What do you guys think of spacebattles.com

[Gurgeh]

I am not sure if discussion of other boards is allowed on this forum but I hear a lot of you two don't get a long with each other for some reason. I hear people say that they hate http://forums.spacebattles.com/ and I don't know why. I go there a lot mostly to post vs debates and what not but when I do that they don't really discuss the vs debate only the calcs and the other info on that site. I don't know about you but what do you think of www.spacebattles.com?

[Force Lord]

IIRC, in the olden years, Mike Wong got into a few flamewars with SB Trekkies when the SW-ST debate was still in full swing. A few SBers are still sour about that, hence why SDN is not usually mentioned, and when it is, not often in a good light.

Someone who was around in those years can tell you more. And Wong still preserves the whole shitfest he had with SB:

First example
Second example
Third example

Note: Some of those that Wong argued with back then have changed their views and have buried the hatchet, like Alyeska and Chris O'Farrell.

[Stark]

It sure is a really funny site. I'm just glad I get the Reader's Digest version.

[Connor MacLeod]

Past history is past history. The board has changed alot since those days, as has this board. AS has Mike, for that matter. It's worth noting that there are people who post from that forum over here and here over there (like Vympel - GASP! HERESY!), but other than that you can't really compare the two boards. They have two completely different cultures, mentalities, and generally different goals. Spacebattles is larger and has been longer established. It's more lax in certain ways regarding rules (and harder to moderate) but it still has interesting people and interesting stuff. Some of my best acquaintances are either mods/admins there, former mods/admins, or came from there.

Why the heck should we care about SB, or why should they care about us?

[Alyeska]

SB.com is my home and always will be. It was the real start of my time online and I've been a member for more than 11 years. I can happily say several people from SB.com are very good friends. As it happens, most of those people happen to be cross forum members and so I can chat with them over here on SD.net as well. All is good.

[salm]

I just went to SB.com for the first time in years. Is it possible that they used to have a lot more 3D animations? There used to be some quite fun laser/phaser/bolter/whatever action over there.

[B5B7]

There are a lot of us who are members on both boards - some with same username, others with different username. I started on SB as Lord of Angst but changed it to B5B7 to be compatible with my use of that username on various other SF sites including SDnet and SFFWorld.
As to the site itself, I like to go to sites to get information. If one looks at political issues discussion, and versus debates one finds a lot of Ameriwank, but that can also be found on many other sites.

[Temjin]

I actually haven't seen anyone post much on this forum about Spacebattles.com in years, little lone how much they hate the place.

What hatred there was of Spacebattles was during the time when the Star Wars vs Star Trek debate was still going strong. From what I remember, people saw Spacebattles as a place where the debate standards and the moderation was more lax than compared to this board. But even then, there was plenty of people that enjoyed both sites.

Since the end of the ST vs SW debate, we've developed a more live and let live attitude, and what hatred there was has mostly been put to rest.

[mr friendly guy]

I mainly lurk on spacebattles these days rather than post, and even that is occasionally just to see if there are any threads I find interesting. There are knowledgeable people there on some topics, but I find the moderation lax. Three examples when I was last there.

1. There was a story about religious conflict in an African village after a retard (no I am no speaking rhetorically, the person was retarded) burnt a Koran. Some idiot on SB.com sprouted hur hur internet tough guy shit about how we should just let AIDS wipe out Africa. Naturally no mods at the time did shit about it, although I understand the policy has since changed to prevent this type of bullshit.

2. Arguing with comic book fanwhores. They resort to the Trekkie no numbers form of debate, and when you ask how they justify something they just say look up wikipedia for information of <insert character here> special powers.

3. If people here object to Shep's genocidal fantasies, SB.com has seen worse.

When even Shep doesn't talk about nuking the PRC and SB.com military wankers do, thats saying something.

+http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=55779

You people are missing the larger picture. If we allow them to continue developing their economy, they might one day soon overtake the USA and Europe in political and military power. Personally, I believe that if they ever give us an excuse, we ought to commence with full-scale nuclear bombardment of their metropolitan areas, to keep them from rivaling our power. Right now we could smash them flat and suffer quite acceptable damage, but this may not be so within a few short decades.

Naturally the coward when confronted clarified that "an excuse" now means if they attack us first. This is the same poster which said that the UFP should pre emptively attack the Klingons when they had the advantage even at that point the Klingons hadn't attacked yet, and that its ridiculous to compare this to the US invading Canada unprovoked, because Canada doesn't have enough workers to justify the invasion, unlike the population of the Klingons vs UFP.

And from a different poster (who AFAIK when I peruse the board still posts) on the same thread

If I was in command and could get away with it (AKA my aid doesn't shoot me in my sleep after finding out and the people don't burn down the whitehouse) I would hit China with enough nuclear fire power to kill 90% of it's population and them move in with India, split china 25/75 and set up a new wild west for colonization.

I don't think even Shep talks about this much mass murder. I am sure if someone posted "lets nuke and kill 1 billion people", they would be banned on SD.net, but apparently in SB.com its ok.

This post was in 2003, so I wonder how these guys would change now that the economies of the US and PRC are even more closely entwined.

These examples was of course years ago. I don't even peruse spacebattles for the fanfiction any more. Those authors I did read have their own section on ff.net so I just look at that.

[Sarevok]

They are different kind of forums.

SB for entertainment.

SDN for debates with high standards.

That said SB is occupying lot more of my time than SDN. This site has gotten dull while SB remains an addictive time waster.

[Gurgeh]

So why is it that vBullitien hates it when you talk about other threads? I got to comicbookresources and I talked about spacebattles there and for some reason they hate it when you talk about other boards and I would like to know why do they hate that?

[Dalton]

We're not clairvoyant. Every board has its own culture. If you want to know why, go ask.

The history between us and SB even predates SDN, going back to ASVS days, and there has been significant crossover. I am happy to say that a few of our moderators started out over there, including Alyeska and Steve.

[Darth Yan]

Isn't Ford a member?

[Gurgeh]

Isn't Ford a member?

Yes he is. A lot of people (Even me Shocking hu?) are all spacebattlers.

[Teebs]

I post on both and enjoy both. There are fewer people that I consider to be complete fuckwits on SDN, but they both have plenty of interesting things to read and (less often) take part in.

[Phantasee]

Isn't Ford a member?

Lots of people are members of both boards. Does it matter who, specifically?

[Ritterin Sophia]

You couldn't have picked something newer than 2003, friendly? Like southdakotaboy who blamed the Utøya massacre on muslims and when it came out it was a Christian he blamed it on the 'left' not compromising with the 'right' even though he's an American?

[Garlak]

Huh. I don't generally come across stuff like "let's nuke country x" or whatever... Does it mainly show up in Non-Scifi Debates? Because I mostly keep to Creative Writing/The Index, and Space Battles/BROB subforums.

I think when people say stuff like, well, just check Alyeska's signature... I think when that happens other posters don't approve or support that sort of stuff. Still happens though. There's a generally lower and different ban threshold on SB. Speaking of, everytime I come across that quote in Alyeska's sig I feel the urge to click it and see if the quote sounds different/better in context. Nnnope...


Also, the nuke/trigger-happy stuff... I'm not sure how serious people are about things like that. Mostly it looks like an obsession with large numbers or large explosions -- thats how I view it-a fascination with shiny/flashy explosions, rather then an actual desire or conviction/belief that lots of people should be killed. If it does come across as a desire to see lots of people (fictional or not) killed, I think I just don't frequent the subforums or types of threads where that comes up often.

They have two completely different cultures, mentalities, and generally different goals. Spacebattles is larger and has been longer established. It's more lax in certain ways regarding rules (and harder to moderate) but it still has interesting people and interesting stuff.

Interestingly enough actually there's recently been a push to moderate the Creative Writing forum a bit more. It's... still not like SD.net, and I don't know if there are other subforums that require moderating more so or what.

[mr friendly guy]

You couldn't have picked something newer than 2003, friendly? Like southdakotaboy who blamed the Utøya massacre on muslims and when it came out it was a Christian he blamed it on the 'left' not compromising with the 'right' even though he's an American?

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you Schatten. I must admit I didn't realise you had replied to me. Any way, I rarely browse spacebattles these days, and when I do its mainly fan fiction, occasionally the war room. So its likely I most probably wouldn't have seen such a thread.