Not that I’m leaving, or that anyone would care if I did, but it seems a lot of people are genuinely considering this in light of the decisions regarding the pit.
It seems like this then might be the best opportunity to say thank you to everyone here. In the time I’ve hung at this place I’ve learnt an amazing array of things from you all - and also became a lot closer to a lot of people then they know or are to me. Unfortunately my poor memory leads to a lot of the facts being forgotten but some things did/do stick. I think many of my ‘teachers’ have already long gone so my thanks here is already late, but to those who remain and are currently reading this, I truly do appreciate all the time you’ve put in. Whether you’re that random poster whose short anonymous line thrown in a long and winding thread made me instantly burst out laughing, or the poster who comes up with curiously intriguing threads, or one of those insanely knowledgable posters who long suffer the ignorance of the masses and tirelessly try to make their knowledge understandable, or the poster who draws the courage to put their all-too-human story out there for others to learn from, and so many others I won’t describe for fear of making this sentence incomprehensible; I thank you as truly as possible.
I do hope that people reconsider, maybe take a few days off and think about whether it’s worth leaving here just because your ability to insult each other has been blunted. I may be a little weird… okay okay there’s no maybe in it, but sometimes it did bother me that people would be so angry with each other on a message board. The first few times I poked my mouse in the pit, I felt like I’d opened a door into a room where a gathering of people I thought I knew had gone demented and were screaming and cursing and generally trying to choke the life from each other. I didn’t like it, and didn’t go there often. My m.o. at this board is to start at GQ and work my way down the forums, but depending on the time available to me I often skipped the mundane and bbq boards. I have made a few posts in the pit, but (and this is almost embarrassing) I think they all fell within the new guidelines. I’ve never felt that degree of anger toward any poster here; towards their views yes, and certainly I’ve wished a few times I could shake a person until they started making sense, but I could never bring myself to be so vitriolic towards a fellow doper. Perhaps this is where my lack of understanding comes in here - why people are so disgruntled with the new rules that they are willing to up and off. I don’t think it’s worth doing that at all.
If nobody ends up leaving that’s fine, this was just a big general thanks.
And then finally, I think people have let their views of the moderating here become a little clouded. I honestly don’t believe the mods here are bad, nor are the rules. I recently got banned from another forum after a disagreement with two ‘senior’ members and a mod that later got involved. My threads concerned were locked and later deleted, and I maintain that they (mods) made a mistake in the first place - I had not transgressed any rule - but they simply refused to back down and admit a mistake (at which point I told them to all go fuck themselves and let them have their pyhrric victory of a ban). I’ve seen evidence to the contrary here, people being unbanned, threads being allowed to continue (albeit with warnings) and so forth. I believe the moderation here is as fair, if not more so, than any other board I’ve been on. I also believe these new rules are to help them in this regard.
I sincerely hope that in light of the new rules, mods will be tolerant - at least until the lines are clear - and not get twitchy trigger fingers.
Well, what was that 2c gonna buy me anyway.
Thank you for letting me waste your time and thank you all again for the factual bits.
And the fish.
see ya