It's not blatantly insulting. It's an ironic in-joke title that I thought we've all come to love. See, on Something Awful, there are Stupid Newbie avatars everywhere. And since Spoon has been attempting to channel his inner wanna-be goon self recently, I thought it would be fitting to give him that title. But I did ask his permission before hand. If he said "no, I'd rather not have that", I would have just removed the "I did a great thing".
"Stupid Newbie" is insulting on the face of it, though. How does that accord with his demand for "a fine title that acknowledges that I did something great"?
Unless the in-joke is what makes the "fine title", and the Something Awful reference is what is valued, moreso than the marker of HLP accomplishment. In which case, fair enough, and I retract what I said about the new title.
And thank you for proving my point about these titles. You had said,
Spoon's new title qualifies as such because it is a backhanded reference to his post. It can be read straight or read in the sense of a petty cry for attention. The particular interpretation is left for the reader, although I see now that the dual meaning is perhaps too subtle.
So its not a sincere title you've given him, its a backhanded one. How is anyone supposed to feel about that now? There's a twisted context to it that isn't apparent to anyone who knows that. (Also I know you said it could be taken as an olive branch but... really, after that line its very suspect what the true intention is.)
That's why these ironic titles are dumb and I'd rather see those go away.
I said as much in my
response to karajorma. It was a backhanded title because Spoon made a ****post. If he had made a regular request post, or if he had PMmed and asked for a title, I would have been much more favorably disposed.
And again, I'm in favor of re-emphasizing the original intent of custom titles, as I said
here. I'll freely admit that I haven't been as attentive in recent history to award titles based on merit and distinction. I haven't dropped the ball entirely, but my ratio of ironic titles to meritorious titles is probably about 3:1.
I think it would be worth tabling this discussion for now and revisiting it in a month with fresh eyes and calmer tones. ****posting is a terrible way to kick off a discussion, and it's led to mudslinging and rhetoric-slinging in most of the posts that followed.