Furc!Wank

The Metawank Paradox

The second you have begun proving that you’ll express your disapproval for something, people feel they have to “win” by hearing you approve of their things.
the neonbat

I tell you, she’s a smart lady, neonbat, amongst her other considerable talents. You’ll just have to excuse the skullkitty for a moment while she editorialises a little…

So it was with some chagrin that this morning the skullkitty found a link to a certain website cross her desk. Well, a forum actually; one simply titled Dream Reviews. This deceptively simple concept held with it a morbidly fascinating premise; rather than doing classic reviews — a la this very website — DR was set up specifically with the intent of reviewing the staff and patrons of dreams. From the forums themselves:

The purpose of this forum first and foremost is promoting dreams that have a friendly atmosphere, helpful staff and a member base that have no real complaints with their dream of choice.

Secondary, to try and assist dreams that don’t fit the above criteria to try and improve on themselves, pointing out the flaws via constructive criticism in a public forum, anyone and everyone who wishes to participate listing together the various weak points of a dream to better it.

The last and the least is a warning, accountability, more so. If one is harassed in a dream and no one will do anything, if they are met with nothing but staff who degrade newcomers to fuel their own ego or banish on a whim, if members are afraid of speaking up in their own dream against wrongs being committed, they can come here and speak out either anonymously or by name in the knowledge that if their bringing it to light brings punishment, that too will be on record for anyone to see.

An independent watchdog for dreams in Furcadia? Could it really be true? And more importantly; should it be true?

This might seem like a strange question coming from this particular site — after all, the line between reporting drama and signing up to become card-carrying members of the Internet Police is mostly in the eye of the beholder — but Furc!Wank has always tried to wear its hypocrisy on its sleeve; we pick no bones over our own yellow hues. Nevertheless, it highlights an important paradox when dealing with this kind of thing; how far do you have to go before you yourself become guilty of the thing you’re accusing others of?¹

As a fairly new invention, there isn’t a great deal of wank at the DR forums… yet. The dark clouds are certainly on the horizon, however, mostly care of Ten and Erik and what seems to be a spillover battle regarding The Leaky Mug Tavern and Inn. Ten is doing nothing other than what the forums were created to do — bitch about the dream’s staff — and Erik is doing nothing other than what he probably should also be doing in the situation; refuting the claims. Now, the skullkitty has never been one to approve of either the consent rule, adversarial RP in general, or dealing with OOC problems in an IC fashion, but that’s neither here nor there. What we’re talking about is the medium, not the message, and this thread demonstrates perfectly the inherent problems with attempting a kind of impartial arbitration tribunal. Namely; no-one is going to agree with each other, nor should they really have to.

Sites Furc!Wank and its compatriots inside and outside the game are in many ways mercifully immune to these kinds of issues. After all, this is my site and all opinions expressed here are, also, mine. I don’t much care if you agree with them or if you think I’m a total toolbox (which I’m sure many of you do). Maybe more importantly, while I am rather fond of being an armchair critic, I don’t really expect anyone to take what I say seriously. While I’m happy to point out that the staff in Dream X or the patching and DS in Dream Y are mind-numbingly horrible, I’m not going to insist that they change it solely because I think it’s bad. Maybe I’m just being egotistical (hah), but it occurs to me that this is the difference; and it’s a significant one. Because essentially what the DR forums do is give people a platform not just to express dissatisfaction with dream staff, but legitimise their complaints by implying that they have an explicit right to expect that dreams are run in a fashion that they approve of.

Here’s a tip for you, kids; life is not fair, no way and no how. Nor does it need to be. Because the same rule that applies to sites like Dream Reviews? To Furc!Wank itself? Well, it applies to all those prats running their dreams, too. Put simply, if I can say and do whatever I want on my site, then you can also do whatever you like in your dream. And I have to respect that, even if it’s diametrically opposed to what I think is ‘right’.² There’s a difference between me telling you I think you’re an idiot, and me alleging that you are an idiot.

So this is why, when I was first asked to plug Dream Reviews this morning I knew I was in trouble. And let it be a lesson to all you kids out there, too; just because you’ve got a site that seems similar to Furc!Wank, don’t necessarily assume we’re going to be on your ’side’.

As the man says, it’s a cruel world.

And before we go, a special shout-out to our bot’s fanclub, who’ve been nice enough to form a little digopile around his feet. Extra special love goes to Hades Passion who — upon seeing that The Grotto had unloaded from FurN — instantly got up to sit in its place. This resulted in a short time when the dream became even more extra-secret and special since we got kicked off the main map completely by Celes|Chere#SM and her ‘chartered dream’ Celes Hidden Garden. Ah, upload wars. To think, this might actually suck if it were about something other than a vanity chat room. Remember kids; charter your dreams. That way, even if you don’t actually upload them to the map for six months, you can still kick other people off. Fun!

And to the rest of you; it’s been done, now. You don’t get mentioned twice.

Popularity: 45% [?]

1. If you’re thinking to yourself that F!W deliberately tries to avoid this question by boldfaced admission then you’d be 100% correct. If you’re also thinking that it’s a pretty weak smokescreen, you’d still be right. You’re a smart cookie, aren’t you? [↩]
2. Incidentally, as an aside, this is why all Furc!Wank staff and minions are told to honour the physicality (if not always the intent) of all bans placed against them by dream owners. Remembers, I don’t actually have to be in your dream or forum to find out there’s wank going on… or to write about it. [↩]