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I am home. I love you Canada. welcome back. Glad you are home safely. 
I am getting married in 10 days to a beautiful, supportive, loyal, intelligent and fiesty woman who while she does not play D&D she supports that I do. I have a wonderfully supportive family whom I love and care for and they do of me. I have many interesting, intelligent, fun and loyal friends in my life. Scotch, beer, rum and alcohol in general. Food: I love cooking it and eating it. Dungeons and Dragons or whatever iteration we want to call it. It will always be D&D for me though. I have a job which gets better everyday. I have a house to live in I don't own one now but look forward to that option. I own a car. I have disposable income to buy games and other things to spur my mind and imagination I have my health. I am alive. 
People wonder why I thread-crap. I thread-crap because I care. I care about the world we live in and how some people believe that only their beliefs are the correct beliefs. The world is not black and white. It's not even gray. It's full of color and beauty and song. But it's only full of that if you choose to look and listen. By only seeing the world one way and listen to only one belief, you close your eyes and ears to the wonders of the world we live in. Every person has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Sometimes, that happiness does not coincide with your definition of happiness. At those times, you have to choose to either accept that others can be happy outside your definition or ignore their happiness and move on. By claiming that their happiness is wrong, you are restricting their liberties. This something that we should NOT strive towards as a society. Many a man and woman have died to protect the freedom for us to live our lives as best we can. Not live our lives as defined by a book or what others tell us THEY think is the best way. I'm constantly amazed that most theologists point that the main difference between man and all the other creatures of the Earth is free will, then proceed to try and restrict that free will of others. I am not gay, but I have many, many friends that are. I am not Catholic, nor Atheist, nor Agnostic, nor Jewish, nor Muslim, nor whatever else you want to call me. I am me. I believe that we are here on Earth to live, love and leave the place a little better when we leave than when we found it. I believe that no-one knows the truth about a human soul or what comes after death or even if there is a higher power. And I believe that my beliefs have absolutely no bearing on your beliefs, just as yours should have no bearing our others. And, now, the thread-crapping: 
I would enjoy being able to never see posts by people who are allowed to be insulting and rude to other players. I'm not sure why this is allowed but it is. Regardless I think that an ignore function would make the boards a much more inviting digital space and I advocate its implementation. 
Also Hitler breathed air should we all stop breathing? </rhetorical question> Also, a three party political system put Hitler into power. Therefore, we should never have more than two parties (the Democrats and the Republicans.)I'm glad we got this straightened up. Quite frankly I think the Democrats and Republicans a very similar in
It would be bad if we had to bend to the will of another country. I guess
Now some people think this is crazy talk, but I just point out to them that
We all need money, so should we not print money and pretend to be vampires?? . Now you have me thinking... do vampires need money? I guess they do in
Recently, I was in San Fransisco. I went stomping around China Town
Was Lo Pan a vampire?? 
I once killed a man because I'd convinced myself I was Gargamel. That's what got the Smurfs taken off Saturday morning NBC programming. Then I shot a foreign diplomat in the arm because he said he didn't like Sigourney Weaver and I'd convinced myself I was the demon Vinz Clortho, AKA "The Keymaster." That's why there was never a third Ghostbusters film. In the years that followed it was me that blamed my string of cannibalistic homicides in the fashion district on Crocs footwear, because I though I was a werecrocodile when I wore them. Why the hell they haven't banned that soul/sole corrupting shoe is beyond me. Some politician is probably a shareholder. 
Young man, there's no need to feel down
Young man, there's a place you can go
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
Young man, are you listening to me
No man does it all by himself
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
Young Man, I was once in your shoes
That's when someone came up to me
It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
Y.M.C.A. and just go to the Y.M.C.A. 
Ok I have tried not post in this thread for many and varied reason, but you comparing homosexuality as a destructive behavior is in fact offensive. And I will tell you a story Mr. Helt which you don't have to believe but it is in fact true. Let me preface this by letting you know I am married gay man from Canada. My family are all United Pentecostal by religion and I was raised that way all of my life. I slept under the pews as a little kid, attended Sunday school until I moved out of my house at 17. I knew I was gay somewhere around the age of 14. Never had any desire for women, even though I tried. The only exposure to what homosexuality was from the small town in which I was raised was the thundery preaching I heard on how wrong it was. At the age of 15 I was diagnosed with clinical depression, because of a suicide attempt. I tried so hard to not be gay, I knew that if anyone found out, I would lose all of my friends, and I'd be kicked out of the house. Let alone what would happen to me at school if anyone found out. I tried for quite a long time to be straight praying with tears streaming down my face, with every fiber of my being I tried to be straight. It Never Happened. Eventually I left the church and was disowned by my family, friends, and had to leave my hometown. I don't care what you believe but maybe some education on the subject is warranted, how about you sit down and talk with some of these gay people and see what they went through and it might just surprise you. This football playing,church raised, farmboy ended being gay despite how hard he tried not to be.
I don't have any issue with humorous off topic posts either. What I have issue with is posters deliberately attempting to bury or kill a thread with off-topic posts because they don't like the topic being discussed. One is playing around, the other is being a jerk. More and more, I agree with this. I have seen instances where people were being heated but respectful, but others got tired of it and smurfed the crap out of the thread. This I think is as bad as standing up in a town hall meeting and yelling "smurf" because you don't like what others are saying. Sure, it's free speech, but it's still being a jerk. What's hard for me is, coming up with guidelines as to how to differentiate between the two. I'm not sure I can, beyond a supreme-court-I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it definition of obscene, which is problematic because I have seen threads get smurfed where I thought, "Damn, that's some funny stuff, and thank goodness too because things were getting too heated." 
When you turn your back for five minutes and then have to wade through 200 new posts that are all totally content-free except for trolling? The signal-to-noise-ratio becomes unbearable. You have to look closely to find the actual posts beneath all the crap. A lot of people will just stop reading or posting because it becomes too annoying. It's basically a bunch of children screaming at the top of their lungs while other people want to have a conversation. Sure, some of those other people might be other kids using curse words, or drunk uncles going on and on about what their in-laws said ten years ago, but the grown-ups in the restaurant have two options: hope that the kids parents or someone from the restaurant make the brats stop screaming or throw them out, or stop talking because you can't hear a thing. If you think it's all a matter "just ignoring" something, we should exchange addresses, including work addresses. Then you can send me disparaging emails or letters while I send a bunch of kids with megaphones over to your workplace. :P 
Wow. Gee. A thread that really didn't have any origins in religio-political basis ... and it turns into one. And threadcrapping seems to be the only solution to eventually derail the religio-political injection because people, in their primal nature, possess pathetic will saves because the Internet must be won. And then it finally has to forces a moderator's hand that the hippy-dippy-counter-culture-free-speech-man even for the unpopular topics just can't govern themselves no matter how much of an idyllic utopia they'd like to believe in with that sliver of hope one clutches onto -- is not working. And muster the courage to shut down the thread by isolating it to a specific act that occurred within the diarrehalogue that they find agreeable to comes to terms to shutting it down -- because they psychologically willed themselves to believe it. It's not working. Peg A is not fitting into Slot B. I think it's time to focus upon another solution that can be a workable compromise where it doesn't denigrate from the belief that the moderators are holding onto while fulfilling the request of those who would like to believe that placing certain topics into their own niche well at least reduce some of the noise before it goes all Lord of the Flies on us. Otherwise, continue this Sisyphean exercise in futility. 
I'd be more impressed if they built it inside a volcano. And exported discount monocles. 
If we're still discussing flagging options, how about a ""? OK then. The consensus seems to be the little blue guys generally have no effect than to further escalate tensions in a thread. Earnest calls for civility to the "serious" posters who are uncivil and disruptive are flat-out ignored, or criticized as somehow depriving posters ("CENSORSHIP!" "BOOKBURNING!") of their Right to Say Anything with Impunity... till the Paizo Peeps have to show up to put out the arson. Fine. I'll stay out of the political threads and immediately leave any other that turns into a GRARfest. Flag and self-police yourselves, or fling poo everywhere and let the Paizo Peeps sort it out (sorry Gary, Ross, Liz, Vic, and the rest)... I'm too tired to give sh!t anymore. The "serious" posters can keep having dozens of political/religious/human rights/etc. threads that do nothing but churn out bilious GRAR, leave flaming bags of poo for the mods to put out, and convince new Paizo customers that the boards are too toxic a community. I already have a pretty decent not-Paizo place that I regularly visit when I want to read intelligent discussion with a minimum of axe-grinding, personal attacks, and trolls flinging poo. While on Paizo, I'll stick to the few humorous threads I frequent and quietly buy my Paizo products.
One idea I've been toying with is to steal from Ravelry and add "educational / interesting / funny / agree / disagree / love" buttons. Note that we would not use any sort of Slashdot-style filtering. You still have to read the entire page of posts. But these buttons would have specific meaning that a favorite (by design) lacks.
Certainly. And how about a Flag option for "Threads Doomed to Become Another Front in the Never-Ending GRAR! WARS"? Because constant uncivil "discussion" of the real world politics, religions, economics, civil rights, poverty, etc. contribute immensely to enjoyment of the RPG hobby and Paizo products? [/sarcasm]
I propose we have the wonderfully talented Crystal Frasier draw up a dozen or so silly goblin avatars to replace the current little blue guys. Make them blue, or throw on some Braveheart-ish war paint, or whatever. Except for Sebastian and KC. They should get custom purple "G'Nap!" goblin avatars. I'm serious. I'll chip in on a fund to pay Crystal to do it in her non-work time (Paizo gift certificate?)... anyone else? 
That is so freaking cool. I wonder if they need lawyers on their island. I was considering selling all my worldly possessions to become a gypsy, but this may be the next best thing.
I'm not sure I like the implication that we don't have the courage to implement an ignore feature or something. We think long and hard about the social impacts of pretty much every feature we add to the website, which is one reason it's taking us so long to get private messaging done. But for discussion's sake—keeping in mind that we have no intention of implementing an ignore function at the moment—how would you want it to work? Should it leave the poster's name & avatar, but with a disclosure triangle that allows you to show the post? Should it just silently elide the post and provide no indication that the poster was ever active in the thread? What if someone quotes someone you've chosen to ignore? Do we have to parse all quoted material in other people's responses? Do we put disclosure triangles or spoiler buttons around those quoted portions? Will people start posting "*plonk*" messages to indicate that they've added someone to their killfile? Will knowing that you're on someone's killfile change an individual's behavior, for better or worse? What if we just put a disclosure triangle, defaulted to the "open" position next to each post, so you could collapse them yourself if you find it impossible to ignore someone's post? In the "recent ten" box on the front page, in the focus view, in the main messageboards page view, if the most recent post is by someone on your ignore list, do we pretend the thread hasn't been updated? Do we instead have to walk backwards through each thread for each person until we get to a non-ignored post to figure out which thread has been most recently updated? How does presenting wildly varying views of every messageboard page we render affect performance? These are just the first pass, off the top of my head. Additional internal discussion would I'm sure result in more. Every time we introduce a new feature to our messageboards we have to answer a list of questions like this. To do less would be irresponsible and disrespectful to the tens of thousands of people who post here thousands of times a day.
Kruelaid, I've turned off the OT/Politics because those are not topics that I want to concern myself with while browsing the forum. It has nothing to do with posters themselves. That's a subtle, but important difference. It's an interesting observation that you associate OT as Politics. Perhaps some of us would like to see Politics as a separate forum section from OTD so we can shut Politics down in the same fashion that you manage to shut OTD down from your viewing. EDIT: Interestingly, so did Daigle. You know, I used to LOVE the OT section of the boards.... but with all the political b%*#*~+%, I slacked off of it. Focus is a step-up, but it's a passive-aggressive way of approaching an ignore feature because I lose out on the new threads I haven't read yet and will not appear if I remain with that option enabled. In OTD, Politics and Religion has the higher ratio of GRARR activity, generalizations, and prejudice compared to the rest of the contents. Sometimes, I don't get why people want to stir the pot for either topics. This is a role playing game board; there are other Internet sites and URLs that are better suited for such discussions. Unless you want to go to Fox News or Huffington Post and complain about Pathfinder broke the cleric because he lost his free heavy armor proficiency in a random comment thread to one of their news articles? *shrug* If not the ignore feature because there's some hypothetical dark road that could be traveled with its installation into the source code, would it not be a simpler task to create a sub-section religion / politics / GRARR forum? The expected response would be "we don't want to do that as we don't want to have that as section that draws attention to those as they are not the primary theme of this overall site, which is a role playing game board." And my response to that? "Exactly." 
Patrick Curtin
(Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Roleplaying Game, Campaign Setting, Companion, Battles Case Subscriber)
Agreed. And to me that response about a separate GRAR forum makes about as much sense as saying, 'Pooping isn't the main theme of our family, so we don't want to dedicate a separate room for it, lest visitors think all we do all day is sh!t. Use the living room!' 
...If you want to shoot the mouth with your "local drinking buddies" around here, start a thread in the off-topic section and go wild. Well, then either ignore them or use the flag and move on maneuver and let the moderators sort it out. 
I removed some posts.
The Mothman, he is wise.
...I thought of a paladin who would refuse to take any rational life intentionally, on the conviction that only the divine could rightly take life. Man, how the party would love that guy.Actually, I could really enjoy that kind of Paladin. Walk around with a leather wrapped cudgel to do non-lethal damage. If I detect evil, use my smite evil (which is the divine god doing the damage). Otherwise, I beat things into submission... Ah, helping the poor for a cleric of Cuthbert... I can see it now... 
NOTES TO SELF
Gains additional marketshare...over what? Pathfinder's core market is made of a group of devoted 3.5 players who did not want to transition to the new version of the game. So Pathfinder's market had it's initial influx of players when it released, and I am betting has remained stable since then. And you would have lost your bet. :) We have seen an every growing number of folks getting into Pathfinder. We are selling Core Rulebooks at a faster clip now than we were a year ago. Not exactly sure where these people are coming from, but they are coming and FAST! -Lisa
Afraid not.I actually heard from somewhere that Pathfinder and D&D now have a roughly equal share at the moment. Scott is totally right here. Pathfinder has surpassed D&D in most of the markets that I check. Thanks for ninja'ing me Scott! -Lisa 
"I desperately want people to pay attention to me." - Anonymous. 
Ooooh I'll favorite Shin's post too. Just to show Scott that I care. 
Whelp, if that video wasn't insulting, I challenge you the next time a customer annoys you to draw a caricature of them, with a caricature of yourself taking a dump on their head.
I remember the last round of layoffs from WotC generating the same mean-spirited jabs as this most recent rumor. The edition wars rage on for no good reason. A new generation, irrespective of edition, is maligned because of their background in MMO-parlance. Within a given edition, extremists from both styles-of-play tear into each other like it somehow matters how other people have fun. There are chicken-littles decrying the destruction of the game over rules of little consequence — their constant pestering has driven the staff to avoid providing guidance in the manner that they so kindly once did. Worst of all, the frustrated moderate posters clutter the board with well-meaning but ultimately fruitless peace-making rants. -- I know it's just that I have a new job with scads of free internet time, and that I'm bored so I spend more time here recently. But for the love of the game, can we please chill the hell out? Please, for your own sake and for the sake of others, be a kind, well-adjusted person who wants to help. Don't be a dick.
I think this thread has run its course. Locked. Feel free to create a new thread to discuss this news, but please keep the spite out of it this time.
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln 
SPAM!!SPAM!!SPAM!!SPAM!!SPAM!!SPAM!!SPAM!!spamSPAM!! SPAM!! 
OH MY GOD WHO DID THAT COVER ART?Lucas Graciano Yeah, it hits me in all of the right Frazetta-like ways...this is a great thing. 
Some truth to that, but it also breeds a herd mentality.I always found public schools intense hostility to critical thinking and individuality disturbing.It's a crucible. The best of us get out mostly unscathed. ;) I'm not arguing, but life breeds a herd mentality. Look around at stuff that's popular. Look at housing subdivisions where all the little boxes spread as far as the eye can see. Look at the proliferation of chain restaurants and big box stores. Popular pays, apparently. People get nervous when the boat rocks, but nothing spectacular has ever come from keeping the boat on even keel. I dunno. I guess the world needs all types.
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