Bill, I’ve stuck around for more than 9 years, through thick and thin, and through all the spinoff boards that have been created due to dramas over shit here at the Dope. I would hardly call my desire to find somewhere that I don’t have to open a new tab with a handy word list to reference, every time I feel like telling someone off in the Pit, “throwing in the towel”. The Pit for Og’s sake!
I love(d) this place. For heaven’s sake, I met my husband at a Dopefest! Most of the people are awesome, the forum subjects are typically interesting, and since it deserves mentioning twice, the people are mostly awesome.
For all the years I’ve hung in there, and for all the time and effort I have invested here, including making some very dear friends, deciding I’d had enough was definitely not something I did lightly. I’m not saying I’ll never peek in here, or feel inspired to throw my two cents in if I think I have something important to add, but it’s not going to be my primary hangout anymore. I simply don’t have the patience to check a “forbidden words” llst when I’m seething mad at someone and want to tell them to fuck off in what has, until now, been the appropriate forum.
I’m so glad you cleared THAT up. I’ve been cruising around unregistered debating joining and thinking “Hey, this place looks OK to me” but the whole “gently caress” and “poo poo” is 1000x more annoying than all of the Hi Opals in the world. I thought it was actually what people typed because they were forbidden from swearing! Now I’m even more apt to give them my $10 because it’s so annoying and I like it there otherwise.
Thanks for the link. I’ve been looking for other forums too and this one looks good so far. I was hesistent to check this thread because I figured it would be full of people arguing about how much better SD is then every other forum out there and no real suggestions.
I was a little surprised people would recommend Something Awful. The content is (usually) to juvenile for me. I guess it’s because you have to pay to post on that one too.
It really looks like the domebo.netis shaping up and growing quick. So far it has a good cross-section of posters though the GD group is very light. It is nice that the member listis available.
The avatar has been removed. It isn’t a guy in blackface (rather, it is, but not in the way an American would interpret it). It’s Papa Lazarou, a comedy character any British person would be able to identify. I suppose Americans, not knowing the character, would interpret it as something else, which is why I removed it.
Well. I’m not sure this secessionism is going to solve anything, and possibly achieve the opposite of what it’s trying to do (finding a substitute for this place). First, I’m not one of the people who think that the dope is the best message board ever, populated by the most cleverest people on Earth, and I’ve always had a few issues with this place (mostly related to the attitude of some members that the dope is the best message board ever, populated by the most cleverest people on Earth ;)).
That said, I’ve grown accustomed to this place. I enjoy my time here, and the debates I get into (even though I sometimes get ticked off at myself for getting ticked off at words on a screen). I’ve learned a lot of things. If we’re now all to jump from the ship some have proclaimed to be sinking because somebody left the tap open and made a puddle, what do we achieve? Well, some posters end up in place A, some in place B, and the rest are gonna be scattered across the net – and the sum of the constituent parts will end up being less than the whole.
I’ve seen this before – one message board I was part of basically split in two over some stupid disagreements, and now both new forums are utterly uninteresting to me, populated only by a few hardy ghosts still trapped there because of some eternally unfinished business.
I’d certainly live if this happened to the dope. But it’d be sad all the same.
So why not let’s just try and actually see how this whole thing’s gonna look once all the dust has settled? We can all still leave if we find it’s just no fun any more to post here. But leaving now all in a huff because of the violation of some sacred principles or whatever isn’t going to accomplish anything, at least IMO. It’ll certainly not help the dope or create genuine alternatives.
Me, I find the new rules as stupid as the next poster. But I’m not here primarily for the ability to tell people to fuck off.
It’s mostly an odd mixing of refugees from the former Internet Infidels, the newer Free Ratio, and the post-buyout Christian Forums, along with several from a couple of other boards.
The problem I’ve seen happen with the SDMB offshoot boards (I don’t track them all, so I don’t have a lot of cites handy, and in any case I don’t want to get into specifics so let’s just say that this is my impression) is that, after the initial flurry of excitement, they don’t have a built-in growth mechanism (e.g. the Straight Dope column which would bring people to the parent site after a google search) and so they eventually become stagnant. I do wish other boards well, but it seems that it’s hard to attract new members.
The Something Awful forums are very active but from my limited experience the moderation is more strict than here in some situations and more capricious in others. Also, to be honest, I find the bowdlerizing of language somewhat ridiculous (changing “shit” to “poo poo” when you’re not logged in?)
