User blog:Sirebel/Paris

I took my partner to Paris this weekend for her birthday, she's not been before so it was a chance for me to play tour guide and treat her to a cultural experience I knew she'd enjoy. Paris in the rain (the Seine is currently flooding) isn't quite as enjoyable as in the summer but Paris is still Paris and I love their frenetic but laid back approach to life. Maybe, if this Brexit madness continues I'll move there and become an old wrinkled Parisian. I shall certainly be returning to Le Train Bleu when my wallet recovers, the finest station buffet I have every experienced.

What has this all got to do with the RR3 wiki? I checked the wiki when we got to our hotel late on Friday to find yet another flame war going on about my fact based posts. Given that I wanted to enjoy my weekend, I decided to step out of the conversations and leave you all too it. Reading through all the fuss last night as I returned to the UK (it's amazing how much time you have with a 3 hour snow delayed flight and UK border force queue's for non-EU nationals) I discovered a large amount of abusive posts aimed in my direction. Those that have been around for awhile will know that I have a relatively thick skin, a sharp tongue and no ability to suffer fools. Calls for me to be banned from this wiki, for stating facts, and people stalking my internet persona are just bizarre. I guess there is a lot of bored people out there with full garages, 100% completion and the next update still hours away. If you wanted to pick a fight with me then you chose the wrong weekend because I was happily oblivious to it all and enjoying myself elsewhere.

I'm amazed at the number of people prepared to argue that black is white. It is a fact that only 1% of players can make group A in a WTTT stage. What determines if you make it there is based entirely on your skill level and upgrades. If the car is relatively cheap to upgrade then it is likely to be based entirely on your skill level. You can't argue with this, it's a fact. Well you can argue about it as much as you like but I don't give a scubbie about your opinion in that case. There seems to be a modern trend that opinions are more important than facts. Is there an internet rule like Godwin's Law for being the first to raise Descartes in an argument about what is reality? Your opinion is only more important than facts if you want to live in a fantasy world or really do think the universe is a construct of your imagination (which technically, it might as well be). If you can use your imagination to make RR3 a fairer game to play then I'll listen to your opinion over fact (though technically then you will have changed facts so who will be able to tell?).

If you are going to argue about a legal case, it's always worth reading the actual court filings rather than just the press clippings. Many people have learnt this the hard way over the years and it's a good lesson in how the press manipulate opinion based on peoples unwillingness to check facts. If you think fake news is a new construct then I suggest you read some of the recent apologies and retractions printed in some of the UK's gutter press about how they have woefully and intentionally misrepresented foreigners from lying about court proceedings. If you still think that EA/FM won't sue someone what publishes details of exploits to obtain free gold within RR3 then I suggest you read this carefully as it explains the complaint that Epic games have raised against Yash Gosai and how all he did was to create a video of how to use an exploit, post it on YouTube and contest the DMCA takedown notice. If you read it and still don't understand that then it's probably wise to stay away from the whole subject of exploits or you might find yourself in the same boat. Don't say you weren't warned, and worth remembering that ignorance of the law is not a defence, in the UK at least.

So what is the upshot of all this? Well, on Saturday I decided to delete my profile here and step away from this toxic environment. The wiki has been invaluable to me over the years and I've tried very hard to put as much back as I've gotten out of it. It's a shame the people being disruptive can't be more constructive, read rather than just write and not get so defensive when they are wrong. Me? I'm never wrong, surely you've learnt that about me by now :-D.

I stepped down as admin here last year largely due to similar reasons. No one likes to be abused, physically or mentally, and I just didn't see the need to keep putting myself up there and taking the kind of crap being dished out. My only regret is this has put a bigger workload on the remaining team and now they will have to find someone to pick up the maintenance of the strategy pages and the gold blog (if there is a desire to continue it). Update 6.1 is likely to require a large investment of someones time as all the PR values are going to need to be checked (you can bet FM don't publish which ones get changed) and upgrade trees are going to need to be reviewed and revised. After that, someones going to have to review the whole strategy and see what the impact of the changes are on it. Good luck with that, I've done three wholesale updates of the strategy tables in the last year and they aren't easy. If the new victim wants some advice, I'm sure I'll be happy to help but I won't be doing it myself.

I will miss the interaction with people here that do add significantly to the content and do go out of their way to help people less experienced than themselves. We haven't always seen eye to eye but if you are doing more than just complaining about how life is unfair or how races are impossible then it is likely your contribution is appreciated. I won't name any of them specifically as there have been too many over the years. The ones that come here just to accuse people of cheating and write abusive comments should really take a long hard look at themselves but we all know that will never happen.

If I could lock this blog against comments then I would. If you feel the need to comment then please think once, twice and three times before doing so, it will just be literary masturbation as I won't be reading any of the comments. I can guarantee that someone won't be able to resist commenting and I'm willing to bet it will be one of those being abusive. Strange how, more often than not, those are anonymous.

In the words of one old timer who appears to be very quiet these days, Race on