Why does everything have to be a confrontation with you? You try to get under people's skin on purpose, and that's not part of what it means to be a responsible forum member. If someone believes in God you try to tear them down. If someone believes in proprietary software you call them the Anti-FLOSS. If a women dresses attractively you say its her own fault if she gets raped. This and all the rest of the bullshit that comes out of your mouth makes people feel unwelcome here.

We don't have problems with you disagreeing or with you having a different viewpoint. It's that you try to brow beat everyone else into believing what you believe and that's not right and not healthy for the community.

Have you learned nothing from XKCD?
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That is saying its her fault. full stop.

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I don't at all vilify the spreading of ideas. I think that's great! I vilify spreading of nonsensical ideas on the merit of "faith". There is no real evidence for God, and that is pretty much well established definition. It seems that believers aren't very good at understanding their own belief system because they choose to spread the idea as fact.

FSM is a well known joke. Nobody with an ounce of intelligence believes in a "flying spaghetti monster".. As I understand the folklore, it was invented to discredit Christian beliefs in a state of the USA that was very likely to teach public school students Christian beliefs as a science based on complete bullshit. The FSM was invented with the same exact arguments that are used to "prove" the Christian God's existence as a desperate attempt to break through the brainwashed minds of the politicians ruling on the matter. When faced with an equally absurd notion without evidence they were forced to think about what gave their beliefs merit and that were lacking in the FSM idea. They came to the only reasonable conclusion that there was no real difference. They realized that their beliefs were not scientific.

It doesn't bother me at all what other people believe. What bothers me is wrongly representing your beliefs as factual, absolute truths, indisputable, etc. I rather enjoy the debate. I'd be glad to have one again if you'd like. Go for it. I can't promise that I have the time to dedicate to a fully fledged one, but you just might inspire and fuel some thoroughly enjoyable late nights. It has been a while.

As a rule, if you let people believe in what they want to then all is well. If you start involving your nonsense beliefs where they have no place then you're provoking a fight that neither of us can win, but I come out of looking smarter and you come out of quitting. Or just looking like an idiot if you keep trying indefinitely.

You're completely wrong. When I'm not confident in the supporting evidence for an idea I am completely open to being wrong and discuss the matter as such. When the evidence supports my idea I present it as a truth according to evidence. Of course, science isn't really about absolute truths. It cannot be. I think only mathematics can hold such truth, and even then it seems we cannot tie all of the knots into neat little bows.

When I do put forth my ideas as absolute truths I do my best to defend them with evidence (or in the case of my idea being that of a disbelieve in an idea, with a lack of evidence). It's always open to debate. I'm rather interested in the truths so I prefer for lively debate. Not playing or not playing fair spoils any chance of gaining anything (other than a laugh).

Trent Gamblin left A.cc because he is very strong willed and refused to admit defeat in hopeless arguments. I have no beef with him short of him having a beef with me. I've already discussed this matter with him. I suppose he has his own reasons for being unwilling to put up with my presence, but I am not the only reason that he avoids community channels.

As I recall, NiteHackr is another example of a religious zealot that refuses to put up with differing beliefs. He effectively ragequit because of religious debate, if I'm not mixing him up with other people. Again, debate that he could choose to avoid. Apparently he can only tolerate Christian communities. That is his right. Again, it has little to do with me, other than perhaps myself being one of his persistent challengers.

According to whom? I have mostly considered Matthew fair. In some cases I have felt that he has let emotion cloud judgement, but moderation is a very difficult responsibility so there's room for error. I don't think that he'd tolerate me if he felt that I was being unreasonable.

Please do.

According to whom? Where is your data? What is your source? How was it collected?

According to whom? You seem to be picking and choosing what fits your bias.

I don't know everything, and several members (many inactive) have proven that over the years. I have not hesitated to admit defeat when the occurrence has clearly taken place. I've had my ego severely bruised over the years, and I've learned from the experience. I've also learned who can and cannot handle a discussion. That is what a "forum" is for. It's a discussion board. A place to discuss things. When the topic is factual there is little room for debate. When it's subjective there is only room for debate. There's little point participating if you aren't trying to learn, and nobody learns anything if they don't challenge the ideas that they disagree with and defend the ideas that they do agree with. That's what this is for. It just so happens that one of the greatest, most friendly online communities happened to have been created in the process. At least, that's what we used to say a could of years ago. Now all we seem to discuss is how dead it is, and how obviously I am the cause despite my inactivity.

I won't read through these walls of texts just to find out what I already knew.
Is this now even turning into a religious debate again? Come on guys, that's not gonna lead anywhere.

Personally, I welcome different opinions and discussions. It's just how they are presented. Politeness was invented so people can get along. You can overdo that, too, by being 115% politically correct all the time, which would probably be boring. But some degree of civilized behavior is needed. This involves some basic respect for others.
I found Bambam's misogynist walls of text (which I only skimmed) especially stupid, offensive and ... err ... intellectually undemanding . I don't see why anyone (including Bambam) would waste his/her time with such bullshit.

1. So you'd rather discuss sexism than religion? Bring. It. On.

2. You're a hypocrite. "[Turning this into a religious debate won't solve anything!]" *turns it into a sexism debate* Pot, meet kettle.

3. If you welcomed different opinions and discussions you would read what I have to say before judging it, and you would challenge what I have to say in context instead of calling me names and stereotyping out of context.

   Essentially, if you say anything that questions "Feminism" or women you are immediately labeled "misogynistic". It doesn't matter if what you have to say shows merit. And so it quickly becomes evident that people that would label you as such don't have much merit themselves (at least within the debate). A really interesting thing happens when you actually engage the sexism debate. You discover that the sexism is actually rather weighted against men. It's not so one-sided, and women don't seem to have it nearly as bad as you may have been taught.

4. Respect goes both ways. If you label what I've written without reading what I've written then I'd say that you're not being respectful of me. I don't think that I have been disrespectful of you, and typically those that I am disrespectful of have shown disrespect in some way. I usually approach new people with respect.

   No matter, I try not to hold grudges either way. I try to keep the scope of quibbles limited. If we aren't getting along on a thread I try to keep it limited to that thread. We may not agree on that idea, but that doesn't mean that we can't get along. Unless you refuse to get along with me as a result, in which case so be it.

   I'm not perfect. Sometimes I make the mistake of reading things wrong and lunging first. I'm not sure that is the case in this instance, but I'm not above to it. I usually try to identify these mistakes and correct them.

Let's bring basic sociology into the mix, shall we?

Observations:

1. Bambams is arguing in a team of one.

2. Several people are banding together and attacking bambams's conduct.

What would be normal behaviour in these circumstances? Simple: strength in numbers and social exclusion are very powerful effects and should lead to a period of misery, a thorough self-evaluation, and improved behaviour in the future. [For the avoidance of doubt, we are talking about BEHAVIOUR here, not BELIEFS.]

The fact that this isn't happening makes you a sociopath, bambams. I think of you as a friend, but I can't support you here. Please just shut up and go through the misery and thorough self-evaluation already.

How dare you use my cat's savior in vain. I'm offended and demand an apology. You triggered me with your cis atheism. You know I was born religious but I wish I was atheist and you bigoted me anyway.

I had to reduce posting on Reddit for that reason. Nobody wants to learn or discuss things anymore. I can write the nicest, properly cited, most carefully worded disagreement with an opinion that goes against popular opinion in Reddit's echo chamber, and I'll be downvoted like crazy (-30 to -200). But if I literally said something like "Hitler rules." I'd get -1 to -3.

People absolutely hate, and fear, ideas that are dangerous to their own pre-established ones. I used to be the same way as a teenager, trying to protect my religion. But honestly, when I let go of that fear of being persuaded, I actually found a real foundation in my religion. I found out what it was, versus what people made it out to be.

So, I'm not defending bam over here, but to say bam is responsible for a significant portion of people leaving feels like a hate bandwagon. Everyone who has held their tongue and ignored his antics is now throwing their memorized beefs into the pot because all a sudden it's socially acceptable to do so in this thread.

Personally, I think yes, we could all do a little better to be respectful. But, there's also a huge problem with everyone taking everything so damn seriously. Like when people actually thought I hated fat people just because I disagree with their lifestyle.

I was seriously considering moving on from this forum if just for that egregious, focus-on-single-words witchhunt to paint me as someone who hates fat people EVEN THOUGH I'M OVERWEIGHT.

There is a huge problem today on the internet where everyone takes any opinion that's contrary to the liberal echo chamber, and paints it as automatically bigoted. It's annoying as hell and it has nothing to do with bettering society, or promoting discussion. It's nothing but using shame to silence opposing opinions.

Just to be clear where I stand, I'm not trying to make you feel unwelcome bamccaig. What I want is to make your behaviour feel unwelcome, which is different.

If you learned anything from what I've said, I hope it is to have a little more tact and be more thoughtful about what you say. You can be very offensive at times, and that drives people away.

Our community is shrinking enough as it is, and we're hemorrhaging active members. I for one would like to see our community grow instead of dying out. To that end I feel we need to be more tolerant and more inclusive, but at the same time I think we need to cut out poor behaviour as well. I would like to see a.cc become as vibrant and active as it used to be. Maybe that just isn't in the cards, but we can try anyway.

Well... To be honest I think that the people that is learning and stuff, only has a brief life in this community, I mean, if you're really learning something, once you're comfortable with your level of knowledge you just leave...

I mean Allegro is not a videogame or a movie or some kind of blog with news and all that, it's just a library, a C library by the way which means that not everyone is interested in when learning to program videogames.

So that means that there is no too much new information all the time, but I have to admit that this community overall is really reluctant to new stuff and changes that is what I think makes a community more active. So that may have cause the decline of people around here. Maybe now everyone is trying to be nice with people and change the old behavior but I think is too late in the short run.

I remember when I was giving suggestions and stuff for the wiki for example and other things and everyone here was like "No way, you're not going to change anything around here, everything here is just perfect, if you don't like it just leave, look all the mess you did" and stuff like that... And I was like... Okey...

I mean it was like "We have so many people working on Allegro!! Suck your suggestions if you want to do it, do it yourself, and do it well otherwise won't be accepted"

What I'm trying to say is that this is not only bamccaigs fault, people that was "protecting Allegro from bad changes" is not even here anymore, people that was against cool stuff is not here anymore.

I think this forums is a really beautiful experience of life and I have learn a lot of things here related and not related to programming.

When I was suggesting a new website and all that, the answer I got was something like "Well... If it is better than the one we have right now, we may accept it...". I don't think that is the answer that a community should give to someone that is offering his time to work on a new website even when the current "official" Allegro website sucks.

This community cuts every little possible ramification of new members from the beginning and obviously that's not a good idea.

It's like "I won't do anything, but I won't allow you to do anything
neither"... Maybe I'm wrong but that is the image I have right now of this community. After all there is a lot of all member here talking and talking but the new changes almost always come from new people.

I have to say that I don't write here anymore not because all I have just said but because I really don't have the time. I'm about to start my own small company right now and I have been working a lot lately.

And bamccaig, I really think you should calm down man, you can't be against the world, if everyone is talking shit about you, you must be doing something wrong, don't try to be Eminem on real life, with all that controversy and stuff, at least he is making money and the rap industry is also everything about entertainment, instead you're just being and asshole.

I think AMCerasoli is suggesting that a more enthusiastic tone might help: "Wow, that's really generous of you! Put something together that's better than what's there now and we'll put it up " Saying that IF it's better than we MAY accept it depending on how we feel doesn't exactly encourage the contributor to try

Agreed. The forum has definitely had a positive impact on me and my life. This is where I cut my teeth on C and then later C++ over a decade ago. Now I'm an associate professor at a community college teaching C, PHP, and web development concepts. It wouldn't have happened without you guys. *fist bump*

I'll admit that I don't often frequent the IRC Channel (or even these forums very often anymore) but I feel like I need to step in here and say something since bambams is my friend IRL (also, if I recall correctly it was I who introduced him to these forums like 9 or so years ago).

He is not a hateful spiteful person in real life. He's very calm and rational. He is opinionated yes, but not angry or aggressive. Despite the fact that I am a Christian I still enjoy hanging out with bambams and talking about motorcycles, video games, programming, work etc etc. He knows I'm a Christian and I know he's an Atheist and that doesn't usually come up at all when we are hanging out. I know I'm going to change what he believes just like he probably knows that he's not going to change my beliefs.

I suppose that's not how he is perceived on these channels though. I'm not sure what it is that causes him to post the way he does. It almost seems like his internal 'filter' is turned off as soon as he starts posting here.

Anyways, that's just my $0.02 on the matter.

I never accused Aaron of "attacking" anyone. I just said that he is happy to be blunt and offensive himself. As for what I would have done in person, I can't speculate because it didn't happen in person. Odds are Aaron never would have said that in person because he never would have misunderstood who he was replying to.

You're right, the Internet does change how discussions happen. In real life, the biggest or best armed guy wins because if he's unwilling to have an open debate he can just bully anybody that disagrees with him into censoring themselves.

Do you consider this aspect of real life better? If you're trying to argue that Aaron or Trent would beat me up for disagreeing with them let's assume I'm armed with a gun for the debate to defend myself against stupid muscle.