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

[G Donato]

Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> [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!
> 

I've commented on the first two parts and so feel the need to do so 
again. Unfortunately, this one has lost the analogy and is less 
humourous, in my opinion but you done well to take the time to do this 
in the first place.

- G Donato