"Meaningless Phrase" is a meaningless phrase.

[Mike_G]

"Meaningless phrase" has become a meaningless phrase.

Once used to indicate phrases that actually didn't mean anything, it has come to be applied to useful phrases that serve as convenient shorthand in debate, anchor points that allow us to discuss issue efficiently by use of term that we largely agree on the definitions of.

I blame college students who majored in pre-law or were on the debate team. They have become used to an environment where the are not trying to inform or seek consensus, but to undermine an opposing position, often not because they disagree with it, but because they have been assigned to the other team, either that of the client or by the debate moderator. and the simplest way to do that to to obfuscate that argument by fixating on terms, and by taking those terms to the further logical extreme to "prove" that they don't mean things.

[Cosi]

This thread was inevitable, but not necessary. These debates are stupid, and people should stop having or caring about them.

[Kurald Galain]

So when does ""Meaningless phrase" has become a meaningless phrase" become a meaningless phrase?

[Lord Raziere]

Nope, we're not meta enough. We have to go deeper.

"""Meaningless Phrase" is a meaningless phrase." is a meaningless phrase." is a meaningless phrase

I'm joking, but seriously yeah its tiring and dumb that people keep bandying about the concept of meaningless phrase to try and invalidate others arguments through semantics. Generally I stop caring for any debate where people start doing this or otherwise nitpicking the little details rather than discussing the actual issues that these phrases are supposed to help with. its enough to drive me back to my world of warcraft addiction or to play some other videogame, at least there I feel like I'm accomplishing something, rather than arguing in circles over increasingly abstract words in discussions that grow increasingly hair-splitting over the smallest stupidest thing.

[gkathellar]

I understand people's frustration, but bear in mind that the topics that are being referenced are troll topics. There is a formula to generating responses on GitP, and it goes, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, back it up with the semblance of an argument." This isn't some problem with the young'ns, it's a problem with the site culture.

[Cosi]

I understand people's frustration, but bear in mind that the topics that are being referenced are troll topics. There is a formula to generating responses on GitP, and it goes, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, back it up with the semblance of an argument." This isn't some problem with the young'ns, it's a problem with the site culture.

That's the formula for generating responses literally anywhere.

There are problems with the site culture, but "people argue with opinions they disagree with" is not one of them (or insofar as it is, it is not in any way localized to this site).

[Tanarii]

Egad, what have I done?

[Vitruviansquid]

I understand people's frustration, but bear in mind that the topics that are being referenced are troll topics. There is a formula to generating responses on GitP, and it goes, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, back it up with the semblance of an argument." This isn't some problem with the young'ns, it's a problem with the site culture.

These days, it's more like, "make statement challenging/supporting a consensus view, when it is challenged, seek to continually redefine the terms of the argument until you have been right all along. If others don't agree with the way you twist and stretch those definitions, accuse them of trolling."

[Tanarii]

The first thread, which I started, was straight up about me getting irritated and posting an overreaction / new thread as a result. Let me clear, I'm not proud of that.

What irritated me was seeing various posters repeatedly using a phrase saying it is what roleplaying games are about. In other words, people trying to project their play style as if it's a universal thing for all roleplaying games.

Edit: also, I'm totally aware that in doing so, I followed a time honored forum tactic of taking an argument and starting a new provocative thread title & OP about it. Like I said, not proud of that.

[Darth Ultron]

I don't get the meaning behind this thread. A meaningless phrase often employed in speech, but it's also popular with students who perhaps think that it makes their writing sound more academic by adding emphasis.

[Aliquid]

Damn, I was thinking of starting a “meaningless phrase” thread about something... now I can’t.

[Pronounceable]

yo dawg i herd you like clickbait so we clicked the bait on yo clickbait

[RFLS]

Life is meaningless. Death is inevitable. There is nothing but despair and regret.

Let Taco Bell be one of those regrets.

I think that's the OP for that img.

[gkathellar]

Life is meaningless. Death is inevitable. There is nothing but despair and regret.

Let Taco Bell be one of those regrets.

I think that's the OP for that img.

Naw, it comes from existential comics.

[Knaight]

This title is reminding me a little of "Ain't ain't a word, so I ain't going to use it". The very formulation of the phrase indicates the meaning of the term in the phrase, while simultaneously denying its presence.

I say this as one of the two people most involved in creating this current spate of threads*, which spun off from Tanarii claiming that collaborative storytelling was a meaningless phrase and me contesting it.

*I'm willing to claim second place specifically.

[RFLS]

Naw, it comes from existential comics.

Oh cool. Thank you.

[Mike_G]

This may have been a snarky, obnoxious way to respond, but the "meaningless phrase" threads are a huge pet peeve of mine.

"Colaborative storytelling" is not meaningless. It's a philosophy, and a way to describe RPGs, which may apply more to some games than others. You can dislike it, you can roll your eyes because you hear it too much, but it's not meaningless.

Mostly because WE ALL KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

A group of people all play characters and respond to plot arcs, which can be described a s a story. I absolutely can describe an RPG as improv with dice and you may hate that analogy, but you KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

"Sandbox" is not a meaningless term. We all know that it refers to a game where the players have a setting and can decide what they want to explore, rather tha meeting in a tavern and being hired to rescue the princess.

Yes, games exist on a spectrum from completely ad-libbed sandbox to completely railroaded dungeon crawls, but that in no way renders the term meaningless.

So stop making "meaningless" meaningless.

Just say you hate stuff.

It's ok. You can hate stuff.

But stop murdering my beloved language

[Faily]

This may have been a snarky, obnoxious way to respond, but the "meaningless phrase" threads are a huge pet peeve of mine.

"Colaborative storytelling" is not meaningless. It's a philosophy, and a way to describe RPGs, which may apply more to some games than others. You can dislike it, you can roll your eyes because you hear it too much, but it's not meaningless.

Mostly because WE ALL KNOW WHAT IT MEANS.

A group of people all play characters and respond to plot arcs, which can be described a s a story. I absolutely can describe an RPG as improv with dice and you may hate that analogy, but you KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

"Sandbox" is not a meaningless term. We all know that it refers to a game where the players have a setting and can decide what they want to explore, rather tha meeting in a tavern and being hired to rescue the princess.

Yes, games exist on a spectrum from completely ad-libbed sandbox to completely railroaded dungeon crawls, but that in no way renders the term meaningless.

So stop making "meaningless" meaningless.

Just say you hate stuff.

It's ok. You can hate stuff.

But stop murdering my beloved language

Here, sir, have an internet!

[Lord Raziere]

Just say you hate stuff.

It's ok. You can hate stuff.

But stop murdering my beloved language

I agree, I may be lowly scum who hates optimization, but I don't go around saying its meaningless. Optimization has meaning, I just hate the meaning it does have and wish I could play things without it screwing things up. Point is: If your going to hate something, be honest about it instead of going around being this jerk who tries to make things not mean anything, no one likes those people. Words have meaning, either agree to a meaning or acknowledge that there is no useful discussion to be had and just do something else. This goes for all words not just the ones here, there are a bunch of terms people think are meaningless these days just because they are overused and biased in opinion and that is wrong, they are not meaningless even if people use them inaccurately, and we should endeavor to acknowledge meaning beyond personal ones. Because if we only acknowledge personal meaning, there is no useful discussion.

[Tanarii]

If you want to comment on why you think you can tell me how I play the game when I tell you that's not how I play it, there's already a thread for that.

To be clear: the objection I had was to "roleplaying games are about collaborative storytelling". That's a universal statement. In that usage, either it's either untrue, or being used to mean something where I have no idea what the person claiming it means. Thus, meaningless.

[Mike_G]

If you want to comment on why you think you can tell me how I play the game when I tell you that's not how I play it, there's already a thread for that.

Nobody's doing that by using a phrase they think describes RPGs. And even if they were, that phrase wouldn't be meaningless.

Maybe it doesn't apply to your game. That's fine. Maybe you think somebody who says that applies to all games is wrong, which is fine.

But for the love of Gygax, stop trying to make words not mean things.

[Mike_G]

To be clear: the objection I had was to "roleplaying games are about collaborative storytelling". That's a universal statement. In that usage, either it's either untrue, or being used to mean something where I have no idea what the person claiming it means. Thus, meaningless.

But it's not.

I know exactly what it means. And I think you do as well, I just think you don't feel that it's accurate or at least not universally accurate.

Inaccurate does not equal meaningless.

[Tanarii]

But it's not.

I know exactly what it means. And I think you do as well, I just think you don't feel that it's accurate or at least not universally accurate.

Inaccurate does not equal meaningless.

No, I don't. Even less so since the thread in question.

As multiple people made clear in the other thread, which you appear not to have read in detail (and for which I don't blame you ), people gave many meanings for "collaborative storytelling". Some that are hugely broadened from anything I'd understood the term to mean and even from what you stated above. And many of which meanings I don't think are true statements themselves, since they were global claims to my behavior which I disagree that I do.

It's turns out "collaborative storytelling" is a great example of a phrase being tossed around without a particularly clear meaning. What people think it means varies quite a lot.

Whereas the statement "When I play roleplaying games, they are about collaborative storytelling" is definitely true statement for many people. But I still wouldn't know what they meant without clarification, specially now, given the variety of meanings people ascribe to the phrase.

[Mike_G]

Well, "collaborative" just means multiple people acting together and "Storytelling" means creating a narrative, so it's not much of leap to see how that can sound a lot like a bunch of guys around table playing fantasy characters going on an adventure.

We can disagree on the extent to which this applies to games, and we can nitpick any term to death, but the phrase means "multiple people working together creating a narrative" because English.

Ergo, having a meaning renders it not meaningless.

Again, because English.

[Vitruviansquid]

I think it is less a phrase being tossed around that has no meaning, and more that people never want to accept anyone else's definitions because that's inconvenient for winning an online argument.

The root of the problem is that we are on an online forum for discussing role-playing games. There isn't that much to talk about that's objectively true or false. You like your RPG's to be full of players making dramatic speeches about their character's feelings? Okay, that's fine. That's not objectively better or worse than someone who likes their RPGs to be full of rolling dice and adding up numbers, or any other styles.

But we're going to talk about which one's better because that's what this internet forum is for.

Now, it's never very rewarding, especially for these "debate team" types, or these people who are hugely emotionally invested in being thought of as the smartest person in any room, to leave an argument at "I prefer this style, you prefer that style, and that's all ok." So instead, people come up with these extremely convoluted ways to win the internet argument, like by turning to semantics.

People trying to control the terms of the argument is one of these ways to win the internet argument. You'll recognize who's not worth talking to in an internet forum by the fact that they are constantly trying to define terms to other people, constantly complaining that other people aren't using terms right, always protesting that people are misreading their posts without re-explaining what they mean. In the end, all the complexity they throw on a topic of discussion is not going deeper into the subject, it's just smoke and air designed to make them sound smart.

[Pronounceable]

ways to win the internet argument

Realtalk: Why'd you even be in an internet argument? You'd have to have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life to be wasting it on trying to convince random internet dwellers about a thing, because what do you even gain if you somehow, against all reason and experience, convince a random internet dweller on some sort of point? At any time, about any subject, you find yourself posting more than 3 times in any sort or argumentative manner, you've already lost.

[Steel Mirror]

Realtalk: Why'd you even be in an internet argument? You'd have to have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life to be wasting it on trying to convince random internet dwellers about a thing, because what do you even gain if you somehow, against all reason and experience, convince a random internet dweller on some sort of point? At any time, about any subject, you find yourself posting more than 3 times in any sort or argumentative manner, you've already lost.

This is something that I have a real disagreement with, and I'm going to spend the next 4 posts detailing why.

[vasilidor]

MOOOO!
sorry, got nothing really. this just seems so silly to me.

[Max_Killjoy]

People trying to control the terms of the argument is one of these ways to win the internet argument. You'll recognize who's not worth talking to in an internet forum by the fact that they are constantly trying to define terms to other people

Over the years I've become so allergic to the "but definitions!" thing that my gut response to any demand for definitions is "no".

It's almost always followed by some asinine bit of sophistry and logic-in-a-vacuum that "proves" they were "right" all along.

[Vitruviansquid]

Realtalk: Why'd you even be in an internet argument? You'd have to have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life to be wasting it on trying to convince random internet dwellers about a thing, because what do you even gain if you somehow, against all reason and experience, convince a random internet dweller on some sort of point? At any time, about any subject, you find yourself posting more than 3 times in any sort or argumentative manner, you've already lost.

I don't think argument's a bad thing in itself.

The problem is when the argument is conducted dishonestly, with semantics.