Being a Gun Geek of limited social skills I spend a lot of time online. I’ve seen some pretty F%^&-ed Up stuff out there. Between the Commercial sites and the Porn Sites there is the Topic site. Sites where someone has taken the time end effort to put together a site about something or other that only maybe 15 people in the entire world care about. Many of these sites obviously were created and then abandoned. And haven’t been updated for years.
Chat Boards are different though; they are living entities, the Collective Conscience if you will, of its posting members. And as such they develop distinct personalities. I’ve been around and involved in many a board. Been Kicked off of one, (And I’m Damn Proud of that) been involved in flame wars that would send a lesser man screaming to a therapist, and generally debated, screamed and cursed my way across Cyberspace.
Today I logged on to a Website that I use to link to various boards and found that one of the links had been removed. I hardly ever posted on this board, mostly because of its “personality”. It is a board; “Run” buy a group of individuals. Any posting by a “Non-member” is ignored. Any one dissenting against the Group is swarmed by the Group, eventually labeled as unclean, and banned by the moderators as being a disruptive influence. It finally got so bad that the Webmaster of the linking site removed the link as being unbeneficial to his site. However, I went to the site often because it had really intelligent people on it, who were very knowledgeable about their topics and it was a good place to learn stuff, IF you could put up with their attitude. As “personalities” go it was the snotty know it all. Think Alex Baldwin with 60 years experience working at SAC or in the Pentagon.
Then I come to this site. I really like this site. This has got to be the biggest, most polite, and civil group of people I’ve seen. I have never seen a Death threat, No serious name-calling and when things go bad, the Mods come down on the Thread like the Wraith of God. Once when I objected to one of Oleg’s Posters it started off on a topic that I began to seriously object to. At one point the thread was locked then it was reopened. I could tell that the Mods were debating the nature of the thread in the background and a resolution was made. Although I didn’t agree with it, it was handled very well, and I admire the way the Mods reacted to my protest.
So the reason for this rambling missive is to express my appreciation for this board, and to the People and Moderators that make up its community. TFL has a “personality” that is both agreeable and someone that I like to invite to my house every night. So get a Shiner out of the fridge, get yourself a seat, and we’ll sit out on the porch and talk awhile.
Chat Boards are different though; they are living entities, the Collective Conscience if you will, of its posting members. And as such they develop distinct personalities. I’ve been around and involved in many a board. Been Kicked off of one, (And I’m Damn Proud of that) been involved in flame wars that would send a lesser man screaming to a therapist, and generally debated, screamed and cursed my way across Cyberspace.
Today I logged on to a Website that I use to link to various boards and found that one of the links had been removed. I hardly ever posted on this board, mostly because of its “personality”. It is a board; “Run” buy a group of individuals. Any posting by a “Non-member” is ignored. Any one dissenting against the Group is swarmed by the Group, eventually labeled as unclean, and banned by the moderators as being a disruptive influence. It finally got so bad that the Webmaster of the linking site removed the link as being unbeneficial to his site. However, I went to the site often because it had really intelligent people on it, who were very knowledgeable about their topics and it was a good place to learn stuff, IF you could put up with their attitude. As “personalities” go it was the snotty know it all. Think Alex Baldwin with 60 years experience working at SAC or in the Pentagon.
Then I come to this site. I really like this site. This has got to be the biggest, most polite, and civil group of people I’ve seen. I have never seen a Death threat, No serious name-calling and when things go bad, the Mods come down on the Thread like the Wraith of God. Once when I objected to one of Oleg’s Posters it started off on a topic that I began to seriously object to. At one point the thread was locked then it was reopened. I could tell that the Mods were debating the nature of the thread in the background and a resolution was made. Although I didn’t agree with it, it was handled very well, and I admire the way the Mods reacted to my protest.
So the reason for this rambling missive is to express my appreciation for this board, and to the People and Moderators that make up its community. TFL has a “personality” that is both agreeable and someone that I like to invite to my house every night. So get a Shiner out of the fridge, get yourself a seat, and we’ll sit out on the porch and talk awhile.
