The Reason This Place Might Not For Me

[EnnisDelMar]

Naw, I just think your breasts are distracting

[littleguitar]

ROFLMFAO!! I'm with you brandon, I was just about to tell him he's looking rather busty tonight! 

[slayers_creek_oth]

There is that better....

[montferrat]

CHris, you make a Pretty Woman...

[slayers_creek_oth]

Wow......we're all comedians tonight aren't we!

ROFLMFAO!  Thanks Paul

[littledarlin]

hey, david.  although i appreciate your concerns and agree whole heartedly about the problems with this country, i think it's counter productive to accuse fellow brokies, especially because the majority of us (not all!) are on the same page politically.

i am extremely opinionated and clash with people on a daily basis, but i have never seen such an amazing display of respect that i have seen with my fellow brokies.  i've even impressed myself!  in most cases, if someone makes a comment i disagree with, i can either ignore them, or participate in a civil debate, coming out in the end finding common ground. 

i am completely ambivalent to the concept of hidden users.  but i can say that although we are in a slight state of paranoid, which is fading away by the minute, we are rightfully so.  someone real invaded our space with the sole purpose of destroying it for a laugh or to validate their existence or whatever their excuse is.  they deleted tons of threads that people poured their hearts and souls into, and threatened peoples' connections. 

anyway i've rambled enough.  what i'm trying to say is i hear what you're saying completely and you're not alone, but if you don't want to leave, don't.  because i know more than a few people will miss your presence. 

if someone pisses you off, say something, and this goes for all of us!  as i said, we all manage to remain civil, even friendly towards eachother whether or not we agree politically or socially or what have you.  we don't want drama, but we also don't want people unintentionally hurting others and driving us away. 

that's my two cents.  or.. silver dollar.  damn that was long.   

[Spooky_Rabbit]

That was a very NICE two cents!  A bargain!

Reading your post, littledarlin (aww, littledarlin.. in the book, but not movie... remember Brokeback?) made me really remember for a moment those few days back at IMDB.

They were really disorienting and then, yes, we did realize exactly what sort of clever attack was being launched.

I guess you'd have to call it terrorism?  Bad.

But, yeah, things are so peaceful and amazing here.  That's a good ball to keep our eyes on...   

[Phillip Dampier]

The only reason this is even an issue is that I got a large number of messages about it and I found myself investing a lot of time answering these concerns.  I would rather invest that time into public messages here and working on projects, so I decided the best move would be to drop the hidden feature awhile.  The root of all of this is a fear of trolls.  This is not IMDb.  I have a large number of tools available to me to deal with incursions, but until this place has been free of attacks for a few weeks, there is a natural fear that they could return.  That's why there is a concern about anonymous people and such.  But they really aren't anonymous - I see everyone's handle whether hidden or not.

I really think folks should take a deep breath and relax and get back to talking about the movie and its meaning.

BTW, nobody complained specifically about any user, just about the feature itself.  And everyone of those was rooted in a fear of trolls.

I'll keep reading your views about this and consider my ultimate decision tomorrow. 

[cmr107]

OK Studly. If you saw my post on Phillip's thread thanking him for turning it off, I did that completely without thinking it through. I just thought "oh look, he got requests and now he's accomodating them. That's so nice of him!" I am not used to an administrator who is actually considerate and thinks things through before acting because IMDb is my only prior message board experience, and we all know that if IMDb admins are even human beings, the certainly don't read threads before deleting them.

Of course it is understandable for opinions to differ, but much of what you read as attacks on you I read as kind-hearted teasing. You said you were taking time off, but you came back and posted. I have tried to tell myself several times that I will not get on the board for a day (or even for half a day) and try to catch up on homework or whatever, but I can't stay away. I like it too much here. I just thought aww, David loves it here as much as I do and can't leave for too long at a time like me. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think the only reason you got comments about being here is that you specifically said that you were taking time off from it. Personally, there are several windows I leave open on my computer here in my dorm room all day, from when I turn the computer on when I wake to when I turn it off when I go to sleep. This board is one of them, so I'm pretty sure it shows me as being online all day even when I'm not in the building. I have never gotten a single comment about being online and not posting, because I never said I was going to leave the board. Anything I ever said to you about being hidden and lurking or anything else mentioned in your post was purely affectionate joking. That is the downfall of the internet, it is hard to tell when someone is joking or not.

I think that if you don't want to leave the board, then don't. You are one of my favorite people here, and many of us would be sad to see you go. I'm still holding out hope for you coming to Chicago to meet Celeste, Andrew, and I (we're all really quite wonderful!). I think that if you give it even one more week, the level of paranoia will be significantly depleted. I feel quite safe here, and hope others will soon too.

[Ellemeno]

I know I was pretty upset when I made my original post... and I don't want to leave here at all... and I know that it was unconstructive for me to say that I would leave if it wasn't changed.

I do not want to leave... I love it here.

David, if that's the case, could you consider changing the upsetting subject line in your original post?  Every time I see it in the list of threads, I feel bad that you are so unhappy.  If you are doing better now, could that line reflect it?

Thanks,

Clarissa