[WikiEN-l] No joy in Maddenville, part 3

[Daniel R. Tobias]

[continued from my earlier part]

After much infighting, and several further attempts to enforce the 
BADTOWNS proposal (such as against a town of movie makers and a town 
of science fiction writers and editors which happened to be the 
originating places of critiques of somebody in Maddenville that 
injured the target's tender sensibilities), the proposal was 
universally regarded as having been defeated, and even its most 
fervent proponents stopped pushing for it (but only after floating 
some more failed proposals such as one to send a traveling circus to 
invade towns they disliked and flood their streets with clowns).  
However, all was still not peaceful in Maddenville.

The people at Maddenville Review Village continued to attempt to 
disrupt Maddenville.  Most of them spent most of their time at 
harmless pursuits, just sitting around their own village blowing off 
steam by spouting about how Maddenville is evil and must be 
destroyed, and that somebody is very soon going to sue it into 
oblivion, or Congress will ban American football in favor of more 
civilized sports like soccer, or other preposterous theories. 
However, some of them continued to attempt to impose themselves on 
Maddenville, going into disguise and sneaking into the town to post 
their manifestos on the bulletin boards and other annoyances.  So, 
once again the officials decided it was time to Get Tough.

Soon, a group of highly-ranked citizens started devoting most of 
their efforts to seeking out and eliminating all traces of the banned 
former citizens.  Soon, anybody posting anything to the bulletin 
board that bore any resemblance to the ideas of any of the banned 
people was likely to get in trouble himself.  For instance, somebody 
once suggested that other sports had some good ideas about how to 
organize their playoff system and how to break ties in the league 
standings, and they might stand consideration for Maddenville 
football leagues; this was roundly shouted down as an idea that had 
been raised by a banned user as part of his insidious proposal to 
transform football into something entirely different, and the person 
making the current proposal was insinuated as being a likely 
confederate of this banned user and barely escaped being banned 
himself.  He remains distrusted by the town leadership to this day, 
and so are the other citizens who spoke up in his behalf and 
prevented his banning.

More bannings followed, and "newbies" entering the town were likely 
to get bitten if they transgressed any of a number of codes of 
behavior designed to avoid all taint of the banned people.  The 
overall attitude of the people gradually deteriorated, and somebody 
even posted a humorous statement to the bulletin board to the effect 
that "Floggings will continue until morale improves", but it was 
swiftly removed by constables who disliked anything humorous as 
detracting from the seriousness of the situation.  Anybody who 
objected to the atmosphere was informed that it was all the fault of 
the evil MRV trolls, and if they tried to claim that the Maddenville 
constables bore any responsibility, they were roundly attacked, 
referred to as likely to be in league with the trolls themselves, and 
told to quit wasting time on politics and go play football.  
Ironically, the people who said this usually had not played any 
football themselves in a long time, and weren't even watching very 
much football as they were devoting all their time and energy to 
pursuing banned people, banning more people, warning the rest of the 
public to keep them in line, and writing essays defending their 
attitude.  The only reason any football continued to be played was 
that there was some influx of newcomers who were actually interested 
in the sport, although this influx was much smaller than it had been 
in days gone by.

Some people became concerned that there was a double standard.  
Certain well-connected people like the star quarterback and a well-
liked sportswriter had a blank check to insult anybody else they 
wanted (calling them a "MRV troll" was a popular insult, even if the 
person targeted had no actual connection with the other village), 
while less-well-connected folks were held strictly to a policy 
against saying anything nasty.  In a debate about whether it was 
desirable to go for it on fourth down at the 50 yard line or punt, 
the advocate of punting was found to be in league with a banned 
former player and was banned himself, and thus it was decreed that 
all teams must go for it on fourth down in such a situation or else 
be judged as also in league with the banned user.  This cramped the 
strategy of games, but nobody dared to object.

What will become of Maddenville?  It's up to its citizens now!

-- 
== Dan ==
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