Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it isn’t.
I’m not a long time poster, but I’ve been around long enough to observe the regular (US) summer invasions and most of the recurring trolls.
Something has happened to us as a community since “the crash”, or perhaps I’m “romancing” when I recall that during the days when we were using the temp board and couldn’t rely on swear words to convey our points we still - somehow - managed to make our opinions on various issues known.
It seems to me - and as an “old” person, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of my recollections - that in the initial weeks which followed the “winter of lost content” we were just a little kinder to each other because we had all realised just what it meant to have a forum in which you could openly disagree with another person and in which you could could come to understand (but not necessarily agree) the opinions of another poster.
Those first few giddy weeks after the boards came back up were “magic”. We realised just how much it meant to us that we get to interact here with people who old different opinions.
We learnt to have a “Pit” which didn’t involve swearing. We learnt to have Great Debates in which every second word wasn’t “cite?”.
“The Crash™” brought out the best qualities of our community. We were SO grateful to even get “our” board back, let alone to get it back and working relatively fast.
You BET that it annoys the shit out of me (33.6k dialup) that the “new, improved” software means that I can’t even load a thread, let alone respond to a thread which in which I’ve already posted.
In the “Autumn” which followed the “winter of lost content”, many of us learned to appreciate the value of having people in our lives who challenged our pre-conceived notions.
It’s pretty sad that it’s taken us only a few months to forget the examples which were set during that time (and the money which certain admins spent to ensure that the community did not die).
We so missed this community when it was absent, and yet we - collectively - seem to have abused it in spades after the first couple of weeks of it being revived.
I’m no less guilty than anyone else of this behaviour. It’s just that now - finally - I understand why the CR wouldn’t throw so much as $1 in the direction of this messageboard.
re *it’s not the clique, it’s the cabal[i/] prise