Heavens, I thought I was the only one who felt this way. I miss a post for a few days and four pages of folks who don’t believe the sky is falling.
I bought steak and kidney pie.
Or not.
But I would like some Earl Grey. I’m coming down with a cold.
Steack and kidney pie you say?
Dons napkin
Indeed. But it’s nice that someone can say with authority what the hooplah is about, without having taken the time to find out.
Hey, Thanks
It’s okay now. Just had to umm… “Man-Up”, I think is the phrase?
I have had to re-think a lot of stuff in the past 8 months (Re-structure, rebuild, re-think, re-whatever) and now my life is a bit more “compartmentalized” (If it’s Monday afternoon at 4, then I must be on Warcraft with a beer and some pretzels - kinda thing)
Late at night: Well it’s the Dope - where my friends are.
And that’s kinda the way my life runs now, and when I began reading about the Pit, Ed not responding, and people wanting to leave… well, that made me feel threatened, made me feel like I might go to the computer one day and y’all wouldn’t be there, and I guess I kinda lost it, sorry.
When I wrote in another thread that I probably don’t relate to other Dopers as you guys do, that means this isn’t just a “message board” to me: it really is my family and I hurt when y’all hurt. That’s just the way I am - and no, I don’t wear a white glove on one hand for no apparent reason - even though I guess you could call me [whisper]sensitive[/whisper].
I just got overwhelmed, I reckon.
Going back to work tonight, taking care of my (IANAD) sick folks, and I’ll be happy as a pig in shit again.
Thanks for bein’ my Bro’s and Sis’s:D
Bill
I could say with authority that I am the Dalai Lama. That doesn’t mean I’m right.
I am the Dalai Lama. 
No no no!!! Steak and kidney… does this mean life as we know it will end?
(Actually had a steak and kidney pie from a take away today and it had kidney in it. Or a slow cockroach).
Ooops typo. Is me having steak and kidney pie a sign or the apocalypse or something? 
Heh- no. Just me highlighting another need for doom and gloom. <passes pie>
I get that you think we’re insufficiently alarmed at these developments – do you get that I think you’re overreacting? Regardless of which of these opinions, if either, is “right,” this thread has been declared a place for those of us who don’t think the sky is falling to gather. If you don’t wish to be a part of that, feel free to move along.
If this thread is a whoosh, then please ignore the rest of my post. If not, then you might want to ponder this a little while:
I have no investment in any of the fora, least of all the Pit. However, I think this thread is ill advised.
Imagine you live in number 47, and you have no swimming pool. You would like a pool one day, but it’ll just have to wait. Next door in number 49 are a bunch of kids who have a pool, and they play in their pool every day, splashing and generally having a good time. No one has slipped, drowned, or ever gotten hurt due to the splashing. The splashing and general frivolity has never bothered anyone in the neighbourhood, including yourself.
One day the town council announces, that for no particular reason, splashing in pools is forbidden. You can keep your pool, but you have to swim without splashing.
Your neighbours object. Other neighbours with pools object. But the council isn’t budging. The message is clear - if you splash, your pool gets filled in.
The objections become more vocal, eggs are thrown, placards are made. Cops are called, placards are torn up, jails are filled. Still no budging.
From the outside, all the frothing makes no sense. In fact, it’s quite entertaining. Woo woo cars tend to have that effect on people, they get the blood pumping. So you invite all the neighbours without pools to come and watch the next round of skull cracking and general mayhem.
Lawn chairs are drawn in a circle, and you all point and laugh. Your pool neighbours, fresh out of lock up, see you laughing. You are taken off their christmas card lists.
Nice.
And then, one day, the council announces an arbitrary post limit in MPSIMS. When you hit 5000 posts, they declare, you will be charged $1 per post thereafter. After all, someone has to pay for all the pools being filled in with rubble.
Were y’all waitin’ on me for this one?
Okay.
“Hello Dalai!”
Q
Oh no, I understood your point, and also do not feel that you’re insufficiently alarmed. It’s absolutely your prerogative to care as little as you like. I merely wanted to point out your misrepresentation of the arguments, which I felt was doing everyone a disservice. I’ll admit that my post may have been a bit snarky, and for that I apologize. I guess the condescension I read into your description set me off.
Now, I’ve got a nice bottle of Bruichladdich Fifteen if anyone’d like a snifter.
There are multiple threads available for those who wish to discuss what the implications of the recent rules changes might be for the future of the Boards.
This thread is not such a place.
And I really can’t say much more than that without starting to get into a discussion about the implications of the rules changes, which I choose not to do, esp. in this particular thread, which I started with the intention of creating a refuge from those discussions.
Here, have an orange-cranberry muffin.
Done. And thanks for the muffin.
clinks tea mug against snifter
Cheers!
I’m just playing Oblivion and checking back for a couple minutes. It’s time to make some lemonade. I really am doing this. Now I’m going back to hacking Goblin and thieves.
I’m home sick today - stooopit bug that’s working its way around work has caught me. Thankfully, the coughing is less than yesterday, but the snurffly nose is worse than ever. So a steaming cup of tea would be just the thing, I think. And I’m going to settle myself in a comfy recliner with my basket o’yarn fragments and continue crafting my patchwork lapghan.
Anyone who feels the need to massage my feet is more than welcome to have a go at it. Just stay clear of the space between my tissues and the trash can - I intend to fill it before the day is done…
<snurffle>
FOUR PAGES AND NO FOOD FIGHT?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? THE SDMB IS FALLING APART!! OUR VIRTUAL WORLD IS COMING TO AN END AND YOU ARE JUST SITTING HERE?!?!?!
Oh - is that cake?
Regards,
Shodan
(Sorry twix, I can’t resist)
Imagine you work in a busy mall. Hot Topic opens a store, and a local extremely conservative church gathers its people to protest the new store. For a couple of weeks you see people outside the mall carrying placards and telling anyone who will listen that the mall has become a den of iniquity and to not shop there for fear of your mortal soul. Then the protestors stop coming, and the mall is as busy as before. Then an earring store is opened and the protestors try again. Then a movie theater opens and the protestors come back yet again. All through this, the mall never gets any less busy.
(Until the economy tanks and half the stores close, whereupon the protestors claim victory).
We’ve survived Melingate, Handy and Satan’s banning. We’ve survived numerous changes to board rules. We’ve survived the Winter of our Missed Content. We’ve survived trolls too numerous to mention, and well-liked members doing stunts to stupid to mention. We’ve survived pay-to-play and ads. Every time, there has been some people claiming that the boards were DOOMED and would never be the same again. Guess what? The boards survived.
Yes, there have been people who I liked who left the boards, and I wish I still knew them. I’ve also seen quite a few assholes leave (or get kicked out) because they considered it their god-given right to do whatever they wanted to no matter what the rules said. I’ve also seen places that didn’t have or enforce rules shudder. Trust me, rules are a GOOD thing.
The board will survive and prosper, or it will not prosper. Just because a group is loud and aggressive does not mean that the board should be run to their specifications.
While I was at the mall, I got a couple of nice big boxes of fresh Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. Anybody want one?