Sometimes I'm just not good enough

I read the EJ forums. I read the banhammer for a good laugh and to gather M&S specimens for my blog. I read the class forums to learn.

I've never post on that forum. I don't do the complicated testing to have reliable class data, lack the top-end gear to post stats on the level they are interested in (for example soft caps, top trinket procs). I don't have what they want. Of course there are many-many communities where I don't belong, but it's different from the "local firefighter's club" for example where I never was. I do use their resources, I read them, I am there, yet I'm unable to contribute. If it comes to raiding, I am there, but not in the A league and especially not in the top of it.

The banhammer forum is always full with people like me. They are average raiders, they go there to read and they try to contribute. But they can't, so they get infractions, their posts are moved to the banhammer and finally they either leave insulted or banned permanently.

Oh wait, they are not like me, since I have no posts in the banhammer forum. They are not unlike me in knowledge about raiding. They are unlike me in knowing their place. I'm aware that I can't be a contributor in EJ. They don't. While they are aware of the rules they don't think it applies to them (or they don't even bother reading rules, being sure that no rules apply to them anyway). They are special snowflakes and everyone should be happy to have them around.

Well, they are not! They are just another punk whose filth will litter the banhammer. Then they QQ and blame the Elitist Jerk moderator for being elitist jerk, get some more infractions for mod sass and finally get dumped.

Accepting that you are not a "special snowflake", the same rules apply to you as to everyone else is the true test of being rational. It's easy to see victory rationally. It's easy to be rational when things are running smooth. It's easy to be rational when things are crumbling down because of the M&S, pointing out their stupid mistakes. But it's not easy when the rational solution is that "I'm not good enough". It would be much easier to find another social who happily lie (or doesn't know better) that "you are great"! Do that, and be one of them.


PS: you are maybe surprised to see "the same rules apply to you as to everyone else", since I always told to break the rules, don't be nice and helpful and friendly as everyone else. It's not a contradiction. These are irrational, social rules and apply to no one.

Why to pay for a parking lot?

I got the weirdest type of comment on my suggestion to charge gold for using "need" and "greed" buttons in random dungeons. "if i win a roll i got the item fairly and you do not deserve compensation" or "Explain why I should pay anything to get upgrades in a dungeon". Of course I could ignore them just as "dumb idiots", but the right answer for their question/opinion have not been given by any of the 20+ supporters, so I'm afraid, they don't know it either.

Let me ask another question then: why do we pay parking fee in an open parking lot? The lot was there before the parking fee was introduced, so you're surely not paying for the creation of the lot. Is it some kind of robbing? The local government take the money of the people for nothing? Assuming there is no new parking space is created, shouldn't parking be free?

Well, this UK government report says parking fees must be introduced to end the traffic jams. What does a "service fee" do with a completely different thing? Well, they are not different: the jams are generated by people circling around seeking parking lots. Oh wait, fee does not create new parking lots right? Wrong: the "service" that you pay with the parking fee is "keeping those people away from your lot who can't pay the fee". These people simply don't come in the city by car since they know they can't park there anyway.

It's the very same thing you would pay if "need" and "greed" would take 3x vendor price from you. You would pay for "keeping everyone who don't want to pay 3x vendor price" from pressing the "need" and "greed" buttons. To be specific the vendoring ninjas would be kept from pressing these buttons.

In the first version of my idea, I wanted to introduce a new button overcomplicating the system. No need for that. Pay for both need and greed and only those will press the buttons who really need or want the item (maybe the "greed" button should be renamed "want"). This is the only way to prevent items that someone would use to be vendored for a few coppers.

Infraction for Nagast

Another wonderful post from my favorite fun forum. It actually doubly wonderful. At first because it's a perfect example of the social "warfare" that works only other socials, and not on people like EJ moderators:

"The other information that is not "anecdotal" in these convoluted threads can be obtained from other reputable sources. I will therefore obtain my information elsewhere." It is a full sentence version of the legendary comment "/unsubscribe" that I have to delete in dozens. It assumes that the writer somehow wants to be popular and liked by others (which is considered obvious by socials) so simply mentioning that you don't like them and don't silently read them will hurt them. Actually intelligent people don't care more than they have to (delete the trash comment). The intelligent opinion about /unsubscribe was perfectly summarized by Rohan: "Oh noes. Whatever will I do? My dreams of wealth and power, cruelly dashed by the loss of a anonymous reader."

The point is that the anonymous reader contributed nothing to the site, so his loss is nothing. Even if you assume that the writer wanted to spread some idea, the reader already made the decision of not believing it, so the damage is done, it no longer matters if he stays or don't.

"I will no longer promote your site to my friends online. If asked I will direct them to other sites and tell them about how rudely I was treated by the Elitest Jerks team. ... I will post a negative review of your site online. ... Perhaps you will consider changing your attitude so that people will maintain a positive view of your site." This is the HC version of the above. If the author is hurt by the loss of a reader, he will be hurt more by the prospective loss of even more! I can hit them hard by directing my friends elsewhere and making negative rumors! This is completely logical as n*harm > 1*harm if n > 1. That's why socials fear the bad rumor like the bubonic plague. However, as the harm of his leaving is 0, the harm of the leaving of his friends is n*0.


The second thing to notice is a common social excuse: "others do it too, so I'm entitled to do it". Our specimen said: "This anecdotal story about me and my spec that you refer to is not unlike 80% of the other posts in this thread ... There is growing consensus among WoW players that it is not worth their time scrolling through hundreds of posts to find information that they need".

The moderator masterfully replied: "Hey guys I was just telling an anecdotal story like everyone else, but clearly the information is out there so I shouldn't have to back it up or anything important like that. But your site really is hard to read because of all the posts like mine." If something is harmful on its own, you shall not do it, regardless how many others do it. On the other hand if it's not harmful, you are free to do it, regardless how many others do it. Or simpler: don't give a damn how many sheep do something!

Suggestion

The suggestion from yesterday, after seriously modified according to comments was posted (US version). If you like it, please support it by a comment on the forums, the more people support it, the more likely that Blizzard reads it. More supporters doesn't convince Blizzard (or they would nerf Paladins to 1DPS) but make them read and consider. So your post can make a difference.

Today is raid day for the blue guild, if you are in, come and let's kill Yogg. (Plan B: Dedicated few)

The ganking guild already have 5 lvl 80, soon we'll accept lvl 80 transfers.

All about the mailbox

I'm going to summarize important fields from making money and handling inventory. Obviously none of the information here is my invention, it's a summary of game and addon abilities.

The first is the mailbox. Everyone knows it and uses it. However if someone have a serious industry, he'll have lot of mail. Like 4-500. Handling them is not easy.

The first thing I'd like to introduce is postal. It's more or less a must-be addon for businessmen and handy for everyone else.

• It processes 50 mails at once
• It allows you to filter between mails, opening only AH-sales, cancels, expires, wons and non-AH
  
• It has a built-in name-autocomplete feature
• It fills the "subject" field automatically with the contents of the mail (like "copper bar")
  
• It blocks trade windows while you are at the mailbox

The second thing I'd like to introduce is OpenAll. You must know that if you open a mailbox (manually or with Postal), you only see 50 mails, no matter how many you have. If you remove (some of) them, 62 seconds later the mailbox refreshes and you see those mails that were invisible first (max 50 again). So if you have 500 mails, you open it, press "Open all" on the Postal interface, get your mail, wait a minute, press again. Altogether 10 presses in 10 minutes. OpenAll does it for you, you can go AFK while collecting mail. Of course you can just /reload after each page, but then you have to be at the computer.


The third thing to mention is "giga storage". It needs only a "storage" alt. As soon as you have 12 of one kind of items, you send it in a box to the storage alt. He doesn't open the mail, just let it stand in the mailbox. When you need the items, he opens the box, but instead of removing any items from it, simply presses return, and the full box returns to you.

It's important to store the same items in the box, so the title of the mail tells what's inside. This way the bankalt don't have to open any mail to know what's inside, just have to scroll the mailbox and read the titles.

The mailbox shows 50 items, so in order to remain searchable you cannot send more than 50 boxes (600 items/stacks) to one bankalt. If you have more, you need more storage bankalts.

Suggestion: greed with compensation

I'm sure most Blizzard employee hate the official suggestion forums like the bubonic plague. There are mostly "make my class OP this way" or "nerf this or that class ability" suggestions besides complete nonsense.

I think any good suggestion must:

• targets a real problem that makes players in general annoyed
  
• solves it without harming other players (class rebalances are not subject of player suggestions)
• does not turn the game upside down, simple to implement

My suggestion is an augmentation to the standard PuG need before greed box. The problem is that many items are wanted by some who cannot need on it. Caster druids for cloth, shamans or paladins to leather/cloth, RP items, expensive BoEs that morons would disenchant and so on.

No, I'm not suggesting to let these people need it, as it would only open the door for ninjas. The current system is better than "everyone needs on everything". The suggestion is to provide a third option between need and greed: "greed with compensation".

This option would be stronger than greed/disenchant, and anyone could press it. If no one needed, then the item will be rolled between the "greed with compensation" people. However there's a catch: the vendor cost x3 of the item is instantly taken from the winner (he can't press the button without this gold) and given to the one who rolled the highest greed/disenchant (or distributed evenly among greed/DE people). This would compensate the other player(s) for not getting the item and would discourage everyone from using this option simply to ninja and vendor it.

Before I'd post it on the forum (and ask for you to support it in comments) I would like to discuss the idea here to remove all possible glitches.