After a month’s thought on the matter, I have decided to renew. I do still enjoy the boards, especially GQ, and I do like to contribute when I have time.
I don’t agree with what Tubadiva did, but I can see why she did it. I’m still not sure why she was allowed to remain an administrator…I don’t think she should have been banned, mind you, since (as Scotticher has pointed out) it did happen off-board, but I think that if it were up to me, I’d have asked her to resign and go back to being a Charter Member. Obviously, it is not up to me, so we will just have to see if the administration of this board made the right decision. And I also hope, as Cicero does, that the administration listens to our concerns in these threads.
But for every thread like that there are 10 like this, where the mods let the thread run for pages with people spouting off their opinion and not being bothered to look for facts. When I signed up, I was scared to post incorrect information in “your” forum. Then it generally relaxed to “people can start with the annecdotes once the question was actually answered.” Now everybody jumps in with the annecdotes, and somebody may answer the question eventually.
The Pit’s basically been spoiled by Reeder. Now everybody thinks you can just link to a story and say “this is bad”. This place and GD never really held me, and IMHO just gets repetitive after a few years. Cafe Society holds promise, but as a parent of a toddler I never get to see anything first-run anyway.
So I’m gone for a while. I probably won’t come back as long as Tuba’s an admin, but that’s not the only reason why I’m not giving the board more of my money.
LordVor, maybe you just happened to post a bad example of your point, but in that thread someone answered the OP point by point in post #4. I just came back after a 3.5 year absence from the SDMB, and having that added perspective on the history, I agree with Roland Orzabal’s observation:
“It’s called a changeover. The movie goes on, and nobody in the audience has any idea.” -Fight Club
Thanks for the thought Spatial Rift 47, but that “item by item answer” was biased hogwash with no factual backing.
And I know that this too shall pass. Perhaps my feelings will change in the future. But right now I’ve lost respect for Tuba for not resigning (because it would have been best for the board), I’ve lost respect for Ed for trying to rewrite the privacy policy to state that what Tuba did would have been ok under the new privacy policy (even if he eventually recanted), and I lost respect for Dex a long time ago (Euty). Although opening a locked thread to yell at me and then relocking it didn’t help much in Dex’s case.
Every time I see one of their posts, or one of their decisions, I find myself automatically taking the other side, and I just don’t want to turn into “that guy” who’s always carping on the administration. So…thanks for all the fish.
I’ve already renewed. I’m really trying to wrap my head around the concept of leaving over Tuba-gate, but I can’t. It was a bad thing, but leaving over it? And leaving over the moderators, who are the best I’ve seen on any board anywhere?
I love this place. I love the people here, the subjects we discuss, the sympathetic ears that are always available. I love the intelligence, the incredibly broad knowledge base, everything. I can talk to people here that I wouldn’t have met in a million years. People from around the world, from all walks of life, with all professions and life stories. I could never say no to that.
So I don’t contribute that much and everything I know someone else knows better. So what? I get to read and learn. I’m staying this time, and unless the board takes a turn for the worse that is many orders of magnitude greater than the turn it has allegedly already taken, I’ll be staying next time too.
Damn. And I never sent a picture of me in a speedo. (See if you remember that thread.)
I renewed. I’ve never been a prolific poster, but I need this outlet. It keeps getting harder to tell when people at work are sucking up. That’s something I never worry about here.
As far as leaving over the moderators, I didn’t join because of them (except for maybe Chronos), so why would I leave because of them?
But I agree completely with nearly all of the criticisms listed here - we’re not treated as “paying customers”, TubaDiva should’ve gotten the axe, fora do become redundant after awhile, this place isn’t quite as (dignified/cool/intelligent) as it used to be.
What I really resent about the TubaDiva/StageManager incident is that it made me aware of the snark boards. We shouldn’t have been prohibited from discussing the incident here - this is a group of highly communicative people. Expecting us to just shut up & wait was unreasonable. So of course the conversation took place elsewhere. Only that elsewhere - it’s nasty. It’s everything that this place strives not to be. And knowing it exists casts an entirely different shade on the Dope. All of a sudden this place seems false. I hate that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for posting here.
Howsomever…
I agree with Roland, this too shall pass. I’ll get over my loss of naivete, new intelligent posters will join, and the dialogue will pick up again.
I’ll miss you guys who are leaving. I’ve enjoyed knowing you. Hope you come back.
Firstly it’s time consuming - time that I could more productively use.
Secondly the stuff I like talking about (football, marmite, Round the Horne, American Hair etc) is a very niche area on here and I can’t be arsed with most of the US posts (yes I know it’s a yank board but it used to be more cosmopolitan).
Thirdly the place is infested with up-their-own-arse lefties who are all about 20 years old. They get a bit shrill at times.
in fact the only thing i don’t give a toss about is TubaDiva outing that nonce.
It’s been a fun few years, but it’s no longer the place I joined way back then.
I was torn over this, but for various reasons I’m not renewing. I don’t expect to be missed much, since most of my posts are of the drive-by type, but the OP is asking for a comprehensive list, so…
I’ve finally decided not to renew - I don’t post much and I’m not going to pay just for the search function. There are other factors, but those are the main ones.
I hope it passes soon. In the meantime let me suggest the following. Gossip exists. Someone in your real life is gossiping about work and maybe about you. Someone at your church is gossiping about your church and maybe about you. It kind of sucks to learn what the specific gossip is, as is the case with these anonymous communities – it does kind of sap one’s enthusiasm. And it’s frustrating – the incoherent mix of the true, the false and the lies most often serves only to hide truth. But learning what the gossip is didn’t make it exist – it existed already. At some point, you just have to get past the fact that people are gossiping and move forward.
I don’t understand why, honestly. For one mistake she made everyone wants (to varying degrees) to string her up. But she’s done so many good and useful things. It’s not fair to weigh her on only one issue.
