Chatter Behind The Bike Shed, Evil in the Hobby?

Blog Post Warning. 

If you are the type who go red in the face and shout at your monitor whilst adding a zero to the end of your blood pressure, it may be a good idea to skip the first four or so paragraphs. 

Poor old Loki has been rather worked up over at Lokis Great Hall. What could have been a proud moment when a group of fellow wargamers want to use some of your painted work on their show's advertisements ends up being a lukewarm glass of vinegar.  Now what I find interesting is the comments posted by followers which seem to range between, chop off their nads with a rusty axe to it's all OK as they are wargamers and well maybe your son also rips off other peoples work. Of course the truth will be somewhere in between. Almost certainly close to the middle. 

It does beg the question though of  "Was it an intended miss use of one or more copyrighted images" or was it just plain lazy can't be bothered to find the person to attribute rights to? But consider the fact that the second is just the first dressed in it's Sunday clothes. Yes the irony of the fact I have used someone else's image above without seeking permission or supplying the authors details does not mitigate my point.

Andrew simply has the right to decide if he want's to be OK about it or upset. After all he is the one who the deed done to him. What gets me a bit wound up is the defenders of the guy/s in the wrong. At this point I am not really thinking of this instance as is just other hobby related rants that have gone off. Let's take it off topic and go with something my wife has seen on a Cross Stitch forum. 

Post 1. Will company X have another sale before Christmas?

Post 10. Yes they will, they are always having sales, no need to pay full price.

Post 11. People like YOU are ruining their business!

Post 14 WTF? Hope you die Bitch!!!!!

Post 584. Oh they have a 30% sale so fill your boots....   ;-)

OK this is not exact and has been exaggerated but not by as much as I would like it to have. My point here and it's with our hobby too. If some guys like a company and it gets heat from someone sometimes we tip the balance and go for it. Hell sometimes the company can really balls up and yet are seen by some as having done no wrong and the lengths we go to to cover the mistake with justification would make O.J. Simpson blush.

But are they Evil? Mostly no. It's not comfortable thinking that some of ours could actually be bad people. The fact is of course that some of us through the laws of physics must be. I stopped going to my old wargames club when the odd C word became a regular mid game explosion where the most obnoxious guy I have met in wargames would start to bellow and physically muscle up against his opponents when his warped view on the rules would be questioned. Was he evil? possibly, a Twat? Definably! I just had better things to do in an evening than have that going off in the same room as me.

I also had a guy call me a cheat after he lost a game of Settlers of Catan, it was during a competition and I was locked in another game trying to get another win for a chance of winning the competition (I came third) I cooling remarked that if he was still there at the end of my game I was going to throw him out of a window (2 floors up). Fortunately he left via the door or he WOULD have taken a short unsuccessful flying lesson. Was it him or me who was evil? Still not sure. 

Point is that most of us will have a handful of opponents that we can relate bad vibe games with, ASL has a larger percentage of face to face morons and keyboard warriors but also has some fantastically generous guys just like this sector of wargames.

I would go as far as to say that this hobby has quite simply far more saints than sinners and we are the richer for it. I also think you need the bad experiences to remind that your average experience is in fact a joy.