Rubix
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Happy birthday!
The legend who ended the Adolin-Kaladin-Shallan triangle thread!
I hope you're having a great day!
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Topic locked pending review.
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Hello everyone, I do not expect this to be a popular post. My apologies in advance. But I have to step in here. We have deliberated and we have decided to close this topic. This post will be explaining exactly why that is. I'd like to state for the record that we are not out to get anyone. What is a forum if you can't post your opinions? That's obviously very important. People are allowed to dislike books. People are allowed to dislike things in books. This forum should be a safe place for everyone. That's the thing, though. Forums should be a place where people feel comfortable discussing things. We had this occur last month, for instance, the classic distinction in our community where some hardcore theorizers shot down some theories from newer, less hardcore members. We can do better as a community to balance, as always. So that leads us into this thread. We have seen many, many reports on this thread, with many people on all sides saying things like, "this is allowed? Seriously?" That's basically everyone. This thread has been described to us privately as "toxic" and "a cesspool." Many have told us that they never want to join in the thread again. They feel unsafe in the thread. Opinions would be attacked immediately. That's absolutely terrible and unacceptable, full stop, and we should not be okay with this being the status quo of discourse here. We on the mod team wanted to keep this open, because we know this is a contentious issue. Some will always think we're just doing this to silence criticism of Oathbringer, because I don't know, they think all the mods are yes-men who love everything Brandon written. (Never mind that that is completely false, and any day of the week you can chat with us on works some staff didn't like, some things very aggressively so.) Just know, we have let this sit for a very long time to see how things panned out, and as you can plainly see, plenty of threads that are critical of Oathbringer are visible and active right now. It's clear that this thread is causing people to feel unsafe, and that, as moderators, makes us very nervous. It really worries us that this might be the thread people see and it's one of the first they participate in, and they get into something that's very heated and they immediately nope out of the thread. You can very clearly see that members who briefly join the thread don't continue pages later. Generally discourse has been very poor in this thread, with all involved thinking they are excellent at arguing, and of course, you are definitely accepting the other side, but everyone else isn't listening to your amazing arguments. Is this you? Then you should think about that. People are making others feel unwelcome, and this is a major issue. Have rules been broken? There have definitely been attacks, and we've tried to tone things down, but the discourse hasn't really improved. I'm personally not sure what we should do as a moderator team to make better rules on things so we foster good discussion. This is a case where a thread hurts the spirit of the community while (for the most part) being within the letter of its rules. Here are some musings: A Reddit thread generally has a limited shelf life. Comments in a YouTube video die off after a while. But forums are somewhat perfectly designed for this sort of thing to evolve, where people have intense opinions and through sustained effort, drive away reasonable discourse. It's worse in this case because so much of Adolin/Shallan/Kaladin controversy has been in this thread, and so it's continually gotten more extreme as things progress. Forum topics don't close so this could literally progress ad infinitum, years from now, and that's very concerning. I think opinions have been said at this stage, in extensive detail, and don't need to be continued. When the cost to the community is the impression that the site is overall toxic, we need to act, so we have decided to close the thread, and hopefully things should cool down. Just to be clear: if you like Adolin, that is not an inherently bad thing and is not a thing that is to be said dismissively. (As in, "oh, you just like Adolin, so I'm disregarding what you say.") Similarly, critique of Adolin and saying that Kaladin and Shallan are way better for each other is a completely valid opinion to have, and we expect people to (obviously) continue to have that opinion. But we can treat people way more respectfully than has occurred in this thread. Please remember that as we move forward. People are entitled to their opinions, but at some point people are just talking over each other and it hasn't been productive for anyone. Please feel free to discuss this with me. We are always willing to listen if you have a concern, and are looking for ways to improve.
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It is done.
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Hey everyone, I'm working on getting an answer back from team Sanderson. Until we get an answer, please don't post a transcript.
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It is done.
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The day has finally come. The day that many have been waiting for, for far longer than is fair (Thanks, Scholastic! Clearly the best time to drop a series is at the cliffhanger before the last book! Clearly, they’ve been taken over by Librarians, in order to keep this story under wraps). Alcatraz 5 is upon us, and Brandon’s been promising that we’ll finally see the long foretold altar scene. This is going to be a review of both the Starscape re-releases of the first four Alcatraz books, as well as a review of the fifth book in the series, though it will fail spectacularly on the latter point. The Books The new editions are nice. The covers are all much more cohesive, and not nearly as random as the Scholastic editions. It’s a little disappointing to lose the jacket art on the cover, but I think what we got instead is a reasonable trade, aside from the inconsistent embossing on book two, as seen here: But what really shines in these new editions are Hayley Lazo’s wonderful illustrations. From small glimpses into what’s happening in the stories to Bastille illustrating Alcatraz’s wild exaggerations and then snarking about them, they’re a delightful addition to an already wonderful story. I’ve read the first four books several times over the years, and these illustrations made me excited to read them again. And if you think I’m exaggerating, here are Isaac’s and Brandon’s thoughts on the upgrade. If you’ve been holding out on reading these, now’s a great time. Sure, they may be “kids books”, and you may be here for “adult fantasy”. These are a fun, light read. Yes, they’re on the more whimsical side, but they’re a wonderful side project, and I consider them to be the best Kids/YA series that Brandon has ever written. The Dark Talent Still with me? Read the first four books? (If not, shame on you. Go out, buy yourself the rest of the series [two copies of The Scrivener’s Bones and an Austen novel, as you’ll need them for the arts and crafts section of the program], and come back and finish reading this review once you’ve gotten that far, or else Alcatraz will make fun of you.) Alcatraz outshines both The Rithmatist and The Reckoners series in the last book of his autobiography. Waiting for nearly six years for this book was too long by far (thanks, Librarians!), but this book was worth the wait. The pacing is on point, and the action is bigger and better than ever. In this book, we finally get answers to questions that were posed earlier in the series (and maybe a few that haven’t), such as: Is the Breaking talent really the dark talent? How can Alcatraz wear a green jacket if he’s a fish? How do I reset my router if I’m stealing Wi-Fi from my neighbors? Who Killed Asmodeon? Is The Reckoners series tied to the Cosmere? If Alcatraz were to try really hard, could he break his way onto Scadrial? If Alcatraz is an unreliable narrator, can we trust him to be telling the truth about being on Earth, and not a cosmere planet? HOW DID ALCATRAZ END UP ON THAT ALTAR OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS?!? YOU’VE BEEN TEASING US FOR YEARS, AND IT’S NOT VERY NICE! Alcatraz warned you about that last one. By his own word, Alcatraz is: Not a good person A Liar Awesome An Idiot A Coward A Fish I, in general, wouldn’t trust a word that’s come out of his mouth since the beginning of the series. Maybe you’re more trusting than I am, though. Maybe you’ll finally get to see the altar scene, and maybe you’ll finally realize that this is an incredibly unlikely series of events to happen to a fish. Yes, this is a terrible review. I did warn you, after all. I wish I could tell you that it’s everything you’ve ever imagined, and that they all live happily ever after. But I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the fun. If you’ve read this far into the series (and amazingly, stomached this much of this crapaflapnasty review), go out and pick this one up. You’ll be surprised that Brandon can still shock you, even in a children’s book. -
We have made no structural changes to the buttons, menus, or bars since the upgrade a couple months ago. Welcome to the internet, where ads are what pays the bills. I like sites that aren't littered with ads too, but unfortunately, none of the administration is independently wealthy, and running a site costs a good amount of time and money. We need the site to be able to pay for itself, and with any luck, pay us a bit for the time that we put into it. So, unless you want memberships to have to be a paid subscription (which I consider unacceptable at this time when ads are an option), we're going to have to implement ads. Which is something we're currently working on.
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Mr. Sanderson, oh how I want to punch you!!!
Rubix replied to alexanderkeeton's topic in Introduce Yourself!
Got the wrong end of the sword in your hand there, amigo. Goodbye. -
The welcome cookie started YEARS before the dark alley. It was actually KChan's way of welcoming new members to the site.
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Not that I'm aware of.
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Hey guys, I've moved all discussion of the reputation system to a new thread, over here. Please keep all discussion of the reputation system in that thread, and discussion of the changes to the site in here.
