Oh dear! I don't look at TMP very often any more because I really only use if for news articles and now I find Wargame News and Terrain much better and more up to date for that. However, over the weekend I was scanning through it and it seemed that they were in the middle of one of their regular crises with members being expelled and others resigning (well, not many). They were all getting in a tizz over a story on Frothers Unite; a site I don't look at all because it is almost completely useless as a wargames resource and seems to be populated by people who speak as if they were thirteen year olds who have just discovered swearing (which I find tedious, unimaginative and slightly tragic). The whole story (you can research it yourself) is hilarious and reminds me of a Carry On film more than anything else. Both sites have people sniping at each other in a quite ridiculous way. I'm just waiting for it to get picked up by The Sun.
Most of the problem, I think, has to do with a clash of cultures between the largely American TMP and the largely British Frothers. Nothing will sort that out; we just have to get along and agree to be different. As I have said before, there is much that is annoying about TMP and certain people really wind me up on it. I just ignore them. This is what British people do. I remember an incident at college when a really annoying graduate joined in the second year. He desperately wanted to make friends but because he was Canadian, five feet tall and spoke exactly like Mickey Mouse we just ignored him in that callous way that British people have. One day he came up to a group of us in the College law library and said: "Why do you all ignore me, not speak to me and not sit with me at mealtimes?" We looked at him in silence and turned away, his outburst having confirmed all the things that we thought about him. Cruel, but you don't conquer one sixth of the planet by being nice. British people (at least of my generation) aren't nice (unless to other British people and then only if from the right part of Britain). We are, however, very good at pretending to be nice. Some of this not nice behaviour looks more aggressive than it is meant to be to outsiders but equally sometimes it is meant to be aggressive and is disguised by the appearance of reserve. You can't win, Johnny Foreigner!
Anyway, if it was a forum I was running (and there is an argument for a better wargames forum) the main thing I would do is not permit any postings unless they were about wargaming or military history. None. If they were posted they would be deleted. This would go a long way to getting rid of all the egostistical, irrelevant verbiage that clogs it up like literary cholesterol. Remove all the boards that talk about sports, TV, politics and TMP itself. If you want to write self-indulgent nonsense about your life that is what blogs are for (as I continually demonstrate!) Oh, and while they are about it add a search function to the news boards!
Without going into sordid details what really makes me laugh is remembering the simpering, slightly creepy comments from some of the members when the first Filipina (er...) sub-editor was appointed. Had these people never met a woman before, I wondered at the time? I imagined them rubbing their thighs in excitement, like Vic Reeves. Maybe some of them will have a Some like it Hot moment, although somehow I doubt it!
0 Yorumlar