Shred Global contest #3 (ends June 1st)

[C-Fan]

OK, it's now clear beyond doubt that you aren't serious about this. If you aren't going to do this for any meaningful stakes, then forget it. I'm not going to drop $80 on a pair of shoes I don't want/need just so you can continue calling me gay insults on the forums one month after I beat you.

Not that you had any credibility before this, but this thread should leave no doubt in anybody's mind. Way to pussy out when you got called out.

I'm done with this, and with you. Have fun insulting me in ensuing posts. It's clear to everybody now though that you were too scared to put anything at stake when asked to put your money where your mouth was. And in a challenge of your own design no less.

We've both been in the sport for 13 years now. I'm looking forward to continuing to play, continuing to improve, continuing to set goals and achieve them, and continuing to add to my list of achievements. I wish you the best of luck in doing the same.
-Ken

[Webslinger]

I do not like your attitude Ken, you should definitely keep the arrogance level a lot lower. It is clear that you kick better than Damon since he does not practise every day like you and has not been competing for ages.. That of course does not mean Damon should not be expressing his opinion about style and form.
So how would you like other players better than you challenging you to do some video battle to make you leave the forum? I guess you would not, would you?

[FlexThis]

Good luck to you! It's

I don't want to derail your achievements. $80 is a lot to pay for shoes. I get them free, so I understand.

Guess you are a better man than I, that's the risk I took challenging your form. My apologizes.

Guess I will make my exit

Thanks Honza, I am always the underdog to Ken, it will always be that way.

[C-Fan]

Honza: are you intentionally ignoring all context here?

So how would you like other players better than you challenging you to do some video battle to make you leave the forum? I guess you would not, would you?

If I made an unprovoked attack on a better player's form, and then proceeded to use gay insults against him, and continued to make insulting posts about his form (all of this completely unprovoked), then I'd think it completely reasonable for the better player to tell me to "put up or shut up." And if the better player gave me the choice to pick whatever contest I wanted and whatever shoeware, then even better.

Look, I know you get free nucleus shoes. That still doesn't give Damon the right to break forum rules and insult me out of nowhere. If somebody talks shit on my form and then crosses the line with insults, I have a right to ask them to stop. If they want to insult my form and think they have better form, I'll enter a contest that skews in their favor in order to make it stop.

And if you couldn't pick up on a theme here, I don't care whether you like my attitude or not. I'm not going to take arrogance advice from Honza Weber of all people.

[Webslinger]

Well, he did not call you gay and just said he did not like your osis.. hmm that must be very insulting I do not know why you start to attack me now, if I seem arrogant to you, I would be happy to hear why. But considering you are a teacher you should have different kind of behaviour for sure..

[C-Fan]

I haven't been a teacher in over 5 years.

Well, he did not call you gay.

Ah, I see. It's a language issue. In English, "being in the closet" is a way of saying somebody is gay. When somebody "comes out of the closet" they are announcing to the world they are gay. So in the two instances I quoted above, Damon is telling me to "go to the closet." In other words, he is insinuating that I am gay. There is no other possible interpretation of this.

And if you read carefully, you'll see that while Damon thinks my osis is bad, he also thought the same about Anssi's, etc. So my main beef wasn't him insulting my form, so much as him making gay insults about me, which was a clear violation of forum rules.

[Webslinger]

of course I know those expressions, but I would hardly say there is no other meaning and even if you would interpreted it in that way it was more than clear that was not the point...
Well, in case you felt offended just about this, you should have raised some official comlaint to the higher forum authorities instead of replying with that attitude..

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

This is a more mindless and useless thread than "Why Lavers?" posted by Magus a while back. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about, especially Damon since he sent him a free pair of Lavers.

Ken, I don't mean to insult you, but you seem very cocky about your skill level in footbag. I'm not one to talk, of course because I'm nowhere near you guys. You're damn right you're an excellent player, I saw it with my own eyes at Funtastiks. Jaw-dropping. You seemed like a nice guy in person, but I feel that trying to prove a point by intentionally challenging another player, who is also a great player but out of your skill level, simply for you to win and prove your point is WRONG. That's just not cool. I know you've told me off about "giving nicknames" to my footbag friends, which I thought came off cocky, as well. Settle your differences or not, it's up to you, but there's enough hate in the world. Footbag isn't about being the best... it's about passing time with friends and having as much fun as humanly possible. Props for being skilled and dedicated as hell, but don't let it get to your head...

In my opinion, even your signature "Ken Somolinos is a BEAST" sounds conceited.

[Frank_Sinatra]

The red means I'm posting this as a mod. GRRRRRRRR.

This thread has to be addressed by the mods due to the number of personal attacks and the fact that the flame war is spreading.

I will be cleaning up this thread to remove personal attacks and address the attacks with those involved. Further posts calling anybody out, picking any sides, insulting anyone, or continuing to argue are not helpful.

I am asking everyone to restrain themselves, even if they feel they have a really great point to make.

[C-Fan]

I will be cleaning up this thread to remove personal attacks and address the attacks with those involved. .

I suggest full copies of original posts be kept as a record in the mod forum. That would come in handy in the future when repeat violators break the same rules again, so you have something to refer to. I see that some posters in this thread have already started editing old posts to cover their tracks.

Nick: I'm sorry I embarrassed you in the Dragon Queen thread, that wasn't my intent at all and I'm sorry for that. This also may have been a cultural understanding, since you are very new to footbag. In footbag, the overwhelming majority of people with nicknames earned them. Everybody in BAP has a nickname, as do most Hall of Famers. Nicknames tend to be given by others after somebody has achieved something. Proclaiming your friend "Dragon Queen" after one day of her playing, and hitting 6 toe stalls, seemed premature to me.

[Frank_Sinatra]

I have copies of all of the removed posts and all of the edited posts, with one exception. All copies will be kept by the mod staff.

I have tried to clean this thread up by removing insults and personal attacks, and keep the discussion to the proposed contest as much as possible. At the same time, other members of modified have the right to post here and state their opinion, so while many of the posts on this page are off topic, I can not find a specific rule that would require them to be removed.

If someone has something related to this to communicate with me or other mods, PM us.

I suggest that if anyone feels they need to express anything about another person's personality, they find a way to do so respectfully, and do it over PMs. If this competition is not going to happen then there is no need to keep posting here. The mods do not want to lock threads unless all other options are exhausted.

[Ian Brill]

Not sure why everyone is hating on Ken. Damon's closet comments are bad news and he needed to be put in his place. This is unacceptable behavior.

Also, I can't see why Honza posted what he did. The only thing Ken is guilty of is responding to a troll. Both Ken and Honza have a right to be arrogant on this forum and in my opinion Ken's arrogance is far more curtailed than others', given his skill level.

[brianbear]

modified looks so immature sometimes :/
please act your age guys, you aren't a couple of 16 year olds here. and even the 16 year olds out there, please post responsibly

[Zac Miley]

If someone has something related to this to communicate with me or other mods, PM us.

I suggest that if anyone feels they need to express anything about another person's personality, they find a way to do so respectfully, and do it over PMs. If this competition is not going to happen then there is no need to keep posting here. The mods do not want to lock threads unless all other options are exhausted.

[Jeremy]

Also, I can't see why Honza posted what he did.

Because there's no logical pathway from "osis and gyro clipper are not the same trick, and gyro clipper doesn't suck" to the debate being solved by some kind of video competition. I don't know if Ken was just trying to make light of the situation, but it looked essentially like he was just saying; "I'm right because I have more skills than you," which is obviously a massive logical fallacy (argument from authority). Ken is right, but if he is an authority he should be able to explain why he's right through words. His ability to play footbag is not in any way an argument for his position. Damon said some immature and insulting things of course, which is typical for him. He also made some good points too.

I also think in general, although I don't see any point in commenting on the specifics here, that there is a big problem in the footbag community on a lack of serious critics of people's form, and I think that was one of the main points Honza was getting at. I have numerous massive form problems in my game, and they came about when I was learning my basics and people didn't tell me what I was doing wrong. It wasn't until I got to play with Ales Zelinka that I understood the problems and started working on them, and they are a lot better now, even though some aspects are still terrible. People are too sensitive about form, possible because the expressive nature of footbag makes it somewhat personal. If having your form criticised makes you feel bad, channel that feeling in to improving your form. Of course there are much better ways of putting forward opinions about people's form than the way Damon did.

[Zac Miley]

This thread is for the online competition that Ken proposed. If you're looking to discuss the PCness of critically analyzing form, please make another thread.

PS. Ken, I'll do the competition with you!

[Jeremy]

Why did you post that in red? There's nothing against off topic posts and it's clearly part of the natural progression of this topic. Almost every post in this topic is about why the topic came about, rather than the actual challenge. Even the first post discusses this.

[Tsiangkun]

So there isn't going to be a hack off ?

[C-Fan]

I don't know if Ken was just trying to make light of the situation, ...His ability to play footbag is not in any way an argument for his position.

For the twin purposes of clarity and closure:

1. My involvement in this whole thing began when I saw Damon making some odd claims about osis and gyro clipper in the DS thread. I thought it weird, because the arguments he was making seemed out of the mainstream, and yet he was presenting them as if they were accepted theory.
2. I decided to enter the debate, and put forth my arguments about osis v. gyro clipper, proper osis form, etc.
3. Before jumping in with my arguments, I decided to make a poll to see if Damon's views, which he presented as mainstream, were in fact held by anybody else. As of today, the corrected results are 22 to 3, showing the mainstream view to be that osis and gyro clipper are indeed separate tricks.
4. When Damon saw my poll, he felt attacked. I was really hoping that wouldn't happen, which is why I put a disclaimer in my original poll, but that apparently made things worse.
5. My first response to Damon after his initial attacks, was that I wanted to debate the question at hand rationally. It became clear by his responses that this wasn't going to happen.
6. Seeing that Damon wasn't going to let the actual debate occur rationally, and that the entire debate had devolved into a flamewar, I looked for a humorous solution to end it.
7. I proposed a video hackoff, a la Double Eliminathan. I was hoping the silliness of this type of solution would defuse Damon's inchoate rage. I gave him too much credit.
8. I obviously don't think playing ability is the way to solve a rational debate. I also don't think Damon is capable of rational debate. I figured that if he was going to make unprovoked insults about my form, and he really thought he could do better, then why not make him put his money where his mouth was? I let him frame the contest, and even specify the shoes I was to wear. Sure enough though, when it was clear that there'd be any stakes on the line, he backed down.

So there isn't going to be a hack off ?

I wouldn't let modified down like that. I'm PMing Zac Miley today to try and figure out the format and timeline of how we'll do our video hackoff.

[Zac Miley]

Why did you post that in red? There's nothing against off topic posts and it's clearly part of the natural progression of this topic. Almost every post in this topic is about why the topic came about, rather than the actual challenge. Even the first post discusses this.

Almost every post in this topic has been destructive. Letting the conversation continue is pointless. Like I said, if you really want to discuss how to properly criticize someone's form, please make another thread.

Can't wait, Ken.