This isn't directed at you, BG -- this just seemed like the right place to post this.

Well, ok, the first part of this is directed at you. I said to you privately that I was "uncomfortable" with your post and couldn't "condone" it, but I couldn't condemn it either. Frankly, you had a good point, and while I can't blame anyone who took offense to your post, I think it's absurd that some took it so badly they wondered if they should up and LEAVE RINKWORKS FOREVER. Anybody who overreacts *to that extreme* whenever he or she is offended by the words of one single person here might as well get a head start and leave now, because as miraculously wonderful as the community here is, it's not perfect, as it is made up of imperfect individuals, and, guaranteed, this is not the last time there will be reason to take offense at something someone says here.

In this post, I like the line "I stand by everything I said in that post, but I shouldn't have said it the particular way I did." But I don't like that you are sorry you started this, because I am not.

(Here is where I start addressing everybody in general.) The truth of it is, BG was basically right. True, not all of you have been contributing to the problem, and some of you have even been combating it. However, for the past month or so, this forum has been the pits. So much so, that *I* didn't even want to read it. Quality went down, and quantity went up, and I was deleting posts like crazy and still not deleting enough. (The problem may have been a lot more conspicuous to me than others, since I don't ever miss deleted posts.) But check out what's happened ever since BG's post. The thread it started, plus several threads following that, have pretty much all been posts with substance, interesting and even challenging to read. Amidst the people being offended at BG, a few have thanked her, but, IMHO, not enough. Her words were not pleasant at all, and certainly we can all quibble about whether or not her harsh manner was necessary, but as far as I'm concerned it's all moot when the instant change of tide in post quality not only proves she was right but proves she was effective.

I have no idea if she meant to include me in the targets of her criticism, but when I read it, I took it that way, and in fact I considered myself more to blame than anyone here. This past month or two I've been sitting here griping to myself about how bad things have gotten, sometimes griping to others about it too, and I've not particularly been making attempts at starting quality conversation on my own. So I think her blanket criticism was *right* on the mark, in my case. She also brought to light something else I've been screwing up on. I've only half-heartedly been moderating the forum, and I got lax about deleting thoughtless posts. In that sense, I pretty much share the blame for every trifling thing that got posted here and left up. So I was certainly taken aback by BG's post, but I'm not leaving RinkWorks forever for it.

Now let me answer the inevitable questions that will result from my having taken a stand in this thread.

(1) This forum used to be fun. Why are joking, frivolous posts suddenly such a horrible thing?

They're not. Frivolous threads are perfectly welcome. You don't have to be a deep, revolutionary philosopher to post welcome material here. Nobody's complaining about "fun" posts. The problem is "thoughtless" posts. The forum isn't really for casual conversation. That's what RinkChat is for. The forum is for things of more enduring interest. That means you'll have to think for more than a nanosecond before posting something. If you have something funny to say, say it, but if you're just randomly being a goofball and hoping people will be amused by the fact that you don't make any sense or aren't saying anything anybody could possibly care about, stop yourself. Sometimes a good laugh is the absolute best possible thing. Just don't think you're going to manage a "good laugh" without some thought going into its construction. Consider RinkChat and the forum as different as chatting in person and writing letters (the paper kind). If what you have to say isn't worth the stamp or the trip to the post office, then maybe it's still worth saying on RinkChat, in a RinkChat memo, or in an email, but it's not worth posting to the forum. Rule of thumb: if you don't take any time to think about what you write, why would anyone want to take any time to read it? The bottom line, though, is that "humorous" is not the same as "thoughtless."

(2) Different people like different things. Just because recent threads haven't been to your liking doesn't mean the forum is going to hell in a handbasket.

We're not talking about personal tastes here. There are a lot of "good" threads that I have no personal interest in. But I like that they happen and that others enjoy them. The issue, as I previously made pretty clear, is a lack of thought going into things that get posted. This is not to say that EVERYTHING posted recently is braindead -- there have been a number of very nice threads amidst everything else -- just that, on *average*, the amount of time, effort, and consideration people put into what they say here has declined as of late.

So this is not an issue of personal taste unless your personal tastes lean toward "things that don't have thought behind them," in which case, too bad.

(3) You're showing abhorrent favoritism. If someone besides BG had posted this, you'd have reacted quite differently!

Probably, but not due to favoritism. As I already said in a post to Dagmar, a few months ago (I don't remember exactly when, but I think the "what do you most want in life, if everything plausible was possible?" thread was part of it) BG *did* make an active effort to turn the forum around by posting well-thought-out posts designed to encourage more worthwhile conversation. So, yes, I would indeed have reacted differently if someone else, who had not previously attempted to do exactly what she was accusing others of not doing, had made those same accusations.

One more distinction: BG has been here for an incredibly long time and has been a prolific poster here for most of that time. In keeping with a previous post of mine on the subject, someone who has invested a lot of time and effort in building this community and forging relationships and giving back as much as she's taken does, indeed, have more right to say such things than someone who just stumbled out of Google. A lot of other people here have similar or even greater prerogative, and I'd also accept a post like hers from a whole lot of people here with *less* investment in this place, including most if not all of the people who seem most offended.

(4) Maybe the forum is better now, but is the other extreme any better? Aren't there people out there who aren't posting at all because they feel intimidated or inferior?

I hope not. In the post I'm replying to, BG apologized to anyone who feels this way. Similarly, I apologize to anyone who feels this way as a result of *this* post. There isn't one single person who has ever posted to this forum (with the possible exception of fly-by-night spammers that never come back anyway) who is incapable of writing a good post worth reading. You don't have to be unfailingly intelligent or witty or funny -- you just have to make sure you're saying something worth saying. If you want to ask a question, maybe sure it's a question worth asking (which, frankly, only eliminates those questions you don't care about the answer to, as I believe very strongly in the importance of asking questions). If you want to answer a question, make sure you have an inkling of what you're talking about. If you want to post something funny, put some effort into it. If you want to post something thought-provoking, make sure you've provoked your own thought first. The rules are simple, and, best yet, it's ALL RIGHT if you screw up, or if your ideas about what's worthwhile are different from other people's, including mine. I do delete posts, yes, but just because I delete a post doesn't mean I think the poster of it is a scumbag and should never open his trap again. It's not even really a problem if I think I have to delete a skillion posts, even if they're all yours. (Well, in such a case, maybe you'd have a problem with me, but it wouldn't necessarily mean I have a problem with you.) The problem is when people don't make the effort in the first place.