Facebook wargaming groups, useful tools or utter crap?

We are living in the XXI century. Instant communication is with us, and there are infinite tools that a wargamer could use. discussion forums (to many to count or name), instant messaging, dedicated sites (BGG or CSW for example), yahoo groups... and Facebook. In the past few years I have joined several of these. Definitely they were a sign wargaming in all its form was healthy and increased communications was just helping the hobby... or so I thought.

Everyone reading these pages knows I am critical of the BGG wargaming areas for several elements, but what BGG undeniably provides is a place to see games before buying. Even if plenty of the posters seems to be part of idiots' brigade or simply of the 'adding nothing to the conversation' crowd (or the dreaded, I just say something completely unrelated often to tell you how good is my favorite game bunch...), the fact remains that BGG is a depository of images of unrivaled scope.

CSW not only keep you posted on the news, but usually provided informed discussion on the games.

And then there is Facebook. There there are several groups, from company operate or supported ones designed to support the operations of a specific manufacturer (a great one is Rubicon Models, but also a small companuy like Heroic and Ros has an useful facebook presence), to group dedicated to specific rules (Battlegroup or VG fleet series sprang to my mind), to generalist groups like 'Wargamers' or 'Naval Wargames'. 

Specialist groups are certainly useful. They provide a quick way to contact manufacturers or publishers, to get up to date news, and sometime to be informed of troubles. In small companies often the latter is crucial. Also, because the subject matter is relatively limited, they provide an useful space to discuss specific topics. In this case groups are certainly useful.

But what about the generalist ones? I have reached the conclusion that they are utter crap. Part of the crappiness come straight form Facebook. Yes Facebook gives you a space for photos and files, but the rest is just an unorganized continuous stream of post that are utterly unrelated, and often completely irrelevant to the reader, at times even to wargaming in general. It is difficult to find useful information  in the midst of unorganized posts. Reading them all... well it is usually impossible. The few useful announcements from companies are usually lost in the background noise. And then there are countless posts that fit better in international news group.  Then posting repetition between groups. I understand people want to get their message (often when it is relating to a new game...) across multiple groups to maximize audience, but if you are member of several groups receiving countless of the same notification could be annoying.

Then there is a big issue in the intrinsic nature of a generalist group covering a largely undefined hobby. What a wargame is? Peter Perla and Phil Sabin have proposed specific academic definition, but then people playing Risk and Twilight Struggle are calling them wargames. People says Call of Duty is a wargame. Now do not get me wrong. Risk and Twilight Struggle are not in the similar games. Their only similitude is that they have a board, and that they are called wargames by people who do not understand what a wargame is. Said that they are completely different animals. I can argue that TS is a bad model of the Cold War first, and spread out bad history second, but is a complex and successful GAME in its own. Just is not a wargame. The same is true for Call of Duty. But when you have people arguing about this around you... warning bells rang. Are the members of 'Wargamers' wargamers at all? I am not just saying I do not like mr. X, mr. Y is an idiot, and so on... I am more debating on the idea that we are part of the same hobby, playing related games, and, more importantly, I can derive some utility liaising or linking with them. If the subject of a group is so undefined that is not recognizable anymore, its utility as a forum for discussion is severely reduced. 

As an example people like Professor Rex Brynnen use group like Wargamers for their own polemics and rants. Beside the fact that  I am not impressed by his use of conflict simulations or his ideas at all; that I think it is one of the negative beacons in professional wargaming; that  I also think he has a badly disguise contempt for commercial wargaming in general.  I bascially do not go to a facebook hobby group for reading professional rants. While I am happy that my job and my main hobby are focused on the same subject, military history, I am also happy to avoid a complete overlapping of the two.  Yet Brynnen  posts on Wargamers group about his own professional activity, and often the posts and the subsequent comments end up in sterile political rants... on both sides. There is a reason why I use wargames as teaching and analytical aids but I am leery to get too involved in the professional conflict simulation community... 

Okay this could be professional hate, but it is also a clear example of the fact that a generalist group like Wargamers has no real usefulness, there is so much going on, that, coupled with the inherent limitations of the platform, make the group itself a waste of time.


Finally there is the issue of the people in general. Do I really care to be in contact with every wargamer in the world?  Frankly no... especially considering that some of them are not wargamers at all. Do I care to receive notification for every utterly irrelevant idiocy posted by someone somewhere in this globe? No.  Also do I care to participate in discussions where only drooling is allowed? Where only positive comments have to be posted in reply to any post, be it interesting, crap, irrelevant and so on? 

Few days ago someone posted pictures of 1/2400 1942 collection of Imperial Japanese Navy and US Navy ships. Well as I said on the H&R page some time ago, often I found that people buy expensive and well detailed GHQ models just to give them a crap paint job.  Judge for yourself...

And compare to 1/2400 or 1/3000 ships I posted here. There is also another issue. Look at the hybrid battleship in the center... it is an Ise class hybrid carrier. The problem here is that the conversion was done between 1943 and 1944. Not only she is a badly painted model, it is a ship not in existence in 1942 in that shape. Utter fail. Being on facebook I restrained to point out the fact the paint job was crap. But I pointed out that it was not a 1942 fleet. I was told that I was nut and bolt too many. Bloody fucking hell... you put a ship that was not in service in that form (and not a minor modification, a large scale conversion), and you say that it is just a minor detail. It is more akin the chap has no idea about the ships (in other words he is an idiot). but of course the politically correct crowd appeared raising and locking the flimsy shields of the 'be nice'. I added that not only it was historically wrong, not inaccurate just plain wrong... and the ships were also badly painted. Answer:

When I was one of the moderators for the Forumini we would not tolerate behavior like that.

Oh Well I am extremely happy to not have joined Forumini considering what kind of idiot they had in the moderators. I was also told I am an historian over a wargamer... okay I am a military historian, no problem, but I would remember the idiots' brigade this is historical wargaming nothing else. But I feel the word would be just lost on the idiots' brigade.  It is a sad reflection historical wargamers that in the end do not care about history.  And what is the purpose of a discussion group? Just drool... criticism is not allowed. It is a sad reflection of the state of the western world were we are no anymore allowed to voice legitimate opinions in the name of 'be nice.' I was told that if I was posting my own painting job on the internet criticism was something I had to be prepared for. That if I publish my wargame there will be negative opinion, and so on... Certainly other groups are more 'free wheeling' (like someone on the Fleet Series group that blanketed the whole production of Compass Games as 'shitty'), and I have seen heated but useful clashes on the 'Wargamers' group. But again in some groups it appears that criticism is not allowed.

Well, if one has the money to buy dozens of GHQ ships he could also bother to learn how to paint and what ships were present in a specific year, failure means that the individual is just an idiot.

Rant aside, the whole thing had made me thinking what I derive from having joined that specific group. I looked at my posts and comments... and realized I could have been deployed to Vulcan without an internet connection and I would not have felt any regret. Generalist wargaming groups are an utter waste of time. I realized I was turning off FB notification from these groups (also because these notifications are annoying to the point to be obsessive, facebook is not a communication tool, it is a marketing tool that use communication to drive you to their page and see the adverts. There is no point to be subjected to that for groups that hold just a marginal utility (if they hold any utility at all) for the hobby. I have turned off all possible notification from these two groups, and probably I will leave both of them soon. No need to waste time.

Generalist group on Facebook? Wrong platform, wrong community, and the perfect evidence that, just because we can link people, this is turning to be useful in any way.