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If that's the case, MM, then I see no solutions to the problems you're pointing out. Do you?
Personally, I make it a point to read the posts of folks that I don't recognize and to directly respond to them when I have something to add. Beyond that, I'm at a loss. But maybe I'm part of the problem instead of the solution. That seems to be where this is going.
Believe me, I understand the whole perception thing. I've understood that for years. But I'll be damned if I can figure out a way to force people to post. Perhaps it's time to shut down TFP as it is now and start completely new. That's about the only way that I can think that we'd have a level playing field.
If you think that I was being dismissive and exclusionary before, I'm sure you'll love this: I never said that it was EASY to get people to know you. I said it was SIMPLE. It's hard work. But if someone wants to, it's a simple process, and one that only the person in question has control over.
And to double-down: it's not the staff's job to make people like each other. We'd love it if everyone sang "I'd Like To Buy the World A Coke" in three part harmony, but that's about the extent of it. If someone won't help themselves, that's on them. Personally, I find differing opinions to be much more interesting, but that's me.
I'm more than willing to find new people to like - honestly it's one of the things that keeps me coming back every day, hoping that there's someone new that has something interesting to say. But if they're not going to share, then maybe you've got a magic wand you can lend to us to get them to change their minds. No one here needs to apologize for having friends on the board, but erasing those relationships (or somehow moving this completely off the board) seems to be the only workable solution.
In closing, I'll bet that if we had a blind poll of folks with the question of "who's part of the inner cirlce" or somesuch and coupled it with "do you feel like you're a part of the inner circle", the results would show everybody thinks everyone else is in while that individual is out. I know for a fact that there are folks on staff that feel like they're on the outside.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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