When Goblins Fail

Its a sorry sight to see when someone you used to respect as an intellectual person who is willing to take a controversial position resorts to slander and personal insult.

What follows is likely an incohesive, meandering braindump which is nothing new around here XD.

I wasn't going to honor the situation with much of a response other than to confront my attacker, but I'm following the example of BBB, a person I have tremendous respect for, and just let it go where it will when an Internet personna makes an attack without fear of real life consequences.

I'll warn in advance, I've got a bit of spare time today, so this might become a book.

Lets see where this one goes, shall we...

[EDIT: played out pretty long. BBB'd be proud. So I slapped the usual short/medium/long format for your convenience. Let me know how far you make it.]

Short Version

Intellectual debate turns ugly when greedy goblin resorts to personal insult and slander rather than provide meaningful content.

Medium Version

GG is out to prove that cooperative teamwork is fail because he has yet to be successful in a cooperative environment and he lacks the empathy required to imagine what its like when he reads about the experiences of others.

When he does read of success coming out of a cooperative environment and he has nothing of substance to support the position he is clinging to so vehemently, he launches personal attacks.

And destroys any respect I used to have for him.

I suppose in the end, I should just stop boosting the website traffic of an interpersonal M&S.

Long Version

For the few months that I've been reading Greedy Goblin (when he was recently linked by Tobold, yet another writer who discusses controversial issues without resorting to personal insult), I've thoroughly enjoyed what I read. His posts about economics are interesting, sometimes informative, usually entertaining whether you agree or disagree with his position.

His approach is much harsher than your average person is used to, but once you see past that, there used to be some value here and there, however those economic posts have become much more rare of late. His posts about grouping are horrific but sometimes entertaining, but in the look-at-the-train-wreck-who-cant-play-well-with-others-and-blames-the-others-for-it kind of way, rather than the quality of the content or (lacking) supporting evidence for his position.

However, he's turned to personal insult. He's turned to completely unsubstantiated accusation. He attempted to find a flaw in a post I wrote yesterday, his research came up empty, and with no other way out, he accuses me of lying.

Intellectual Debate Gets Ugly

In the short history of emails, blog posts, and comments between GG and I, we've had agreements, disagreements, thought provoking intellectual conversation. Facts. Ideas. Professional/adult debate.

He took two recent posts of mine and tried to dissect them, in an effort to prove....something? I'm not actually sure, as he's provided no support for any position other than wanting to bash me.

Granted, both of my posts hi-light how un-goblinish behavior led to (A) fun/entertainment value, or (B) economic value.

So a response is not a surprise. What was unexpected was a personal attack completely devoid of fact or substance.

First Post:Strong Raid Guild Brings A Friend Into VoA - Boosting is frowned upon by businessmen, so GG takes offense.

Second Post: One Example Of Guild Reputation Making A Difference In A Business Transaction - In the past GG has used a loose analogy to some academic research to try to demonstrate that reputation does not matter, so he takes offense.

However, in neither of those posts do I make any claims that this is a universal truth. I'm merely conveying the story of two in-game events that brought me joy or gold, and some of the background behind how I came to that joy or gold. No claims that this will work every time, for every person, guaranteed. Just two fun anecdotes that contrast to the extreme position that's been portrayed in GG's posts.

No attack on anybody else, or any attempt to bring somebody else down, but rather, simply celebration of some things I've enjoyed.

Cooperative Play Accomplishes Results

My guild is very successful at raiding. We work hard, we play hard, we distribute gear effectively, we challenge underperformers. We have proven results.

Icing on the cake...we are successful at raiding while maintaining very positive environment, we have lots of fun, and while doing so, we waste very little time.

I'm pretty sure a business person would be very interested in an operation like that.

Using a cooperative approach to teamwork, a core group of people tackled the hardest 25-person content the game has to offer, and plans on continuing to do so as bigger and bigger challenge is released.

We're at the point that we routinely clear all 25-person content in 6 or 7 hours, and improve on that time each and every week.

Morons & Slackers?

We do not carry poor performers on our roster for very long. In fact, the performance culture we've bred weeds out 90% of the M&S before they even apply to the guild. An effective recruiting process, and an effective trial raiding process takes care of the rest.

As a result, even our lowest performing raiders are of an extremely high caliber, and continuously strive for self-improvement.

How would a business person NOT be interested in something like that?

But for some reason, GG cannot accept that we enjoy this kind of success, and is out to prove something, although nobody's quite clear on what that something is.

We Boosted, and it was Fantastic

We boosted a friend in a VoA run.

We had fun!

You cannot put an economic value on "fun" and therefore, GG must reject the pursuit. But, lacking anything of substance to say on the topic, he resorts to childish insult.

Although we have not tried yet, I believe we could probably defeat Heroic VoA with 9 or 10 of our top raiders, and any collection of 15-16 other level 80 toons you can find.

There is zero risk to bring a friend. We will not wipe. We will not waste unnecessary time.

This is not Sarth 25+3. This is VoA.

The result of boosting a friend in a low risk situation is to bring the team closer together.

A business person who does not understand organizational dynamics cannot see the value here.

But the leaders and members of our Guild do understand the bond that forms and how it can improve team performance if managed properly, and we've got the proven results to show for it.

Reputation Makes A Difference

I describe one solitary situation in which a customer explicitly informs me that the reputation of my guild made a difference in one business transaction.

I do not claim this to be proof that reputation has value for all groups in all situations, and provides a blank check with which to do as one pleases.

I do claim that for ME in THIS SITUATION it DID!

There's plenty of data out there in real-world business to provide the proof that Brand Value and Reputation have actual real economic value. A simple example is on the shelf in your local pharmacy. Tylenol bottle of same dosage of same medicine sits right next to Generic Acetaminophen. Tylenol costs double. Tylenol product line has not been discontinued due to zero sales or financial loss. That's proof enough in my book that brand and reputation have economic value.

You can say that reputation has value because of Morons & Slackers believing marketing hype, but doing so only illustrates your complete inability to understand group dynamics.

GG Has No Real Response

He has some internal feeling that nothing good can possibly come from cooperative behavior. I've got my own ideas on how a person can reach that state of mind, but I'll keep them to myself as I'm trying to avoid the whole personal insult thing.

So he tries to tear me down. GG cannot prove otherwise, so he attacks.

Tries to claim I'm a liar, simply because he cannot find a shadow priest in my guild with quest greenie gear, zero or few raiding achievements, and 450 mining.

He cannot find this player, so he accuses me of lying.

Nice Work, Sherlock

He claims to have done "research" to find my realm, guild, and toon.

My Armory Link is Right There -------> in the upper right of the blog. Always has been.

Intellectual Property Theft

He took an image from my site, posted a copy onto his host, and re-used it on his site. Not even a simple embedded image linking back to my original, but direct plagiarism. In the same post that he copy-and-pastes several paragraphs from BBB's site and reposts it on his.

Your posts regarding business ethics have new meaning to me.

Srs Bsns!

Durgan gets to use Amava/Amiva interchangeably. GG does not.

The toon name is irrelevant (armory link points to correct toon), the internet persona is Amava. Respect it!

Just like you wouldn't call Prince "Prince" while his name was that funny symbol, you don't get to call me Amiva.

Bottom Line

I'd like to thank everybody, besides GG, who is still reading by this point.

I warned of incoherent meanderings at the top, and if you made it this far, you deserve a Pepsi (not some generic cola, brands have value, lol) or a coffee (starbucks) or something. Go ahead and get yourself one.


I would have much preferred if GG either (A) had something to add to the discussion supporting or refuting my thesis that reputation has real value, -OR- (B) provided a response with unenlightening-but-entertaining content without turning to personal insult.

I suppose in the end, I should just stop boosting the website traffic of an interpersonal M&S XD