I was too late and far too slow at typing to present this typically long reply that was going into the aptly named "cesspool" that was bulldozed by Army but I think I still wish to share my thoughts on the OT for however long it lasts...
Original post
One post, and nothing more.
There are very few threads on any forums that I screenshot the entirety of as a permanent character reference but this one shows me so much about so many of you that I would be foolish to not get it while it's only partly edited vs 1 month from now if it even exists.
I was looking for a forum to talk about paintball and organize meets and events and talk about making videos and fun stuff like that back when I got into the sport almost 10 years ago. AO was that place for me. Back in 2001 when I finally got on it was largely kept active by intelligent, sometimes highly educated people who liked the sport as well. Sure there were those I didn't care for but I didn't have to talk to them and they didn't bother with me.
Skip to 2005.
Right around the time I fell out of reality and lived in Wow for 3 years I decided (for several reasons) that AO was not longer what it was when I join it. I could have:
1-Stayed and did my best to try and make it the way I wanted by contributing.
2-Stayed and done nothing.
2-Stayed but pissed about how stupid people were and maybe made (or joined) a new website to piss about how dumb people had become (and how much smarter me and my friends were since we left that dumb site). I wouldn't actually leave see, I would come around and piss about it and then go back and piss about it on my site and piss on anyone trying to build anything or as one of the intellectuals mentioned "just start crap for something to do".
or
-I could leave.
The last example being foreign to most of you, what it means is that you generally don't contribute or even spend much time at the location. If there is something you feel you want to mention or say you might but leaving is not the same as getting mad with the people on the site, taking your toys and moving next door and then coming back EVERY FREAKING TIME YOU CAN FIND to spit on all those people that you now dislike. That is not leaving.
Skip to 2008
So I got extracted from WoW and besides the numbers changes I decided to make, I am all for getting back into paintball and all the fun I had. A quick check of AO found that it was not much better than when I left. So I start looking around for somewhere to find people that want to do what I want to do.
This PBL place seemed quite the happening place with a large number of the people I used to enjoy talking with and many new ones. So this this schism happens and I am faced with my 4 choices again:
1- Stay and try to help.
2- Stay and do nothing.
3- Stay and try to break it down.
4- Leave and go somewhere else.
Maybe I just never hung around the type of people that answered #3, but there seem to be a lot of them here. Last time I remember a site called thordic.com springing up for all the martyred people to go and council each other about the wrongs they had suffered (their egos I suppose). They laughed, they made fun, they spit and most of all, they came back to AO to spit,and so on and so forth on AO. It was very useful and I am sure it made them feel wonderful knowing how good it felt to have left that site and made this new one that was better in every way. I probably am never going to know because have never felt that I needed to go on a site "just start crap for something to do". I don't want to hang around that. What could I possibly gain?
Anyone know what happened to that site (thordic)? I honestly don't know I mean I have not even bothered to type it in and see wait Ill go look now. OK... back from that, yes sir we got ourselves a thriving metropolis of activity there with the forums being offline and the snazzy index page. So, what did we accomplish? We made a site to piss and pissed for a while.. ran of new topics to piss about because you can only go over the same thing so many times. What did that leave? Sex, drugs and rock'n roll talk? Now there is a new thing to talk about that you can't find any any forum. Hey let's google "boobs" and make a big thread of our favorite choices while we discuss how pot is totally sweet and also these other people are really dumb.
So we have a new one out now and I have not been to that one either but I must ask. With it being a great success as I am sure it is and growing in leaps and bounds, what is the aim? Other than to piss on the people you don't like, what do you want to give people? I can only make estimations about the people that want to be there but I can look at how they present themselves.
Again, what is it you are trying to build (if anything), or are you just here to be pissed? Did you want to attract or repel people like me?
Of all the places that I see available to me, (AO, PBL, PBN, MCB... that is all I can think of that have any population), None of them are exactly what I am looking for but some are closer than others. AO, I will stop by and say something if I think it's worth it, PBN, maybe if there is a really epic thread (epic meaning there is some level of logic involved). MCB is a nice place to talk tinkering but it has no active "lets go meet up and play at this field" aspect because that is not the purpose of the site.
So as it stands, especially having some power to make the site what I would like in a site, I'll throw my efforts and time spent on a paintball forum over on PBL. If nothing else, at least the people who "just start crap for something to do", who want to tear down something if they don't like it, the people who chose #3 on my list, can be kicked off.
I would liked to have seen this when Steelrat stepped up to the chopping block but at least he had the balls to say it. Well regardless, I should state where I stand as well. I do not want to hang around, and play with people whose highest ambition is to turn into an e-gang and jump from forum to forum being mad and looking for someone to gang up on. It's what children do, yell when they don't get their way and then go get a bunch of friends to come back and harass the person who wronged them. If that is your cup of tea, there is ALWAYS a new thordic.com that comes out for those reasons. Will it be around in 3 years as anything more than a URL?