I wish I could believe that! Some of the parts I have read would say that some of you like to drive people out if they don't measure up to your "standards" of INTENSITY.
Sorry, but I'm rather cynical!
I don't lie on here, Chaos. I omit information and stretch the truth into all kinds of interesting shapes, but if you ask me a direct question and I give you a direct answer, you can count on it being true. I've only read three of your posts, to my memory, but I liked what I saw so far. And this site is dead without its members, so it's in everyone's interests to recruit as many members as we can. If you can't trust my honesty, trust my self-interest.
What you've probably heard are the complaints of people who think they've been victimized. We hold no power over any member. We cannot break into anybody's house and force them to log on. We can play mind games - but only the mind games that people allow us to play. At any moment you can log off, step away from the computer, and never have to deal with any of us in an unprotected environment again. And even then, most people aren't on here to play mind games, they're here to be honest, be themselves, and have fun. We give people a hard time, but I can't think of a single member on here who is deliberately spiteful at heart. You have to take it for what it is: a sparring ground, in an artificial online environment where there are no real consequences.
Nobody can truly be driven out. If people gang up on you and it seems like they're trying, all you have to do is turn around and tell them to fuck themselves and you'll immediately have the respect of the majority of members. We've had trolls, psychotic people, and people who don't seem to have two brain cells to rub together - and they've all managed to earn a grudging respect by virtue of tenacity.
/steps off soapbox
