The deaf community has pretty much rebelled against being literate in the English language. They would rather be more literate in ASL rather than English. This is profoundly stupid to me since the primary language here in America is English.

There was a study on how fast to make Closed Captioning on TV go, and they found that 30% of deaf people were functionally illiterate. That number compared to 1% of hearing people that are functionally illiterate blows my mind. Considering the fact that there are more hearing people than deaf people, that just says that deaf people have a much higher illiteracy rate than hearing people.

Gallaudet university, which is supposedly the best university for deaf students has a much lower literacy rate than is required to graduate from any other college/university. One of the recent protests at Gallaudet university was that the students there are mad that they do not get credit for their English classes that don't meet college standards (English classes that are teaching Elementary and High school English.)

While I think that ASL is important in the deaf community for communication, I think that parents of deaf kids need to start taking more of an interest in making sure their kids know the nationally accepted language of where they live. In our case, that'd be English.

SourceForge is littered with ads. Why not whine about that? Those ads are actually there right now. Google's are hypothetical and in the future.

Even if they do throw some ads on the site, what's the big deal? Are you so far behind the times that you don't have AdBlock installed?

vi/emacs! kde/gnome! windows/linux/bsd! ford/chevy!

Something, anything but code/no-code! Even /. would have a tough time handling that flame war.

Most pencil-and-paper RPGs I'm familiar with have disclaimers already -- apart from covering their fleshy regions in case of litigation, it's also a good thing to show people who think playing "Mage: the Ascension" is going to make you kill people, go insane, be a Satanist, whatever -- the makers of the game don't want you to do those things either. Maybe EverQuest ought to consider these, on the game MOTD or packaging, it doesn't really matter. Two samples from White Wolf (I use them because to my knowledge, has never been sued, so is doing this of their own accord (or their lawyers', I suppose)):

Mage:the Ascension:
"The Disclaimer (As Always)
Mage: The Ascension is a game. It's a game about mature themes and difficult subjects. As such, it requires not only imagination but common sense. Common sense says that words in an imaginary game aren't supposed to be real. Common sense says that you don't try to do "magic spells" based on a creation derived entirely from someone else's imagination. Common sense says that you don't try to dig up agents of the supernatural just because of inspiration in some wholly fictional source. Common sense says that the game is just for fun, and that when it's over, it's time to put it away.

If you find yourself flying in the face of common sense, then put the book down, back away slowly and seek professional help.

For the rest of you, enjoy the unlimited possibilities of your imagination." (Mage Revised, (C)2000 White Wolf Game Studio)

And the shorter and sweeter version from "Exalted":
"The Disclaimer
Exalted is not really the secret history of the world. You cannot really cast spells. You should not hit your friends or loved ones with swords. This game is not intended to be played by people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality." (Exalted, (C)2001 White Wolf Game Studio)

Printing these doesn't cost much ink, but certainly makes their position clear. Maybe digital RPGs should take the hint from the paper ones.

--
Tinuviel
"Either I'm gonna kill her or I'm beginning to like her." -Han Solo