Kimberly

The attention you get from it is positive and supportive. In turn, you are positive. But you depend on that attention and it largely dictates your mood.

It does have a bearing. Whilst the rules may be out of our hands, you can still make an informed decision. I think the chance of getting banned using staking transfer methods such as giving PID in a vls stake are effectively 0. I.e. the rules cannot be enforced. If the rules cannot be enforced, then the only factor determining whether or not you follow them is whether or not you think that rule is right. Regardless of how well they're enforced and no matter how that risk affects your individual decision, the rules are completely out of your hands to manipulate in any way. You're saying you can make an informed decision - this is true. Yet no one is saying you can't. Simply that these rules, regardless of what you think, and the means to change what is and isn't okay in the eyes of Jagex, are out of your hands. As for the other part of your post, I think Myr summed it up quite well so I won't spin my wheels in the dust repeating the same thing haha.

If you're comparing them now in how they contribute then surely you're doing so accepting the fact that they are both contributing to that cycle, otherwise you'd be comparing two things that aren't similar. In this we are discussing only those who sell gold, not their intentions or reasons. I think we've switched tracks ever since Stev put it to the thread's discussion group whether or not selling gold negatively impacts the community. If this caused a misunderstanding I apologize. :) Thinking and discussing them is a great, but it has no bearing on the conclusion we come to here when this thread is through because these guidelines are completely out of our hands as is their enforcement, whereas buying and selling is an individual's choice. RWTing hurts devs when they have to waste resources or take drastic measures to "stop the bleeding" which in turn hurts the community, which is really why most of us care so strongly about these issues.

Just because those who sold gold have the ability to be replaced by bots does not mean that those who still sell gold aren't part of the destructive cycle that RWT creates.

I'll say what I've said elsewhere: supply and demand grow together after they've begun if left unchecked. Sure somewhere, somehow, originally a group had a demand, and the supply was created/shifted/whatever to meet the demand; but after that, they grew together under a system where RWT was able to flourish. It doesn't matter whether or not the supply would be found elsewhere with or without bots, the act itself is part of the cycle of RWT. The net actions of this cycle are destructive to the community indirectly, by either forcing Jagex to take extreme measures or by companies using bots to meet their supply quotas, or whatever. And even though the cycle is destructive to the community, those who take part in the cycle aren't always bad/lazy. But the line in the sand is there for everyone to see, and that's all that it comes down to at the end of the day. There's no need to turn this into a "Who watches the watchmen" sort of scenario or go on about philosophy and Locke's take on society. Arguing how much if any blame should be placed on sellers, buyers, or innocent bystandards, gets you nowhere because the system they all operate under does not allow for such behavior to exist in the first place.

I hate to stick my nose in here, but I think Free Trade/Wilderness removal was a big [bleep]ing impact on the community. Jagex could have lied for their reasoning behind it, but they stood nothing to gain by lying to the community about it, which lowers the probability of them misleading the community.

Both of you are kind of missing the point - if people are entitled to respect/praise/defend Suomi for their choices, so are those who disagree.

Yay I don't look like an emo gorrilla pig! And randoms are gone! Best day ever.

You misunderstand. It's not a justification for the activity. It's justifying a plea to a community to tone back the rabid-dog reaction whenever someone mentions RWT. It borderlines zealotry.

Something like that is utterly impossible to prove given that naming names here is not permitted. Arguing over something like this quickly devolves into a freak-out of arguing for arguing's sake. You have only their integrity to rely on as a result. Given the type of people Stev and Logdotzip are, who they are, and how they conduct themselves, it's almost insulting to imply they'd lie about such a thing, but hey. It's still reasonable (to an extent) to want to see proof of these outlying cases.

Moved to Website Discussion

There's absolutely nothing that would suggest that it was gone. :P You experienced a glitch. Log in and back out. I'm going to head this one off at the pass and lock the topic since the TC got his answer.

A few posts were removed for personal attacks. Everyone's free to discuss this new development in the top 10 but please just remember that we still have to adhere to our forum rules while doing so. Thanks.

Because, and no offense, you're probably screwing it up because you're not paying attention. I'll leave my PM on for the next day or so. PM me and we'll set up it up for you if you can't figure it out.

There are separate ones for summoning on and summoning off and likely some other combination. If you're ONLY CHOOSING OBSTACLES ON and you should be, you'll always go to the same arena.

You need to select obstacles when setting up a duel with another player in order to do it. You can't get their on your own, and you can't get there from inside the arena if you fail to select "Obstacles" when setting up the duel. You then walk there ON YOUR OWN. Look at the picture provided on Tip.it to find out where in the obstacle arena you need to go. Bring your sextant/shovel/chart/watch. You don't need to make your point clearer, you need to read better. We're telling you what to do. :P

Looks like a max cape to me. Nah, it's comp. If you look closely through the right click box, you can see those white lines that are in the middle of comp capes. Nope. Defs a max cape. Not sure if being sarcastic or not, but that's a glitch with the adventure's log.

They are definitively harsh because you hold all the power and force all of your partners to adhere to your guidelines beyond simply being in an open relationship. Yes, it is forcing, because people universally enter long-term relationships expecting a give-and-take. This is not a monogamous-exclusive concept, but plays into trust and respect. It is a universal concept in relationships both sexual and emotional. By refusing to bend for fear of a slippery slope, it causes stagnation of it's own kind. The difference in why this doesn't affect you personally as much is because of how short-lived the relationships are. (Note that I'm speaking simply in terms of time, not satisfaction.) It's a concept Blackdragon touches on oh! so briefly because the very concept is hard to teach, so rather he avoids it. Instead, when he must touch on it as he does when he describes the "provider" role and the degree in which an "alpha" needs to participate in order to remain that way in a long term relationship, he does it in a way that still says "this is your choice, you are giving this to them because they expect it. It undermines you, but it's just one of the things you got to suck up because women are crazy-emotional and need appeasement." It is the bare-bottom, simplest mean of describing the Give/Take of relationships tailored to the man who seeks to be constantly in control, without paying any attention to the minute details. Why? Mainly because it takes experience and wisdom to deal with these things otherwise. Unfortunately, it does its die-hard adherents a disservice because instead of doing it for the wrong reasons -- like idolizing a man/woman, which is BAD -- they simply don't do it at all even when it's acceptable and even beneficial to do so. To tie this little mini-rant back into the main topic, you ask why would you be giving this concession if it makes you unhappy? You say that drama is a slippery slope, but this is only if you're dealing with an emotionally immature person. That requires the wisdom and experience to determine if they truly are that style of person. If you never take the time to develop or gain that wisdom, you will never be able to exercise it successfully on a case-by-case basis, which is how a person who is truly in charge of their life and prepared for anything should be able to act. If you are unable to do this, your unhappiness with these events could increase dramatically because they are now out of your realm of control and the only way to reassume control is to "cut your losses". As a result, the person you're writing off might not actually be immature, they might just be offended because they possess the ability to understand what you're doing and reacting in kind! EDIT: You linked me to the Message to Women, from where I read the '10 Things I learned about women' article. There is a reason why he says younger women are easier to be with. While this might not be the biggest reason, they are easier to take the power from because they are content with it, even if they go pursue their own poly relationships. They also tend to lack the intuition or experience to analyze this withdraw. So the question comes down to, "Why should anyone risk potential happiness for guaranteed happiness" and "At what point does expanding my potential outweigh the benefits of guaranteed happiness?" Well, no matter what my ranting is about Blackdragon's poor teaching style is, it's still subjective. But I think a person in your shoes as well as anyone else looking to adopt BD's methodology should start learning very early on how to make these minute decisions, how to do these things. Otherwise, the biggest issue becomes people do it because it is easy, not because it will give you the most benefit. By taking the easy way out, you ensure your potential happiness is maintained, but at the cost of your stable happiness. Healthy stable happiness, stemming (in the case of poly) from one or more healthy open relationships of varying degrees. In that regard, you fail to successfully maximize your total happiness, instead betting on the future. If you adopt a lifestyle that is only short-term, this might be okay for you. But since you enter long term relationships with these people, with that comes responsibilities for all involved parties, otherwise you should not have entered a long term one, yes? If you gain more happiness by focusing on yourself, that might not be significant for you, but many people draw on to some degree from the happiness of their partner. (Also note that in this example "drawing on" is not dependency, it is an understanding between two or more partners and is a phenomenon you see in all types of relationships.) 2 would only be "bad" (decreasing your maximum happiness) for you if you value the potential happiness more than your stable happiness. By doing that, you put more stock into something that might not work for the sake of something that does. It is part of the respect between two partners in any sort of long term relationship. This issue lies with whoever holds the power. If it is shared, it's both people's responsibility. If one forces control, it is their responsibility. In this case, you are forcing control. E: removed something from an older edit First, it's important to distinguish that this isn't necessarily a mark of territorial behavior, like people would undoubtedly label it if the gender roles were reversed. The tension could stem from wholly justified emotions towards the other person. That's completely and utterly possible. Should neither be able to let go, that puts strain on you (decreasing your maximum happiness). After all, you're not there to play peacemaker; however, by being the one of power (again, going back to responsibility) it is your call on whether or not to pursue this knowing full well that you will force one of them away. Or you let it go and find someone else. If you don't have the wisdom to determine whether or not your partner is being childish, the ability to determine whether the connection you have with A is stronger than B or vice versa, you are hurting yourself overall by taking the easy way out and not even trying to consider it. So no, while I can't fault a person for taking #2, they can be hurting themselves more than they're able to recognize in the long term for short term gains (or to minimize short term losses). This concept of responsibility oddly touches the reason why there are many people in this thread who view you as callous as a result. It's because you are divorcing yourself from the responsibilities that comes with holding all of the power in the relationship and setting yourself up from the start to hold all the cards because by doing so, you feel comfortable with letting women enter/leave your life. With the power you wield, you accept them, but when you force them out you rob them of a choice between equals. Instead the decision is made for them as a result. (LOOK I MADE SOMETHING COME FULL CIRCLE, I AM SO PROUD OF MY ATTENTION SPAN. Only took a [bleep]ing hour to write it all god damn I hate myself.) EDIT: The link you provided is an interesting read but I guess we'll get into it another time. If I start talking about it now, we'll never finish this current topic. EDITEDIT: Holy [bleep] I am so sorry. I tried making these paragraphs smaller and breaking them up more but I can't edit it down much more. @_@

As a man focused on personal happiness, is the potential of drama such a threat to you, no matter how small, that you need to adopt such black and white guidelines? It seems to be a very selfish point of view if you expect interested parties to conform to your guidelines without giving any concessions, no matter how short your relationships tend to be. God no, that would be imposing my viewpoints on you, and that's asinine. I simply picked a scenario that I think you'd face fairly regularly with partners who might not fully understand the harsh guidelines you maintain to find out what you would do. Unfortunately it hasn't really given me much insight on why you value so greatly the potential for happiness versus happiness you already had. For someone who asserts that he can pull partners with relative ease, it doesn't make a lot of sense to risk trouble for someone who might not even work out when you already have happiness and probably other partners to boot. It wouldn't mean you'd stop "working on other girls" to steal a phrase from Blackdragon, it wouldn't mean you'd stop pursuing your goals (unless your goal was gain as many partners as possible). It's just a matter of concession, and whether or not the concession is worth the assurance of happiness. It seems less like a mindset of "lessening drama" and more about preserving your "role" as the only one who calls the shots, the one who has the power, which automatically forces any of your partners to concede to you. You, who said earlier you don't like dom/submissive roles. :P That eventually becomes your responsibility in the relationship to set and maintain guidelines if you never allow those guidelines to change, but your relationships might not reach the age (of the relationship!) where that becomes an issue.

The premise I have been trying to create in this entire scenario is that both parties are acting as maturely as they're able -- in reality there might be an argument or minor spat. Avoiding it is almost impossible, yet if they do good for them. But the premise I am trying to outline is that both parties eventually discuss the potential candidate together as civilly as possible to avoid strain or premature break-ups (assuming both had the capacity to continue if the potential candidate never was found). Would you ditch the potential to maintain one or more of the MLTRs you currently have? Basically, would you keep what you know you're happy with now to avoid drama, knowing you have the potential to find another FB or candidate for MLTR in the future, if by doing so comes at a cost of your "power" (insisting that the current partner who is unhappy with your choice leaves so you can continue pursuing the potential candidate) [hide=A side note about negative/positive/neutral responses] I think neglecting a partner who is clearly upset is a decidedly negative reaction, even if it's meant to be neutral. The relationship aimed for here is one of equality and independence, but a portion of your happiness is connected to the other person. The dependence on that happiness for you goes down with a higher number of partners, but you can't simply severe that 'dependence' (for lack of a better word) for someone you're engaging in a relationship with unless you end that relationship. As a result of this, you both attend to each other's needs to a small degree in ways other than pure emotion or pure sex. By ignoring that "need", in this case choosing to ignore a partner's discomfort they confide in you, it is a negative thing. It fuels the drama. Overall, it breeds resentment on both sides -- both that your partner put you in that position and that you didn't listen to your partner -- and it hurts the relationship's health. That's what I mean.[/hide] Do you think the persistence of these roles (assuming healthy relationships) in "modern day" monogamy are supportive or destructive to the case of a monogamist like myself?

See, I'm still having a hard time understanding here. A negative response to a potential candidate is drama, and you respond in turn with negativity, isn't that an unhealthy relationship to begin with? Responding to drama in a negative way is drama and equally destructive if unrestrained. If one person can't give a reaction for fear of provoking another (natural!) negative reaction, how do you move past any sort of speedbump? How to act and behave? That sort of falls back into submissive/dominate territory by putting all the restrictions on the partner while the dominate reaps the benefits. That only appeals to a very small subset of people, those that seek to dominate. It kind of crosses over to a whole different realm of people. >_> I do think that despite the roles of power he attaches to it, that it's a very clear idea of what different roles there are, and what level of commitment they require, so the infographic still has things to teach people. I might punch my computer if I do lol. I promise though, I'll read it later. So I'm guessing that means you're not sleeping with Obfuscator any time soon lmao.

Moved to RS Media.

I read through your post first, and then tackled the articles. One of the very first questions I had were, "Why don't you classify yourself as a swinger?" I read your first post about your view on freedom and dominance, and I can't say it really answered my question. Then I double checked the definition of swinger and found I was using it incorrectly. That's my bad. It was silly of me to even ask that as a result and I feel kind of foolish. So that right off the board takes that factor out of the discussion. Whoops. So onto everything else... Compatibility is something I can understand, and it's a widely universal truth. You need compatibility to maintain any sort of intimate interaction. What I have a hard time understanding is how meeting and knowing someone who makes you happy is suddenly invalidated by a potential candidate and current partner's disagreement/dislike/whatever and how it suddenly renders your current partner and yourself incompatible. There is sense in avoiding needless drama, and I can understand that in you and Blackdragon. But difficulties like this are part and parcel of long-term relationships to varying degrees. So why would you endanger your current happiness for the "potential" of further happiness if your partner was upset by one of your candidates? Isn't that just common respect and courtesy? Respect and courtesy might be spent at the small cost of your "power" which you're deriving from your independence, but there isn't a concept of status quo in this case and it's otherwise unavoidable. I do have a question about your definition of him/Ginny/Gina: why is it not simply defined as poly? In that example, each partner understands that the other is free to see more people, but they choose not to bring new people into the relationship if it detracts from their current ones. That seems very different than simply a monogamous relationship. Separating emotional and sexual as you have make sense and illustrate the point you're trying to make, but dividing these in practice seem impossible to do. Relationships always become intimate to some degree, and no matter how you divorce one from the other, you will bond on some level (physically if it's emotional and vice versa) with the person you engage with. That's part of human nature, and Blackdragon acknowledges that this is one of the concessions a poly person needs to make, what he refers to as "provider", in longer relationships. It almost feels like it's too specific, and yet I can see why these things need to be identified. My problem right now is what limited knowledge I have of long term relationships pushes me to acknowledge how hard these are to separate, which this extremely detailed classification system seems to do (without truly trying). (And I will take at this moment a second to say it is [bleep]ing difficult to learn from an arrogant [wagon] [self proclaimed, even!] such as Blackdragon. Some of his points from both articles that he explains in such a misogynistic detail that it completely drowns the point he tries to make. That's why it's been such a long time to respond to this post -- it took me several times to re-read, collect myself, organize my thoughts, and put them on paper. The second article does not explain in a rational and equal way how both partners interact. It's simply all about power and control. I mean, hell, it felt more to me like I was reading an "How to Dominate your Poly Sub" manual rather than an informational piece on the functions of polygamy/polyamory . Overall, I got more information from the first article that you linked to and very little of worth from the second if anything at all. In fact, I'd go and tell you right now that if you were trying to educate others...don't even bother linking to that second article, because despite his claims for a hate of Disney, he indulges in those exact same fantasies on his own with little to no regard to his partner aside from whether or not she puts out and worships his [rooster], honeymoon phase or not, with only the barest mind to the spectrum he outlined before.) Fair enough. That still has to cause a [bleep]ton of problems for you though.