A bit late to the game...

So, there's been a big stink over at YTTH lately about the army lists of the folks from the American Team heading to the ETC. Their lists were posted on BoLS and they're just awful. Some are better than others, but some of them are sort of shockingly bad. Stelek then posted the lists on his site, analyzed them, and gave his criticisms. This caused a huge argument in the comments between YTTH-frequenters and BoLS members who owned some of the lists in question.

It sort of turned into a big nasty fight with lots of back and forth and such. I happened to miss most of it in action, but I went back and read the comments I'd missed* and it was fairly ugly.

Brent over at a Strictly Average blog** wrote a pretty good article (as he is wont to do) that sums everything up rather well. I was going to post my thoughts on it in a comment, but it got a little long so I thought I'd bring them over here where I can at least have the comforting knowledge that nobody will read what I have to say.

First of all, every time I saw anyone say "fence-sitting" I read it as "face-sitting" on accident. Really puts a whole different spin on the issue...

I feel like this was a useless fight. Usually internet fights are spawned by something worthwhile***, this one wasn't. Stelek really wasn't being that harsh in his analysis (nor was he wrong, but that's besides the point) and anyways list review is sort of the main focus of his site. It's what he does.

He was bashing the lists more than anyone personally (the worst thing he said on a personal level, I thought, was the comment about how "cool" internet names are) and he also was actually giving criticism and suggestions in some places rather than just "this sucks, mmkay?" which he often does. Especially considering the owners of the lists, he could have easily just posted them and said they were awful. Instead, he gave some (brief) words on why he thinks they suck. Sure he was still fairly abrasive in these words, but that's his schtick. Get over it already.

You can't honestly go to YTTH expecting Stelek to blow fairy dust up your ass and then get mad when he doesn't. I'm not going to attend a Lisa Lampanelli comedy show and get upset because it was low brow. (actually, can I just make that I'm not going to attend a Lisa Lampanelli comedy show at all...ever?)

The zombYs are somewhat to blame here too for all the instigating they did when the BoLS guys came over. Stelek can be as neutral as possible, but the second one of his regulars attacks someone from another community, they go "See! Everything we've been saying is right about Stelek, look at how poorly we were treated at his site!" even if Stelek wasn't actually involved or was even openly against the abuse. They went to his site, were treated poorly, therefore Stelek is mean. If they had come over, said their F U's, and then had not been retaliated against, things might have been different.

It's sort of like Stelek is Teresa, BoLS is Daniel, and the zombYs are Ashley from The Real Housewives of... oh, wait, forget that last bit...

...

Anyways, considering all of the evidence at hand, I don't think Stelek was in the wrong here. Sometimes he can push the limits a bit with these BoLS encounters in such a way that they may not be quite unjustified in their reactions, but this time that was just not the case. If anything he was uncharacteristically nice in his analysis. I can honestly say that I would not have been able to be quite as civil when commenting on those CSM and Eldar lists.

I don't see any reason why they would have thought it necessary to come to YTTH and start this fight. I thought they had pretty much stopped caring about him anyways? And then to break that on something so trivial as this? I just don't get it. I do think Brent may be on to something though with his 'these guys might be friends if not for the internet'. I lack the capability to put it into words though (some writer I am) so perhaps at a later date I will try to talk about it once I've had some time to think it over.

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* - I read the article when it was posted and had less than a dozen comments and thought it interesting. I then later returned to the site and noticed that very same article had over 100 comments and new something must have been awry...

** - Is that an insult? Or a plug?

*** - Even if it is something completely stupid, it usually starts because of someone that actually believes in that completely stupid thing.