Just getting back to mpedrummer2 about his request

Oh. Sorry. I still didn't answer the question. I answer questions for a group of related sites - JustAnswer, eAnwer, Pearl, write articles for eHow, write a blog, and have a series of video tutorials that I'm always adding to. I'm also a hired gun to do webcasts for a few tech companies. And finally, I do some tech journalism news brief type thingies from time to time when/if I become aware of some tech news that I can be the first to break, like the recent PayPal "MassPay" system that was down 4 days after a security breech. They had lied about the cause and the scope of what was widespread issue for their biggest clients. If I have info that can set the record straight on something like that, I do, usually in a live broadcast where I can really stick it to the man.

 

no i was only kidding, i dont have anything against you. it was just mis-directed sarcasm. seems to be the flavour of the month in this thread eh?

But i think you've mistaken me for cynthetiq.. He's the one with the "we dont care if you are........" signature.

everyone's welcome here....except pedophiles of course.

@freman i agree

welcome again Mike

 

I have 0 likes. Doesn't that mean absolutely no one really wants to hear what I have to say? I wouldn't shocked by it or anything. In fact in my experience, people like to talk more than they like to listen. I'm often amazed in a forum (not here, in general) how many people post to a topic without regard to any other posts. Facebook, for example. I could post there saying I won the lottery for 500million and on the same day my entire family died and the next post will be someone telling me they were happy to hear from me and are going to a Patriots game. Clients I deal with are absolutely notorious for reading the first line of a message and replying based only on that, it's all maddening. This is what made me this way, methinks.

 

Mike, thats really cool. there's some smart techies here too. all are way smarter than me of course.

hope you feel at home here Mike. I think you'll fit in well

 

Of course I knew you were just being sarcastic. Oh, you thought I was serious in thinking you were serious? Oh, how naive! Just kidding. The keyboard is pretty terrible at conveying subtleties in conversation. It's funny, in my head, I always think of it as a conversation, and assign certain fluctuations in voice and tone etc in a certain way, and it can be totally different from the conversation the other person had perceived. I think it's common, butt I also might just be mental.

Hey, little of what I say it's ever serious, at least to the letter, so don't ever think I take myself very seriously. All I've been doing is having some fun yanking chains here and there, and I mean it all with the best of intentions. The impossibly long message I wrote was just a product of me sitting in a grocery store parking lot for an hour because we have a blizzard coming. I was just trying to seem like I might be mental. Which maybe means I am. I don't know.

 

Thanks for welcoming me! It feels nice. You are now basically my best friends. I will be a boon. In fact, it's one of my middle names.

Please note everyone, that I am now able to post links to the site, yet I haven't done so. I think that pretty much demonstrates my tremendous character.

 

Lish, you've hung in there this long and humored me. That either means you are super kind and patient, or operating inn marginal sanity like me, our even both. But whatever the case, I think I'll fit in, too. I do feel quite welcome.

Now, there is something "different" in this site's community. What is it? I don't know how to explain it except that it feels like a "private club" or something. Users seem somewhat close-knit, but feel free to say absolutely anything they want to. It really it's fantastic. Since I stumbled upon the site, I may be missing some context. Nobody said, hey Mike, go check out this site, it's...

It doesn't feel like just a general discussion site. There is something unique about it but cannot quantify it. It's there history or philosophy that might help in that respect? That could sound like a really weird question if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

My advice would be to just read different threads, and then read some more.
Before long you'll get the feel of the place and how much we've come to mean to each other over the years.
We're not just an online community. Some of us have met on the outside and become much closer for it.
It's not for everybody, but we manage to put together a pretty diverse group of people from all over the world and somehow have made them a cohesive unit.
We fight, we laugh, we love. It's real.

 

/smirk

i think my wife thinks im crazy when i smirk at the screen like that. actually, she just asked what was up. and why i was smiling "funny". dont worry i get that all the time.

ok, in a nutshell ill explain what we are(were). The rest you'll work out on your own.

TFP's been around for a long long time ( as boards go anyways) . I have forgotten the year now i think 2002, but its been about 11 or 12 years now i think (someone please correct me if im wrong) We started off as a gaming board with porn content. People came for the gaming and porn ( read as "mainly for the porn"). Many stayed for the discussion. The board became more about the discussions than the porn

People morphed. People changed. People moved on. People stayed. TFP has been through a few transformations in those years. Many of our original members are still with us. Others pop by from time to time. Some others not so much. In that time many of the members have become regular regulars. Ive personally been coming here for about 8 maybe 9 years now. I too felt the same way you did. That it was an exclusive club. But thats because i wasnt really involved in the discussions. Once i delved in, i lost that feeling that i was an outsider, or that it was a private club. Many members know each others lives inside out through the board ( and this has filtered through to facebook now too). ive personally shared my life on here, and most people here know more about my life in the last decade than my parents and immediate family do. In fact i share very little about myself on facebook compared to TFP.

You could say we're 'friends' here, but we're still strangers. Most people will tell you what they think, because thats the way it is around here. We're all for discussion, but not at the expense of keeping it real. As long as everyone know how to respect one another, we're good. TFP's taught me quite a lot about that and about myself.

in saying that there's some members i know better than others. Others i know but dont know, you know? others i know little about. So there's always things to discover about this place and its diverse mix of people. Its different, its quirky, but its not for everyone. We do have a constant stream of newbies that come along, but not as much as the fly by nighters when this place was teeming with porn. Dont get me wrong, this place has its fair share of nudity and porn, but it's not the main reason why people are here. But if you wanted that part of the site you'll need to work harder than you did to earn the right to post a link

phew.. ok thats as brief as i could keep it feel free to pose any questions.

 

And Fremen, despite what his username might suggest, has still never read Dune.

I know, right?

 

or i could have said what @freman said.

he's smarter than me too

 

I only play smart on tv.

 

You should have gone for being IRreverently funny.


Oh, and welcome to the board.

 

That's the not welcome to the site - that's cynthetiq 's signature. He's not an asshole. I am. Ask around. But I'm trying to do better.

I agree that "cheat" is too strong a word - the better one is "game". But that's fine. You're certainly doing a good job of being entertaining, though. I've laughed.

 

This is true, the_jazz is an asshole

 

That's actually a good question. Pull up a keyboard...

The site has actually been around since 1999. It originally started out as a gaming site that then spread into porn. From there it spread into politics and other discussions. We spun off the porn to a standalone site about 5 years ago (TFP Erogenous Zone - Powered by vBulletin if you're interested), although there are some boobies and such here and there throughout the board. About 2 years ago, we closed the old board because the software was no longer being supported by the provider and moved over here so that we could keep things at bay. As you've probably noticed, we're pretty much spam-free, even from the more subtle forms of spam (like signature links). That's the way we like it, and I think it's going to stay that way.

I think that your perception of a "close-knit" community is pretty accurate, but I think that it's pretty easily to get into the crowd. All you have to do is post and attempt to interact with people. In my experience, the "new person smell" rubs off pretty quickly (50 posts or so, sometimes faster, sometimes not), and there are different forums that are available with different permissions earned. The basic one is the ability to post links, but there are hidden forums that aren't Googleable, which lends itself to the close-knit feeling.

That said, I think you fit in quite well here. I, for one, would love to see you stick around a while.

 

mhannigan, don't be fooled - his bit isn't very little. And he'll hold it against you the first chance he gets.

 

Thanks for pointing out that my Android here made a mistake. I'll have it looked at. I don't know how to be either, so I'm pretty sure my device totally made that up.