In the 40k universe one voice stands above the rest as the defender of non-competitive play that person is Andrew Sutton otherwise known as Stelek founder of the website Yes the Truth Hurts.
…this is his story.
As some of you may be aware of their has been some Internet drama caused my by harmless posts. Instead of boring you with more nerd rage from myself, I decided just to copy and paste some my favorite comments from the last week taken from Chainfist and Yes the Truth Hurts.
–Guest
Tasty needs to stop. This constant badgering of the competitive community as if they are somehow bad for the game is wearing on everyone’s patience.
He (you, Tasty, since you troll here) made a great impression on some people at Adepticon via in-person pleasantness, and then went on to do his silly adepticheat thing with the “OMG VIDEO OF TOP TABLE CHEATING!!!11” followed by … well, a forgetfulness and then 2 non-cheats … now he spends his free time harping on other peoples’ contributions around the web.
Stop it, Tasty. Please? The distaste over the approach started long ago when you made that BOLS post claiming the person existed who only played 40k to abuse power lists and beat kids at the local gaming store, when that type of person doesn’t exist at all. You’ve so cemented yourself in your thesis as if it’s a conclusion that you strawman people into whatever you need them to be.
In the immortal words of many before me … “come on.”
–AEROPLANE
This is not a defense of the BoK post. Do not take it as such. But,
Mafty has an extremely valid point – you do have an awfully one-sided view of things, and any criticism or even pointed, valid questions you receive are brushed off by you with alarming regularity.
There is no doubt that you have an extremely good knowledge of the game and a valid philosophy of how to build effective lists and play them. Many good things have been learned by many people who read this blog.
I guess the real problem that your detractors have with you (and some of your supporters, as well…) is this – you sometimes come off sounding like a Rush or Beck, in your tone and (seeming) attitude that you are beyond reproach. This would be strongly mitigated by being much more gracious in taking the abuse and vitriol that the intrawebs throws your way. Kill ’em with kindness. (because it really pisses them off!)
Instead of crying about the ‘attacks’ that you receive, you could try responding in an informative, intelligent, and interesting way addressing the aspect of the game that are under discussion. If you do, you win. If you continue what you have been doing, you will continue to seem like Rush or Beck to these people, further pissing them off, and setting yourself up for more ‘attacks’ like this.
Regardless, your blog is still damn interesting.
–Mafty
@Stelek: If you dont like the “venomous whining emo bullshit”. Why do you regularly post blogs about this stuff? There are weekly threads about others hating on you, if you dont care, then stop posting about them. You clearly do care, and in some masochistic way you enjoy these, almost as much as your sadism loves to rip into others (although I think you enjoy it back just as much). You enjoy it because it keeps you relevant and popular. The more people talk about you the more traffic the site gets, good or bad.
If you truly dont care, than stop posting these.
–Mathlete
Not really sure why, but my last post was deleted? All I said was that I find it funny that in a thread where stelek names and shames people who disagree with him, people say that you can disagree with stelek. and then deletes thier posts. is this irony? I think it is!
On BoK I said;
What we usually see on the internet is people who play certain armies giving advice on that army. This is the best model for advice; you play an army, you know what works on the table. The stelek model seems to be to give advice on everything; the argument is that while it’s easy to theorise about an army, it doesn’t always work out on the table top. So while you might be able to take his advice and frame it within your army, I imagine there are lots of people who don’t do this, and take all Stelek’s armys at face value, leading to lots of disapointed players.
I stand by this assesment of Stelek.
–Nick Tompkins
All I have to say is that I ahve never be censored on this blog and that is more then I can say about BOLS or this obcure shit blog about people playing a game for fluff…..
This is sad man that this is even an issue. What I find even more sad is that its the auston comunity wich has such a nice apeal to the gaming scene. I love warmachine and you guys are making it huge but your a business now on BOLS! They charge like $400 a week on ad space and this blog makes that in 2 months and isnt wanting it to be anymore then infforming the comunity about competative wargaming. READ THE BANNER the THINKING PLAYER part is the last statment. If im wrong I dont get all but hurt cause im not getting my way and I HAVE NEVER seen this happen on stelek. Co worker of mine is like I dont know about that guy he is a pompus ass and he said that over the fact that the way stelek comes across is very ridgid and fact based. But I read him and guess who asks me for list advice when we ahve a tourney pop up??
My point is this BOLS is gotten to the point that they are making money not friends. They are the very personification of allmost every texan “make money off EVERYTHING.’ Not that I care but im just very glad that this site is in existance and that stelek was able to allow me too see past your shitty lists on BOLS for about 2 years now. Thank you YTTH and screw off Mkerr I would make fun of your friends if they where idiots and I would only expect my firends to do the same too me. Just sad that you really are that deep into this mans life that you must attack him on so many levels. I hope that when you realize what a big waste of life you are really that you get a chance to do something better with your time…
–Guest
Oh. my. god!
All of the little Zombys and all of their little friends are here to comment on how we do not want to waste our time with non-game-related topics. This is probably the article with the longest comments section around here.Stelek posted it, the other side appeared on the stage to comment excessively (how do you spell that anyway?) just to be zerged into some kind of submission involving a debate that somehow compares the quality of fox commentators to comedycentral comedians.
And every five posts or so someone feels the sincere need to state the uselessness of the whole endeavour.
Let us face the truth and accept it wholeheartedly:
We love internet drama.
We really do.
Guys like Tastytaste are plain funny. Probably not in the way they want to be, but they are nonetheless.It is absolutely ok to have fun bashing someone / see someone fail at bashing someone / trying to weasle out of it afterwards. It is allowed, really!
But let us be honest about it.
-Momba
–MVBrandt
Hey, all you fucking dramatic tards. This is WARHAMMER FORTY THOUSAND. It’s OVER GLORIFIED RISK. SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Jesus Christ, Stelek sounding like a tard to YOUR ears shouldn’t be the public domain’s concern. Stelek – you sounding like a tard to THEM shouldn’t fucking bother you.
For the love of Mary you should go be a WoW guildmaster or something. The first lesson of guildmastering (or any position of spotlight) is NOT participating in the personal assasination back and forth.
You are ALL wasting peoples’ time, b/c we read the blogs for reasons OTHER than to see this bullshit.
Mkerr, Tasty, Stelek – stop it, on your blogs and elsewhere. It’s fucking tiresome.
–Stelek
Mark: Except he didn’t have a point. They’re just bitter because they’re full of shit, everyone knows it, and I’m not. What, you think having Mathlete and TT use my own words about their non-competitiveness or that I don’t do the things I say I do–makes what they are saying accurate, factual, or true? It’s bitches being bitches.
What goes around comes around? Really? Is this fucking high school? Can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen?
There’s no heat, and when people say ‘no, your mom’ when you say ‘your mom’, guess what? You already won that argument with the 5 year old.
That’s probably why I don’t really give a shit when the trollies post anything on their blogs, or here.
It’s entertaining, so long as I limit how often their made-up waaambulance emo-fest is allowed to show it’s stupid face, but that’s about it. Besides, I think MVB has a point.
Responding to morons does, in fact, make me a moron too.
–mafty
Wow this thread took off……..I dont get how or why YTTH zombyes (sorry, but you are), continually read and post in sites that are essentially based on the premise of refuting stelek and most things he says. Clearly the only thing you can be looking for is an argument, why else would you read this and comment? Unless of course you really dont buy what stelek says, and only act nice on his blog because he has a short temper and anything said that disagrees with him is “trolling” (yea….right). Otherwise you zombyes are simply looking to either back stelek up in the e-world to support your un-zombyness (which further supports it actually) and stir sh*t up, emailing everything thread to stelek so that eventually he will post it on YTTH and we can have a 100 post discussion over there about how Mkerr and TT are wrong. Everyones the same, its who has the louder voice, and fortunatly for stelek hes the biggest loudmouth Ive ever seen about plastic toys. Maybe this post will find its way onto his blog (even though hes made several posts about NOT posting these things anymore, he cant wait to post them again, and further say I wont post these anymore).
I think there was a point in time when stelek did offer useful advice (most of his eldar advice is good) and good sound lists (probably when he played and before he was banned from LGS), but now its just theory gaming all played out in his head.
–Schnitzel
I’ve been lurking around the blogosphere for some time now and have noticed this conflict between the two of you and never though anything of it. The whole banhammer bit seems extreme and rather petty, but then again this Stelek fellow comes off as a bit shady to me so I’m not all too surprised by it.
Having spent the last four years (aprox) of my life in the USMC I must admit I’ve met people like Stelek. Every one always has a story to tell, and it’s always a competition too. Stelek seems to suffer from little man syndrome (LMS) and has to flaunt his superiority in some form. This comes in the form of massive waves of blog posts. The sheer number he posts on a regular basis astounds me! I find it hard to believe he actually has time for anything else in his life aside from blogging and lurking the webs.
I find it pretty interesting how he knows “everything” about table top games and has more or less play tested every possible army build. Also, his gaming exploits and constant win streaks scream somethings amiss. These things take time, and quiet frankly, time in finite and I highly doubt he does, or has done, the things he claims. More than likely most of his knowledge and play tests come from lurking the webs and burrying his nose in codex’s playing “dream hammer”.Regardless of the questionable authenticity of Stelek, I must say he has made some good points from time to time. I’ve actually learned a few things from reading his blog to be honest. But still… He is no god of war gaming. He’s overly arrogant and rather petty.
And thats my two cents. Utter rubbish. 😛
–dOOd
TBH, I’m not surprised at all by this. TT was purposely trolling (his “disclaimer” essentially said it) and everyone was getting tired of the back and forth that was going nowhere.
Summary of the thread:
– Mkerr trying to call out Stelek
– Stelek saying he tends to remain anonymous
– Mathlete and Mafty saying zombYes are “yes” men
– zombYes showing proof that they aren’t “yes” men
– zombYes saying they don’t give a crap about if Stelek has whatever credentials or not because the site has helped their game (also, you don’t need to win a GT to be able to give good advice, so whether Stelek is truthful about his skill or not its rather irrelevant)–dOOd
One comment I was going to make before the server screwed up was after Mkerr said the stuff on the site was obvious to him that maybe he’s just a good enough player that he doesn’t need it. Things that are obvious to one person aren’t obvious to another. How many times have you seen someone playing a game and thought “why doesn’t he do blah blah blah?”.
Personally I wouldn’t have really thought of using LS Typhoons on my own for example. They’re expensive models for what you get ($36 CDN, which is $1 less than a rhino) so I never really cared about them. Now I’ve seen them seen in a few lists, thought about them, and I can see the advantages of using a fast vehicle with a long range weapon. It’s not something that I previously had models that could take advantage of it so its not something I had considered. Perhaps it would have been obvious to you, but as I said its not something I had seen before that site.
Also, as Brent said before, Stelek did say he would let you and TT post useful comments. Personally I think its just as well that you two were “banned” because otherwise that thread would have just kept on going and nothing would have accomplished except for maybe a bit more internet rage. Besides, Stelek did ask the community if they supported the bans (with the willingness to undo them if the community asked for it) and it seems that most people supported that bans with the idea that they would lead to less worthless internet drama.
–kelterran
See here’s the thing mkerr. I’ve been going to Chainfist, BOLS, and YTTH for quite a while now, and while you present yourself like you did nothing, I’m going to have to disagree. You post things without the cussing or anything, but you’re far from innocent either. Calling someone crazy all of the time gets really old, especially when you hijack threads that had nothing to do with that. Posting articles pointing out how stupid he is (you can say it isn’t personal, but your writing style says otherwise) gets old as well. Even posting why he isn’t a good game designer and how he doesn’t have any experience in that field – I mean c’mon, is it really that important to do? Yes, you baited him, but it definitely appears that it was in the full attempt to create a flame war. Unfortunately, I honestly lost a lot of respect for you when you started doing this, regardless of what intentions you had (defending friends, etc).
I don’t agree wholly with the ban, but in some ways I’m glad of it, because maybe you’ll actually focus on posting about the hobby and not trying to be rude toward other hobbyists. You do realize that you and Stelek both got into flame wars over little plastic space men, right? Spend your time and energy on improving the hobby, because you are quite good at it.
–mkerr
I don’t really have to go past the “Uh huh” post for that. You know the one where he called me a liar?
But here’s a few golden oldies:
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/08/john-vs… — this is a post between Andy and John where John pretty much summarizes my feelings for Stelek. He calls out his constant attacks on BOLS (not the article but the site in general)
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/03/thank-y… — calls me a dumbass in the first sentence here, lol.
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/09/mkerr-y… — this is an attack against me, not my article.
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/03/editori… — this one’s full of attacks on me, not my article.
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/11/no-not-… — he called me a tw@t in that one — and a few other choice names. That was one of the handful of times Stelek deleted comments where he called me really bad names (thanks to John stepping in).
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/03/oiy.html — this one is a pretty good one. He tosses moron and retard into the mix,
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/09/making-… — in this one he says that BOLS is a bad website that only prints crap — his attack on everything BOLS (except Goatboi) is pretty much nonstop. Not an attack on individiual articles, but the site (and authors) in general.
I could go on, but I think you can get a rough idea. I did a search for BOLS and Jwolf and Bushido and got lots more attacks on the site and them personally. Most of them were “don’t take this personally but everything you say, stand for and do is crap”.
I find that if you feel the need to start something with “don’t take this personally”, you are saying something that should be taken personally.
–slateblank
Why has no one since replied to this?
I have in the past stuck up for folks and their right to make a point that is at times controversial. I felt bad for Stelek during the whole miscarriage piece and spoke my mind against it. Having said that I did watch how over a sustained period of time Stelek continued to exhibit a very recognizable cycle of attack and alienation followed by aggressive defense of his attacks when challenged, followed by a “woe is me every one is out to get me” attitude when attacked back, finally followed by a retreat into self-introspection and plea for help.
I think it says something that his circle of friends has greatly diminished over the last few years and that most of his gamin group has turned against him. If he were truly offering so much to the group and helping out so much, then I can’t see them all turning on him.
We do him a diservice when we allow his attitude to remain unchecked and then apologize for it. When he show that he has broken his cycle and can enter his self-introspection mode and come out of it a better person as opposed to spewing vitriol then I’ll believe all of this he has changed etc…
–ProfessorCurly
While not… unfair, I do feel this is actually a bad move. Marketplace of ideas and all that – let them post what they want. It should be our responsibility to respond to tactical arguements, and ignore the drama inducing nonsense.
Doing this just stirs up more drama, and comes off as hypocritical. Free speech is something you’ve talked about several times, how you don’t ban people or censor dissenting opinions. Now you’ve given people a legitimate reason to say you’re full of crap.Whether or not said opinions were actually related to 40k or not.
So I recommend against the bans. Keep the open door policy and let people come in and spew forth whatever they want. Whether it be legitimate tactical difference, differing philosophies of list building or just someone stirring up drama. What I’d recommend instead is to encourage the ZombYes to ignore the trolling and address any legitimate points that are made.
And for you to do the same.
Seriously. If you must point out an article, simply link to it and tell us to discuss. Your posting style stirs up drama naturally. Your mission is much better served by things like your analysis on the Dragon’s Keep games. You think that most of the advice on BOLS/Dakka Dakka/Warseer/etc is crap. We get it. However sometimes it does seem like you’re shouting about how everyone else is bad. That isn’t helpful. Try picking out the things you agree with and focus on them.
But I digress. I don’t agree with the banning.
–Stelek
Curly: I’ve had it pointed out several times that I’m being subjected to a disinformation campaign, propogated by a few, with the apparent intent to lie about me enough that people swallow what is said whole. Go read the comments in those threads, here or there. See for yourself. It’s like Fox News. They create the drama, then they ‘report’ on it as if it was actual news. Since I don’t really want to be associated with drama based on ME, created by others with a distinct anti-YTTH agenda, I see no reason to allow it. It hurts the mission, doesn’t help it, when I’m spending an hour a day reading and writing emo kiddy nonsense. I can blog quality, or I can blog about bullshit.
I am also tired of watching the kiddies come in and get blasted by the ZombYe’s. This community isn’t about ‘we told the truth, now you get to come here and completely take over with your bullshit lies’. This place is about furthering the competitive state of 40k, not people being morons.
There are plenty of forums and small blogs for that. They can go there, and emo drama all they want.
The only ‘drama’ I want here is when someone cheated at a major event, or the event was a big failure for well many possible reasons.
That DOES advance the mission.
Does allowing nitwits to post the same useless shit every 2 weeks help any?
If people really think it’s helpful, post a comment. I’m all for democracy, so if you think I shouldn’t ban the idiots who have been trolling the blog for over a month, then you should say so.
–Stelek
Btw, if the trolling continues…Mafty and Mathlete will soon follow Mkerr and Tasty. The minute I think you are speaking for them here, you’re toast. You’ve done it in the past, well, almost every post is the same bullshit. But, I haven’t repeatedly told you to knock it off. Ok, well I have but you can convince me you can contribute.
They convinced me they can’t, so they won’t be allowed in the door.
It’s up to you to ban yourself.
I’ve got no problem with dissenting opinions, or speaking your mind.
Try to derail my mission, and I’ll have precisely none of that.
–ProfessorCurly
Well, one of the points that I’ve seen repeatedly from critics of Stelek is how whenever they post a ‘dissenting opinion’ they get shouted down/attacked/post deleted/etc. Whether or not the dissenting opinions are trolling attempts or legitimate opinions, that is the arguement that is made.
Spinning what they say, out of context of the rest of the comments, picking and choosing, or phrasing it properly, they can make it seem like their trolling/drama inducing attempts were actually just dissenting opinions. Or they can simply -say- they were posting dissenting opinions. People are horrible about “taking their word for it”.
Now they can say “See Stelek banned us for disagreeing with him. We were right about him thinking he is the greatest blah blah blah and calling everyone who disagrees stupid blah blah. We’re right about this, so we’re right about x, y, and z as well.”
Bad logic, yes. But it is something that people will agree with. “Oh you were right about this, so that means you’re probably right about that as well.”
–Messanger of Death
One thing that is bugging me is this BoLS crap. It isn’t their website… Mkerr is a writer while Tasty is a columnist. Goatboy is also a writer… yet his blog is actually in the links here. And Fritz is also a columnist… his blog is also got a link here.
I dislike BoLS “tactics” like everyone else. I find BoLS treatment of Stelek to be stupid. But to say they will be allowed to post once BoLS unbans Stelek just seems stupid. They may be able to voice their thoughts on the matter but are they directly responsible? To say they are guilty by association means that Fritz and Goatboy are also guilty by association.
To even go further than that Dave Taylor’s blog is in BoLS blog roll… should he also be considered guilty by association? What about Grey Death who is also a columnist? Both Dave and Aaron have contributed heaps to this community with their hobby advice.
Ban whoever you want Stelek but somehow linking it to BoLS just seems really stupid.
Messanger
–Brent
I don’t agree with the ban, but I also didn’t agree with the post.
Not Tasty’s, not yours.
On BoK, there were plenty of people posting comments critical of Tasty’s post, including but not limited to Sandwyrm, TKE, and me. I certainly wasn’t as voracious as the first two, but then I’ve given that up over the last year in favor of a more measured approach. As I said there, nobody likes the playground peacemaker.
I was stoked that you didn’t post a reply here, because isn’t that exactly what Tasty wanted? (Tasty has been far more Perez Hilton that Wolf Blitzer of late.) Instead, it just came 2 weeks late, interrupting what had been a string of fantastic, enjoyable articles.
I read the ‘Uh Huh’ thread, complete as it was with a combination of literary gems, playful allusions, and vitriolic attacks. That was the good stuff, rare though it was. Some of the comments were almost painfully stupid; even after reading one thread several times, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it – I want those neurons back, thank you.
After all of that, do we, any of us, think that anyone’s mind was changed? Please.
If there are attack dogs here, there are certainly those on Bell. JWolf’s recent article was hijacked pretty quickly by arguements and bad language. I voted on that the same way I voted on the ‘Uh Huh’ thread.
By NOT posting.
Mkerr said somewhere that veterans don’t benefit from YTTH; I completely disagree. I was a veteran, and a damn good one, who benefited, plugging up the gaps in my game by understanding some of the theory people use when crafting lists. This site is gold when that’s what it focuses on, and I believe it can expand its focus to other areas both tactical and strategic.
But I’ve never learned a thing from the fued between this site and Bell (or Dakka, or Warseer, and so on).
I’ve been an advocate of YTTH for almost a year now, long before it was cool to do so (is it cool? I’ll have to check…) but I’ve never felt the need to pick a side. Now I’m wondering if I’ll be banned for speaking my mind the way I’ve always done before.
Stelek, you’ve got the right to ban folks – I’m suggesting it might have been better to ban a topic first.
Brent
— Stelek
Mark: Except he didn’t have a point. They’re just bitter because they’re full of shit, everyone knows it, and I’m not. What, you think having Mathlete and TT use my own words about their non-competitiveness or that I don’t do the things I say I do–makes what they are saying accurate, factual, or true? It’s bitches being bitches.
What goes around comes around? Really? Is this fucking high school? Can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen?
There’s no heat, and when people say ‘no, your mom’ when you say ‘your mom’, guess what? You already won that argument with the 5 year old.
That’s probably why I don’t really give a shit when the trollies post anything on their blogs, or here.
It’s entertaining, so long as I limit how often their made-up waaambulance emo-fest is allowed to show it’s stupid face, but that’s about it. Besides, I think MVB has a point.
Responding to morons does, in fact, make me a moron too.
Disclaimer: Blood of Kittens has always been douchey so please do not put Blood of Kittens on any pedestal. Blood of Kittens has and will always be some what petty so don’t expect any change in behavior.