I'm going on indefinite hiatus from the Dope

About This Message Board
1

I would have posted this in MPSIMS but since it is in direct response to the way this board has been managed and moderated lately, I figured it might go better here.

The last few years on the Dope have been fantastic and I have learned and grown so much getting to know everyone around here. I also did my best to contribute and share and meaningfully touch other people’s lives through the message boards. I felt like it was one of the absolute best things on the internet and up until recently, I often wondered how I ever got by without it. For the last couple years there have been entire days where I did nothing but read and post on the message boards here.

I’m posting this to let everyone know I’m going on indefinite hiatus, until I can reconcile how I feel about the way things have been run here recently with wanting to continue being here. I’m not sure if or when I’ll be coming back, but maybe I’ll feel better in a week, maybe in a year, maybe never.

After reading things like how Dex spoke directly to Giraffe, the way certain moderators handle their warnings and notes, how a certain sound mixing celebrity is now untouchable and unspeakable on these boards, how badly malware in the ads was handled a few months ago, to other decisions on how the board is to be run and moderated, I no longer feel very good about spending time here. It really has killed the magic, the respect, and the adoration I had for both the posters and the moderators/administrators.

I know I’ll be missing out on a lot, and perhaps I will still lurk from time to time.

Anyhow, I don’t expect anyone or anything to change on my account, but maybe some of y’all will reflect on your decisions the past few months and reassess how things are going. Maybe I will stop disagreeing so strongly with how things are run. And probably I’m just insane and I’m the only one feeling this way!

Either way, before anyone says it, I won’t let the door hit me on the way out. Thanks to everyone, posters, staff, and ex-staff who worked so hard to make the Dope what it is today.

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Don’t forget to write!

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I don’t think you’re the first, but most people left without saying anything, maybe without making a conscious decision. Certainly there was a large decline in activity after the password hacking.

4

Here’s hoping to hear from you after a while.

Regards,
Shodan

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Will be glad to hear from you again when you pop in. All the best :slight_smile:

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When come back, bring pie.

7

Well, drew, as one of the sane lefties around here, you’ll be missed. Hope to see you back soon.

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The problem with posts like this is that people come and go all the time. You look back at the older threads and very few of the people who were prominant back then are still so today. That’s the nature of MBs, and of life in general.

So the notion that any one person leaving the boards is some sort of big deal, such that the PTB would - or should - reconsider their approach because of this guy’s dissatisfaction, is a mistaken one.

No MB can be all things to all people. If it’s worth your while to stick around then stick around. If it’s not then don’t. If hordes of posters start dropping their membership, that might call for change. As long as it’s a few people here and there, then it won’t.

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In my experience, the people who have the most issues with the board moderation are the ones who have way too much invested here. Trust me – if you do what I do, and post sporadically, you’ll never even notice the mods.

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No way I’ll try to improve on what Fotheringay-Phipps just said. It might be helpful to use the wonderful ignore list if it’s other posters making you unhappy. Sadly, you can’t deal with the mods that way. :frowning:

To be totally honest, I have indeed missed some of the stalwarts who are no longer posting here. Many of them were banned and the ones that weren’t may have outstayed their welcomes. But what’s that old proverb about stepping into a river?

11

I’m glad you explaining why you’re leaving. And I’m sorry to see you go.

12

This definitely should be in Mundane and Pointless stuff nobody cares about.

13

Now see, those would be my reasons for leaving Houston.

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Bye Felicia.

15

Can I drive your car while you are gone? I have some errands to run. Oh, yeah, one more thing. I’ll need your credit card to fill up the tank regularly.

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Who’s Felicia? I thought drewtwo was a dude.

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I enjoy reading your posts and I hope you reconsider after some time. A message board is an imperfect system run by imperfect people who sometimes mess up. I think most of the mess-ups by mods do get corrected, understanding that there will always be some people unhappy no matter what the final result. I’m holding out hope we see an apology from Dex pretty soon. And as much as the malware and censoring of sound-mixing-guy threads sucked, there’s no good solution to those.

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When someone says that they’re leaving and you could really give two shits less that they are. Their name then becomes “felicia”, a random bitch…

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Well, obviously you must have cared enough to post. :rolleyes:
drewtwo99, I hope you’ll come back before long – in the mean time, feel free to pop in at the Long Neck Place. The drugs are pretty damned good over there.

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Hey, no one offered me any drugs!