3 words:

It's about time...

Ok, technically with the contraction it was 4 words, sue me...

It's about time, smack talk was supposed to be a place for some friendly bantor. not personal attacks.
I think the admin here let it go way to far and should have warned peeps and then banned them if they could not refrain from the childish personal attacks and inapropriate pics that were posted.
Is it really ok to post pics of handycapped people here? No. Saying that no handy capped people play trade wars is not a valid excuse for posting such hurtfull pics. What if your child was retarded, how would you feel if you saw that post?
I think some people here need to step up and be adults, admit they were wrong and appologize for their actions.

dont hold your breath

If you had a problem with the smack forum why didn't you opt out? Or "vote with your feet"?

Don't misunderstand me, I agree that some of the things being posted were out of line. However smack is smack. It is supposed to be an un-moderated section of the forums. Guests can't view Smack. The Admins have giving us all the option to have our individual access to the Smack area removed. No one is forcing you to read anything and potential new members are spared the idiocy.

Here's a typical classictw.com visit for me:

Click View New Posts,
Scan the list of new threads.
Oh look, there's a thread in Smack regarding the ICE tourney and tere's 3 new pages since my last visit.
---> I SKIP THE THREAD BECAUSE I ASSUME IT'S GOING TO BE MORE OF THE SAME BULLCRAP<---
I then proceed to click on the threads that are relevant to my interests. Sometimes they are in smack. Rarely the smack is amusing and entertaining. More often than not it's not even worth the mouse click. But at least we have the choice.

Now what do we have? We have an Open Discussion that God forbid you say anything that might be even slightly considered smack or your post will be deleted and you will be warned and eventually banned. How the eff do you visit a MULTI-PLAYER VIDEO GAME forum and not have some kind of smack talk? Show me a forum dedicated to ANY game and I would be very surprised to see the posts all being sunshine and rainbows. Unless of course that game forum is for Shoots and Ladders.

I find it incredibly amusing that the ones posting such blatant trash (ie knocking on people's sexual preferences etc) are also the same ones pushing a new forum. Lemme see if I got this right: Disrupt incumbent forums by acting like a complete and total douchebag. Get Smack section removed because of my unbelievably childish behavior and in doing so alienate a few more members of the community. Mass ICQ community a message about an awesome new forum for TW that is available to us as an alternative to the iron-fistediness of the current forums. PROFIT!

/steps off soap box

Smack talk is as much a part of the game as aty25000* is. The problem is that the messages sometimes go beyond the typical trash talk about how someone's game is, or about SDing someone who got careless. Personal attacks are not smack talk - they are used when someone reverts to a 3rd grade mentality.

Those that don't like to read smack talk know which forum contains it, and can simply choose not to read it. One bad thing is the impression it might give someone who is thinking about getting into the game. Probably not the attitudes that parents would want their younger children to be reading esp when some of the better players (skill) talk it (well, if player xyz talks that way, it must be "cool" to do). I don't know if there is an age filter for "smack talk" in addition to it being viewed only by registered users, but if it comes back, that might be something to think about.

Probably one of the things I dislike most is someone wanting to ban something because they don't like it even when they don't have to be exposed. Reminds me of sanctimonious people and Playboy magazine. If there is little interest, then whatever will cease to exist. Vote with your feet regarding something you don't like.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

Thanks Prom. You put what I wanted to say in a much more eloquent way.

I did opt out. Admin never did remove it for me, but yeah it's my fault for even going there.

I think it would be possible to make smack an "opt in"
forum instead of an opt-out forum. Perhaps that would
work better.

hey man, shoots and ladders is some serious %$#.

No one HAD to click the link to the smack talk forum.

You didn't have to be removed by an admin or anyone else from smack. It's a personal choice whether or not you, yourself, decided to click & read.

I didn't hear anyone complaining about aliens coming into there house, cutting off any eyelids and forcing anyone to read anything they didn't want to.

I think 'most' of the people who smacked away would not do the same if that person (that they were directing the insults towards) were standing in front of their face. Cause most are just hiding behind their screens and know they would pee their panties when faced with a Real confrontation.

I miss smack already.

over the years since i have played back and forth. i think as of late the smack was getting really bad.

i am happy for it to be gone. I think their does need to be something in it's place just a lot more toned down. (people in this game need an escape it seems.)

The last thread that was the straw that broke the camels back (so it seemed) was not smack but personal attacks on each other in a thread about a tournament. Rarely if ever can a thread in smack stay on track and seems to always turn personal. Will I miss it in it's current form... Nope, I felt it should have never been un-moderated but not my forum nor my rules. Biggest problem is a few people want to take to the next level and no one seems to know when or where to stop. I would like to see it back in place but definitely moderated with very clear rules to keep people in check so that maybe we can actually have smack instead of what it had recently become.

Reading smack was a nice little escape

I guess it's slightly different reading vs involved in personal attacks.

Smack is one of my most favorite forums. I'm a huge fan of freedom and silliness. My inner child is alive an well and having fun! I cannot tell you how many laughs I've had reading this forum this past year.

Smack or "flame-wars" have always been a part of this game.

Freedom goes both ways, you are free to post and you are just as free to read or NOT to read.

If one particular poster repeatedly leaves posts that don't appeal to you, make them a foe to block their posts. Life is so much more fun if I don't have to get irritated by immature or offensive posters.

I for one would like Smack back, unmoderated.

i think yall mighta missed it a bit. how to put this-
the theory was advanced that the forum administration was abusing their power. no evidence was provided, and the accusations escalated. technically, since smack was unmodded and ruleless, nothing 'wrong' had occurred. but it was a given that the forum could be closed at any time for any reason.
frankly, if i were the forum admins i would have done the same thing. lets look at any other game forum (like what everyone is saying we should do). go into 'random' game forum (make sure its the official forum, on the games home site)and trash the game and the forum mods/admins. provide no evidence but make accusations of dishonesty and underhanded behavior. stretch it to the game itself, say that the people who run the games are cheating, and see how long you are on said forum. try that on wow or tribal wars or travian. you get permabanned. way before things go where they did. all that happened here is that section of the forum is gone! for a dictatorship its surely benevolent...
personal attacks happen in any smack talk- basically smack is a personal attack. 'im better than you at this game because you suck, heres why'. saying that the game itself and the people running it are cheating is wholly different... and if smack comes back i expect some rules.