Topics

1

Completely Unrelated / How do I delete my account?

« on: 2012-05-18 20:27:52 »

If this seems like an unusual question, it's because I'm an unusual person.

I've been inactive lately since I've lost the enthusiasm for Final Fantasy that I had before, and stopped visiting the forums.  Not that I was ever a really big contributor to anything.  I just liked the community.  But my life has changed since, and I cannot see myself coming back.

It occurred to me out of nowhere to officially leave the forums by deactivating my account, as I seem to remember multiple forum members doing this in the past, but I can't seem to find out how.  Either the option disappeared at some point, or I'm just being unforgivably stupid.  Anyway, I just have to ask, because now I'm curious:

Is there a way to do it?

2

Completely Unrelated / "An Error Has Occurred!" (About Half the Time)

« on: 2011-04-12 13:29:27 »

I'm having a problem.  Whenever I change web pages while navigating around the forums, I have roughly a 50% chance of bumping into this:

It's kind of annoying.  Why has this started happening all of a sudden?  I'm just using Safari on my laptop with wireless connection to a local network - the same as I've been doing for the past year and a half Has something been changed recently?

3

Completely Unrelated / Videogames and Violence

« on: 2010-07-07 15:32:30 »

It suddenly occurred to me that it would be very interesting to find out what people here think about this kind of thing.

Do videogames inspire violence?  Or are people just acting out about it?  Apparently, "official research" on the subject produces mixed results, and it comes down to opinion more than anything else.

I did some internet searching and was bombarded with conflicting evidence (which was to be expected, I guess).  There's a nice long list of disturbing one-off cases on Wikipedia, but I don't think "Grand Theft Auto III-inspired shootings" are representative of the general reaction to violent videogame exposure.

Actually, just looking at overall stats for the USA, it appears that crime in general has been decreasing incrementally ever since 1991, and the introduction of infamous games targeted for violent inspiration has had no obvious effect on the trend.  (I've found a number of sources that state this argument - here's one that's nice and easy to read, although you could question the objectivity of the article.)

I've seen several articles claiming that videogames have helped to reduce violence.  It could be that videogames act as an outlet for violence rather than an inspiration.  But then again, does a general decrease in crime rates really prove anything about videogame-inspired violence?

My critiquing of evidence has probably turned a few of you off now.  Sorry about that


The way I see it, it's like stress affecting your chances of getting heart disease.  Videogames inspiring violence is just an observed correlation, without there being any real proof that the relationship actually exists.  I think it's quite possible that there is a correlation, but several other factors (genetics, bad childhood, self-esteem, all that stuff) need to compound with it in order for the effect to come through.

Anyway.  I wanted to post this to find out what the general opinion is around here, this being a forum dedicated to a videogame and all.  Are videogames to blame for violent behavior?  On any level at all?

4

Completely Unrelated / "Posting a new topic in General."

« on: 2010-07-03 14:13:24 »

This probably won't make for the most interesting thread in Completely Unrelated, but...

I'm a very nosy kind of person - I spend half my life viewing "Who's Online".  And I've noticed that, just about every time I do so, there is at least one guest "posting a new topic in General."  (Earlier today, there were three doing it all at once.)

A new topic posted by a guest needs to go through admin approval before it becomes publicly available for discussion, which may be the reason why none of these topics ever seem to actually turn up.

Seriously though, is something going on?  Is there something about these forums that compels newcomers to try and post things in General?

I'm probably being a real bore but I personally find this interesting.

5

Completely Unrelated / FORBIDDEN!!

« on: 2010-01-27 11:36:12 »

The issue seems to have resolved itself now, but...

Over the past couple of days, a 403 error has been preventing me from getting onto these forums.  Which I find rather upsetting

Specifically, I got this message:

You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

  WHAT DOES IT MEAN!!??

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Completely Unrelated / HEY!!

« on: 2009-11-29 04:34:30 »

My post count just went down and I'm not happy!  >=(


jk - I'm not really concerned about my post count, but I'm curious as to what was deleted.  I'm guessing that an entire thread has disappeared - I've noticed I'm not the only one affected.