A little over a month ago I started a thread in the Pit regarding some news we had just gotten regarding my wife’s health. I was upset and needed to vent, and thought that posting to the board was a better alternative to kicking the cats and throwing things around the house, so I just started typing out how I felt. When I looked at what I had typed, it seemed better suited to the Pit than MPSIMS, so that’s where it went. I got a fair amount of support and suggestion posts - frankly, more than I had expected. But a number of Dopers jumped on the fact that I was blaming God for our troubles - which I admit I had in effect invited by the title of the thread (a Mark Twain quote referring to God as a malign thug). It made for interesting reading, particularly when the religious discussion turned into a flamewar which I half expected to generate its own Pit thread.
My point (which I’d better make before I forget it myself) is that while my intention in starting the thread was simply to let off steam, the manner and place where I did so probably affected the nature of the responses I got; at one point I found myself wondering what sort of response there would have been had I posted the same thing (probably edited for language) in MPSIMS.
And on the subject of the OP, as a result of that thread I felt a little more like part of a community than I had been up to that point.