NoPunIn10Did wrote:condude1 wrote:Forging images is not part of the game of diplomacy, it never has been. It's like my example of bringing chess in for bounces. It's an irrelevant skill that you want brought in because you're good at it. It adds very little to the game and creates a huge hassle and timesuck for most current players in the best case scenario.
- Forging messages is absolutely part of diplomacy; see my earlier post about the Zimmerman Telegram. The fact that we're talking about images of messages doesn't change that.
- The chess comparison is absurd because it changes the rules of the game. What we're talking about here is changing the house rules for communication on this particular site.
- I actually don't plan to actually use this skill myself. As a practice, I don't share screenshots. I think it's in poor taste, but I don't think it ought to be forbidden.
- It's only a timesuck if you let it be that way. The fear that suddenly screenshots become a mandatory part of communication is horribly overblown.
You're making the assumption that simply making them legal will make them more-or-less mandatory. That's not how things work. In actuality, they don't really change the game that much, and banning them is simply unnecessary.
There are potential downsides to allowing them in non-anonymous games that are unrelated to the discussion that we've been having here, but for "Regular" games, the rule should be relaxed. They really aren't a big deal, and they're not a game-changer, but forbidding it for people that want to use them to communicate or to back up their messages with evidence is silly.
1. That's a non sequitur. Forging messages is part of diplomacy, therefore forging images is too? Is forging tax returns part of the game too, since forgery's part of the game, right?
2. So the chess comparison is absurd because it changes the rules of the game, whereas screenshotting is perfectly acceptable because it changes the rules that we play the game by? That's... a very slim difference.
3. You think it's in poor taste, and you think it won't be used very often, yet you think that's enough to justify forcing most of the players on the site to learn how to edit images. You've said it yourself: There's a very marginal benefit. The cost/benefit analysis just doesn't add up.
4. So your only defense of legalizing screenshots is that they won't be used very often. I rest my case.
See 4. for the rest. You've agreed there are some fairly big flaws (secret ballot), and that there's limited upside. Why are we still talking?