Sam, you just said everything I was going to say... probably better than I would have. :)

I've had 'fame' before. Before I came to RinkWorks - as several of you know - I used to run in another community and ran a very large, popular site in that community. (So did Ria, and all that I mention here happened to her as well, only I believe she had it a bit worse.) I was popular, my site was looked up to... and envied. Maybe too much. Hate mail and flames started coming more, and personal attacks. To this day, I don't exactly know WHY this happened, but it did happen. The breaking point was when they set up a hate site. That was enough for me, and I decided that 'fame' wasn't worth working on a site that, truth be told, had become boring for me. It wasn't my passion, and I wasn't willing to take that kind of punishment for something I didn't truly treasure. So I changed everything. Over the course of a year, my site became what it is now... a repository of the things I really love, my art and writing.

It's not half as popular as my other site was. But it has a dedicated group of visitors that I appreciate deeply. They're much better than thousands of faceless hits on a counter. And even though I don't have the massive 'audience' I used to, there are still people who look at my art and read my stories and poetry. And the ordeal from before has strengthened my defense against similar things. Without that experience, I believe I would have been devastated by the first attack against these things that REALLY matter to me. Now, I'm pratically impervious.

Um, the point of that was that I agree with all the stuff Sam said, and showing my own story, I guess. Yeah.

Sosiqui