Oh and another quick reply to MoSW
Walkie, the whole point of I^2 is to have the absolute minimum of rules. You are supposed to be able to troll, bully, badger, and so on.
When you or I are subjected to a sustained torrent of bullying or misrepresentation or batshit crazy conspiracy shit, we can walk away. There are nicer communities out there. At some point it's going to get too much for Odeon and he will simply shut the place down and walk away. Yes, I know he shouldn't use the moderator buttons when the vitriol constantly directed at him goes beyond the pale. But really, there's no end to it otherwise.
The problem with some of the disordered personalities on here is that they want to wail at the injustice that they are being subjected to. So they dig and dig and dig until they finally get the "unfair" reaction that they want. Then it's drama llama time again.
Um, yeah, I've heard that "You are supposed to be able to troll, bully, badger, and so on" before, but some of us have a very different spin on it than others. Specifically , a pretty big proportion of us see it more in terms of "You can act like a spazz here without getting banned" which is rather different from saying
the whole point of the place is to spazz out as aggressive;y as possible, isn't it?
To put it another way., quite a number of us had been looking for a place that didn't ban spazzes just for failing to grasp or respect the social rules because, seriously, that pretty much negates the whole point of having a Spazz forum doesn't it? ? I coul;d go on and on about why free speech for spazzes is a must. and I'm sure I have done just that at at times. Just giving you a taster here. So when I asked: do we not belong here? well, that was intended as a rhetotical question.
But now you come alomg and say "well if you don't like the playground culture, you can always go to WP" (or words to that effect) which is pretty damned dismissive of the needs of those those of us who are spazzes no less than the Rottweilers here, and who also value free speech pretty damned intensely. For some such members , this forum pretty much represents entire social life , their only circle of intimate friends. Looks like you haven't been around for long enough to grasp that, nor to notice the somewhat complex overlap and interchange betwen what I'l call (for bevity's sake) tthe "support group culture" and the "playground culture". We;re not talking about two entirely distinct groups of people. And to enforce some sort of segregation along those lines would be highly detrimental, i believe .
I^2 actually works much better than most people think at first glance. It's main probl;em . IMO, is that not only do Rottweilers look like the own forum, purely on account of having the loudest voices, they seem to think they have some sort of god-given entitlement in that regard . It ought to be possible to work things out better than we have. except nobody's really trying anymore. or not very often, anyway.
Who decides what the place is "supposed to be about "anyway? The members? well, then we need only ask ourselves. (Have a discussion. Make a poll) Or just the founding members (Mc J and Wolfie) ? both of whom have moved on in their different fashions. But , if I casst my mind back, I know very well that both those people had a much more far-reasching and creative vision for this place than the long-drawn out shouting matcjh it' turned into . But some people just cherry-pick McJ's bits of fighting talk, and ignore all the rest. Heck, maybe even Mc j was ignoring all the rest by the time he quit, but it doesn't follow that ....
oh fuck. My brain's getting horribly tired . Really shouldn't have started this...
But serously, where exactly did you get that info from, regarding what this place is "supposed to be about"? Who told you?
And /...hang on...what makes you think i need to have it carefully explained to me why this place gets on Odeon's tits so much? :S Did you misadress your post? not thart i mind you rephrasing my own arguments but I'm getting a bit of cognitive dissonamce here .
And who told you "there are nicer communities out there"
once you've scaped away the surface , most of em are worse than this place, just not being so honest about it. That's precisely what makes me think they're no fit places for a spazz. It's just the NT-inspired polite exterior makes you think that those places are nice.
Not to say there;'s no genuinel;y nice place. I hope there is, but how to find one in practice? Would sooner stick with this one, and just try to makle it work a bit better, if its all the same to you.