Crazy

I'm not addicted to Farm Town. I can stop whenever I want. Just let me plant one more row. (Just like knitting! Sort of.)

This image is of my farm early this morning. I was too tired last night to plant it all, but I did get some commemorative art work done in the bottom left plot before I fell over. (I try to only plant in the evenings because of the growth cycle. Yes, I have thought about it this much.) The dollar $ign will stay -- this is a gulch after all! (Atlas Shrugged reference FTW!)

It's been a lot of fun, and because I have so many friends that play, that makes it even better. I was "hired" to harvest a couple of big farms* right off the bat, which gave me a significant stake, allowing me to plant my entire garden and get the ball rolling.

In turn, I've tried to hire all of my "neighbors" who are just starting out, at least once, to give them the same leg-up. If they aren't online when it's time, I've found a forum I can go to & request help, rather than going to the dreaded Marketplace, which is full of beggars. Plus, the forum people leave my trees alone (I like them for color).

*There's a real false economy in the game. It starts out okay enough - it costs (in-game) $ to plow every square, and varying amounts for the seeds. Then there is the growing period (4 hours to 4 days (a day is 20 hours)). Then it's harvest time. If you harvest your own crops, you make X. But, if you hire someone to do it, they get a 25% cut PLUS you make 25% more.

---

On an unrelated note, word to the wise: temper tantrums are not attractive and they don't make people like you or want to help you. After a while, it doesn't matter what your real-life problems are, people are going to quickly move past pity, to annoyed, then peeved.

Online, some people exhibit all the behavior patterns of a troll, even if they aren't intentionally doing it to create drama and tension. I don't know if this makes a person a troll or not, since it's not on purpose. But it's definitely not the way to win friends and influence people. In my mumblemumble years participating in online forums, I've developed a list of things that don't work, and make you look silly:

1. Constantly demand that an entire site be reprogrammed to match your preferences. The fact that other sites do it a certain way doesn't mean it's the only way, or the right way. Some site owners are innovative and are capable of thinking outside the box.
2. Keep bringing up the same shit, over and over, after you've been told "no, it's not going to happen."
3. Refuse to use the tools that are in place to help you avoid dealing with people you don't like. (It's called managing your own experience. Firefox extensions (like AdBlock or MyImageHere) are a prude's best friend. They're also the friend of people like me who are not prudes, that still like managing their own experience.)
4. When people disagree with you, accuse them of being trolls or being mean to you.
5. When it becomes obvious that you are in the minority, or that people are not coming around to your view, demand that a topic be shut down or deleted. Better still, just declare that the conversation is OVER. (We saw a thread like that somewhere a couple of weeks ago, and it was hilarious.) At some point, type this in ALL CAPS.
6. When that doesn't work, start insisting that everyone else is a loser for being online and not doing something real. (Because, friend, you're online, not doing something real, right at that moment.)
7. Start ad hominem attacks by calling people names based on their user names or avatars, or going through their profile and finding something to use that has nothing to do with the discussion.

The above may be slightly related to events that happened on a forum yesterday, but they're really universal. I've seen every one of these happen (there are more steps beyond #7, but you get the point - I didn't even touch on Godwin's law): on a scrapbooking forum, a cat forum, a wedding-planning forum, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum and, yes, Ravelry, time and again. If you find yourself exhibiting any of these behaviors, it's my advice that you turn off the offending browser page/tab and either find something else to do or go for a walk.

A lot of times before it progresses to #7, someone will flounce. That is, announce that they're taking their ball and going home. But usually... they don't. They cannot stay away.

Another thing they might do is get mad and start deleting all of their posts, so the discussion looks lopsided and weird. To that I say: BLOCKQUOTE, people. If you're in an online discussion and what you're responding to is crucial to your post, copy it, paste it in your post, and mark it so it's obvious it's a quote. Some sites have tools for this. If they don't, put quote marks around it and italicize it or something. You'll thank me later.

PS: If you're viewing this via a reader or anything besides the blog page itself, you might be missing some of the formatting. Facebook, for example, does not display the post formatting.