Bye Pointless Ann...

You assumed that everything after the money discussion was about you. I understand why you assumed that but it was incorrect. When it comes to this place, ALL of us have fat asses.
--- merged: Oct 19, 2013 at 8:09 AM ---

I have never found "gentle reminders" of things to be anything more than a waste of my time around here. If something needs to change, people always ignore gentle reminders.
--- merged: Oct 19, 2013 at 8:16 AM ---

No, Lindy, the question is completely moot. We are not trying to drum up donations. There is not a problem with the way things are running right now on the money side, and we don't anticipate that changing in the foreseeable future. Effectively this is cynthetiq 's playground, and if he chooses to close it down, that's something different.

You are also assuming that I am touchy about the money question. I am not; I just see it as a distraction that never should have come up. I don't know why it was ever introduced into the conversation since it has absolutely no bearing on the issues at hand. For the last tine, money is not an issue.

--- merged: Oct 19, 2013 at 8:19 AM ---

You are not in danger of being kicked off TFP. We may disagree on some things, but that's not going to threaten anyone's membership. No one is in danger of any sort of negative outcome over this thread.

I apologize for allowing you to assume that I was calling you names, but that wasn't my intent, and I thought that I made that pretty clear. So are you done bullying me with your martyrdom?

 

Personally, I rarely post in Pointless Announcements because it is the fastest-moving thread here. I feel like I have to read and click for 30 minutes just to understand anything that is being brought up, so I tend to ignore it. I do agree with those who feel it has caused the rest of the board to suffer because everything gets posted in PA (really, I think it's sad that it has such a widely-used acronym) rather than starting new threads. However, I think part of why it survives is because it feels like a single ongoing conversation, rather than multiple conversations that tend to die after a week or so. I think that's also why it tends to become clique-y.

 

Along with Fangirly, I was a member kicked off the old TFP.

I had a lot of friends here. Lost every one of them over time with my not being able to be in/on TFP, and all but one has moved on, and that one likely would not even remember me - were I to say "Hey, I'm >old login name<, remember me?" There are relatively few people I remember well that are still here - it's been years.

I do not see the point in getting rid of the thread, and was here when there was a shout box and we all had a hell of a time there. I for one would like to see THAT back, though I wouldn't think for a moment that my opinion counted for anything. My time here was not terribly long the first go around then having not been here, and only recently trying to return I wouldn't expect anything I had to say to be given anything other than a cursory "mmmhmmm noob" nod.

Were it to matter to anyone, I will say that it is the first thread I read, and I'm typically here daily.

 

Good grief, people.

Do you really have nothing else to worry about?

Does the removal of a thread (or the keeping of it) really warrant more than a split-second of your attention? If so, please wake the fuck up.

 

Actually, my very first thought was, I really don't care one way or the other. But since the question was posed and many people seemed to care, I bothered to give it extra thought based on reading how they felt about it and that the staff asked us to think about it and respond.
Then things got flamey and I backed away.

I don't worry about things. Bad for my blood pressure, never changes the outcome one damned bit.

 

My opinion? I don't give a fuck. Discussion forums/threads/boards/whateverthefuckyouwannacallit are a dying outlet. Just as blogs seemed to have dwindled in popularity. You can't force the members of TFP to post if they don't want to, we've got lives, shit to do. There will be slow days/weeks/months and times when the forums are used more. I personally pop into TFP at least twice a day, if not more. Just to see the latest posts of threads I follow, or what's the latest thing to post. I don't actually post responses myself, because its not really my thing to post if someone else has already said the thing I'm thinking. And sometimes I just don't want to post something that might start a flame war. Perhaps I'd use it more often to post if the people I used to post with the most were still here. Alas....
So, *shrugs* leave it be I say. You don't like it? Suck it up, and don't read it. There's plenty of shit on this forum that I don't like, so I don't read it.

 

This is pretty much how I've operated for a while. I'm usually a lurker who occasionally pitches in when I think I have something new or relevant to contribute. I've never been good at insinuating myself into the community here, but it's a friendly place. I don't have a particular preference on the thread in question for myself, but I don't see why it bothers people. Like most threads, I don't really have much to contribute that hasn't already been said. I liked the ideas about staff taking the lead in starting more discussions. Leaders setting the example is how things should be. And while I understand that the mods in this thread are trying to solicit opinion, and that's commendable, any of the deleting/restricting/reworking of the thread is going to be viewed by the users who disagree with you as an "executive decision". Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that; you're the stewards of the area, you have to make the decisions you feel are best. I just think the main opposition is from people who automatically tend to be leery of taking something away that they're used to.

 

Long form discussion is fundamentally an expression of liesure time, which is demonstrably dying (though why is best left to Tilted Politics). There are places such as SomethingAwful which seem immune to the issue but that's largely due to the sheer size of their active member base.

 

*poof* MRRAAAAHHHWWWWGGGHHHH!!



You rang?

...

Getting rid of Pointless Announcements would be like tossing the couch out of your living room and demanding that everybody at the party get busy in the study, the kitchen, the garage or the bedroom.

You gotta have a place for sparks to hit kindling, a place for people to park smalltalk, a place for the useless minutia.

"It's a catch-all that discourages new, deep threads." Pfft, I think I've started more threads based off banter in Pointless Announcement that any other single source. It's often the initiator I need to find new topics or go back to old ones.

"It's too sophomoric." That's great, go back to your dog-eared stack of Lapham's Quarterly magazines and let us be stretch our brains before we head into the next big thing.

"Discussion is dying on the Internet." Only because of your shitty attitude. Long talk is never going to die, it'll just go elsewhere when people develop this kind of apathy. I don't know about you guys, but I can talk for days.

"It's too fast-paced." Uh-huh, I'm one of the more active users and I'm gone for months at a time and you know what? I let it go.

Pointless Announcements was never about quality of content. It's grand purpose is a window to the site's momentum.

Heartbeats are meant to be a sign of life and not a whole lot else.

...

What the fuck is all this ridiculous high school jocks-'n-nerds clique talk doing here again? *rereads thread*

Oh, just people taking things way too seriously again because they confuse heated debate with emotional bad-touch.

First: if you're super serious or self-important, your feelings will get hurt from time to time and nobody cares (or moderates). Second: nobody cares.

...

Real Life Relevance: The Toronto Meet-Up was Pointless Announcements for blocks of time before it became several threads on music, relationships, martial arts, etc.

/resident flibbertigibbet

 

True story! If I'd taken the Niner seriously the first time he shared his thoughts with me online lo those many years ago, I never would have spoken to him again.

...and none of you would ever know me.

 

...and I still have archived AIM logs to prove exactly how horrible I was.

They're cripplingly awful and I don't know how you put up with me.

 

Just one of my many talents.

 

It's like your testing me. Dangling things you KNOW I want.

 

Ok, that's actually pretty terrifying.

 

...I'm indirectly responsible for so many weird things.

I'm Plan9 and my life is Pointless Announcements.

 

That's probably why I like you so much.

Well, that and our mutual fondness for mayhem.

 

FTFY.

 

This thread definitely needed to be bumped!

 

Well fuck...it closed. And before I had a chance to reply to a dumb remark by @Borla