I changed mine- it was tuba diva’s idea. She hated my old one (seal_clubber).
Most of the people here are incredible. I have seen Dopers take up a collection, to pay for a member’s plane fare to attend a funeral.
If you stick around long enough, you’ll see that this is one of the better boards on the internet.
That’s a low bar.
I realized that after I posted it. 
What I was thinking about specifically was General Questions. You really can ask anything there, no matter how simple, and for the most part you will receive helpful answers. On other boards, you would be blasted.
I think if a newbie at least tries to construct a post with correct spelling, punctuation, and paragraph breaks, and is not complete jerk, they find we’re pretty accommodating.
Oh, sure, GQ is great. But then, that same n00b wanders innocently into the Pit, is appalled, and exits stage left, forever.
So, don’t go in the Pit. I’ve been here 13 years, and I may have posted in the pit 15 or 20 times. If you’re going to dish it out in the Pit, you have to be able to stand up for yourself. Posting there is not a requirement of membership.
That’s why it’s suggested that new posters hang back a bit, until they know exactly what each forum is all about.
The Pit is basically like importing the YouTube comments sections into a normal Internet forum by choice. Crazy. Or it’s like 4chan, except with older members and more alcohol (I’m talking to you, Drunky).
Ellie…okay, this is difficult…
I have been in my share of message board cesspools. The ones that really stick out are DDRFreak (an ungodly mess), Improfanfic (absolutely brutal), and a couple old fansites. Don’t even get me started on GameFAQs, which has actually gotten worse since I left.
But for the most part, they’ve wised up. It’s incredible that it took so long, but message board moderators now look at out-of-control sociopathic behavior as a bad thing. Imagine that! Now they’re issuing warnings, sometimes even deleting posts, and really bad offenders even get banned! That’s right, this mentality, that trolls shouldn’t be allowed to run completely wild, is now normal! I know, wow, right?
Heck, even the supposedly horrible places like YouTube have fallen into line. Seriously, go there and actually read the comments sometime. There’s some pretty bad stuff, but it rarely gets egregious, and there’s a lot of informative or funny stuff as well. When a stupid meme does pop up, like that “don’t read this you fool, oops you read this now you have to spam it or you’ll die” crap, it gets stomped in fairly short order. I’ve honestly run up against no more than six truly awful people in the whole time I’ve been there. And if worst comes to worst, you can…get this…report posts, and, as an absolute last resort, block users! You’re not helpless! You can take out the trash!
So what about this board, then? Well, you need only look at my join date. I’ve been here longer than anywhere else, and I didn’t even blink when this place instituted subscriptions. It is totally worth it, because it got it right FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. It didn’t take ten years of flame wars and spamming and NSFW pictures and memes and bigoted ranting to convince the moderators here that human decency had to be enforced at gunpoint, they knew.
This is about the classiest, smartest, coolest message board site you will ever find. If this isn’t good enough for you, what is?
It sounds like you’ve had a rough patch. I did too, way back. Do what I did…take a break, enjoy the fresh air, think about what happened, and don’t dwell on it too much. And remember, nobody’s here to give you a hard time.
Oh, ah, in the future, if you’re going to raise accusations of bullying or jerkitude, it would help you lot if you gave us some specifics. Which thread, which person, which comment, why did it bother you? Devil’s in the details, as they say. (Not that we have any devils here. As far as I know, anyway.)
Does anyone know how I can change my intermail address?
She hasn’t posted since she clambered off her astronaut and admitted she was a sock so it’s probably safe to assume she ain’t coming back.
Besides, Post #14 covered all that.
I feel so ashamed. My heartless bullying has cost us the contributions of a first-rate lunatic.
Oh, well. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of those already!
Getting her to admit she’s a troll and a teenage boy would probably be asking for too much.
Oh, she’ll be back. Maybe just not under that name.
I have multiple hockey sweaters and a copy of Strange Brew. Are you suggesting I’m 2/3 Canadian?
Easy. Send your name, full address, phone number, drivers license state and number and social security number to the very next Nigerian Prince who requests your assistance.
I believe 3/5 is the accepted figure.
One word. Bengazi.
Well done.
What, you think I’d go to that much effort over a message board post? I’m supposed to be the sad one.
Great comeback.