to the other Tutors, students and the RPA as a whole. We are not 'babysitters' nor are we perfect.

Our job is to help instruct to the best of our ability, and if that doesn't satisfy you then please comment constructively so that we can try to increase our level of performance. And as to your remark about it being a 'fiasco', what do you expect, an organization parallel with that of the Government? The RPA is in its early stages and we're ALL learning how to organize and increase efficiency. In fact I am quite happy with the progress the RPA has made, both before my induction as Principal and after.

Finally, as to your possible request to be a Tutor, at this time I will have to say no for several reasons. One, you have not displayed a willingness to be patient with a student or to instruct him/her in a meaningful and polite way. Two, you are not terribly active on the website. Three, you flamed the RPA, which is a no-brainer. Four, your criticism was not polite nor constructive, and you do not exhibit the quality of being able to work well with the rest of the staff.

Thank you for taking the time to read this response.

~Azmodai2

.Enzeru wrote:~ gives a rather blank, yet cock-eyed smile to this fiasco of a 'Newbie Help Desk' ~

/snip/some other people that I have noticed on this site, whom are supposed to be "teaching" others the right ways.

If you are going to offer your services as an exemplar perhaps you should check your own English usage, in this case you use whom when the word is who.

.Enreru wrote:It's just a little unnerving to see that "help" is just as bad as the one's asking for it.

Here you use the possessive one's instead of ones for plural.

Okay so that might be seen as nit picking, and indeed it is, but when you slam people for their use of English as part of the roleplay then perhaps you should get it right yourself.

Other than that if you are not happy with the way things are done here, and very few people would agree with that, you are perfectly free to leave and find somewhere else that more suits your personal views.

Ahhh...so this is the Enzeru character I've heard so much about.

You've piqued my interest, young cavalier. In fact, tickled my fancy in such a way, I cannot help but giggle like a fourteen year old Japanese schoolgirl that just got felt up by her favorite Japanese Pop singer.

You are now my propety! My slave to do as I will!

This is something I have decided, and your personal views on the matter, as well as any personal opinions in general, are from now on null and void.

You will sleep when I tell you to sleep.
Eat when I tell you to eat.
And breathe when I tell you to breathe.

So pray to whatever God it is you worship, because you came here seeking the devil himself, and by Merlin's beard, you have certainly found him.

"Who is this douche and why should I give a shit?" You ask? Oh sir, your jests would raise a dead man from his grave. But enough with my witty banter and metaphorical inferences. IS THAT WHAT THEY CALL AN OXYMORON!?

Enzeru...pretty soon now the sharp chirp on your Nextel handset will echo within the vaults of your scattered mentality. It is then that you will receive your first command as my slave.

You may contact me via chat, or simply send me a private message here on the forums.

I look forward to dining with you under the stars.

Good day!

I hope you guys realize that nothing reinforces flaming in a thread more than moving the thread to 'flame wars'. The opportunity for actual constructive discussion goes out the window the moment we advocate or make slinging insults permissible, but I won't get much into that.

I'm going to be bluntly honest here though only because I prefer people to actually take more from what's being said than they're willing to take, and I'm likely going to hit a few points that might seem out of place, but generally it all belongs here.

From what I've seen of the RPA and from what I've seen of the students participating in it and how they posted prior to enrollment, the improvement ranges from slim to none. The people that are doing well are the people that were already competent and capable roleplayers to begin with that invested themselves in the program because they either genuinely thought it would help (Which has happened in some cases) or simply because it's one of the few places on the forums where they're actually going to get consistent posting activity.

The entire RPA concept was first brought to mind because of those roleplayers that began at, simply put, rock bottom. The idea was devised around teaching the ones that lacked some essential roleplaying skills and were unable to participate without being a detriment to the game which they'd happen to join. And of this demographic of roleplayers enrolled in the 'academy,' improvement has been slim and is quite difficult to discern. As I said before, the ones seeing improvement are those with considerably more skill to begin with and thusly it was easy to find faults and correct them. However in the second case I've posed here, it's really difficult to even know where to start because there are so many flaws that need to be corrected, but they're not things that can be easily taught, especially if the 'student' in question happens to not have a solid grasp of the English language to begin with for whatever reason.

Am I saying it's a bad idea or something that should be abolished? Of course not. But something that should be reformed? Yes, although don't ask me how. If results aren't up to standard then just try something else or alter the methodology a little. I think Circ said it best in stating the drive behind the RPA. It's not about perfecting the English language; it's about storytelling. But if it's about storytelling then the people currently running the RPA have a damn lot of work to do in my personal opinion.

Lord Saladin wrote:As well as their Role Playing skill, they are people who take an active role on the site. Nay, a pro-active role, even. And have shown dedication not only to the Role Playing side of the forums, but other aspects as well, along with the chat service we provide as a medium for Role Playing and general chatter. And as such, are valuable, well known members of the community.

I'd question the mention of a "pro-active" role here, and this is where I'm going to begin digressing slightly from the RPA. .Enzeru has, on multiple occasions here, criticized or pointed out the general lack of activity throughout the boards and I couldn't possibly do anything but agree. To participate in one or two successful isolated roleplays on the forums, furthermore, is not something I'd label as "pro-active." Roleplays for the most part nowadays here seem to 'thrive' ephemerally and then extinguish as if they had never even existed. This is a problem. Activity as a whole is a problem and it's unfortunate to see that there are those members that are trying so hard to actually establish something worth keeping alive here and yet there's so little assistance given, so little attention paid, or so little effort made. Although I'd rather not bring my own examples into this, despite being busier now than I've ever been in my life, I've managed to create and with the help of other players keep running a successful roleplay (And currently the most successful) on the forums that has seen daily activity for months and will continue to see it. And that's because there's discernible effort behind the entire thing from every person playing, the people roleplaying have found something there that they can enjoy, and ultimately because there is consistent activity.

What we've created in general, instead of such a model, is an unwillingness for people, new members and old ones alike, to join or invest themselves into newer roleplays because they believe it will yet again fall into the standard of alive-for-a-week and then dead immediately after and that is an enormous problem.

Lord Saladin wrote:What I don't think you comprehend, .Enzeru, is that, unlike some sites, RPGateway is a rather close knit community; and in all aspects, what you will find is staff supporting members, and members supporting staff through various methods. For someone to come along and suddenly troll a project that had been in the works for a VERY long time, and has proven successful, there is going to be a somewhat large amount of resentment coming your way.

This I also challenge, and not in question to Saladin specifically, but to everybody. The idea of a close-knit community is good, it's something that needs to be reinforced, but there is a fine-line between between 'close-knit' and between being exclusive, and in many cases I think people are stepping over that line into the side of exclusivity. There seems to be a general lack of willingness to directly incorporate new members into the community, with the exception of some that venture into chat where they might be fortunate enough to receive an actual personal welcome and some help in getting started. Otherwise, the model present here is not an effective one. The same people welcome new members, the same people help new members, the same people interact with new members, and that core of people is very small. Looking through a different perspective, if I were new to not only here but to roleplaying in general, I'd likely lose most of my will to even continue roleplaying at all. From yet another perspective, were I an established and experienced roleplayer and came here, I'd likely take leave after discovering the lack of genuine and meaningful interaction. Yet again this is something .Enzeru has pointed out elsewhere and yet again it's true. For the most part, those that stay belong to a rare group that usually have established connections with other prominent or active members beforehand and that creates their willingness to stay. Meanwhile, those completely new decide to take their time elsewhere because there's not enough to grab and keep them here, lacking those pre-established links with friends already here.

Lord Saladin wrote:I am confident that I can say that, here at RPGateway we aren't elitists, and we accommodate for all people, of all levels of skill, and aim to welcome them into the community.

I really wish we could all come together and actually make this true, because (And remember I'm being bluntly honest here) currently it isn't at all.