I thought George was over-reacting at first but now I agree. This new wave of n00bs and the pestilence they bring is getting tiresome. I mean, yeah, in the past we've had some n00bs that needed a good brow beating before the figured out what common decency was but they soon learned the err of their ways and fell in line. I blamed bad parenting.
But I don't think bad parenting is enough to explain the problems now. I mean racists, people who have blatant disregard for forum posting rules from deliberately posting politically charged tripe just to incite riot to people posting 10, 20, 57 new posts that do nothing but waste time and jack up post count just to swindle people on a "deal" in the flea market.
Where are these people coming from?
Do we really ask a whole lot here? I mean the cliques that are said to exist don't. The gang ups exist when someone steps out of line. We don't have much moderator intervention because people get the idea that this can be civil but a bit irreverent at the same time.
This forum gets along well and has been for about a decade now. We don't have the mouthy prima donnas that other forums have. We don't have the endless flame wars and arguments...well we do but not nearly on the scale that other places do and we NORMALLY don't have a problem with the dregs of the Internet. Until lately that is.
Now I don't need to see a string of responses saying hell yeah or hell no or telling me how great a post it was or how bad it was. I also don't need to see a string of n00bs posting and telling me it's not them and they agree. I don't care.
What should be known is this. It's really quite simple.
There are rules, FOLLOW THEM! Just because someone with an excessive post count gets away with bending them every so often doesn't mean you do too. It's called a pecking order, seniority, tenure, whatever. It means that that guy has been here, been to events, contributed positively. PEOPLE KNOW HIM! We don't know a guy who just showed up. Should you get the benefit of the doubt? Yeah, maybe but we don't know you from spit and you need to allow some time for people to feel you out. If you don't like it, leave, honestly. You're just going to be met with animosity and ignored by many people and your experience here will be poor because your attitude is poor.
If you have a racist thought in your head or bone in you body, don't even bother saying hi. LEAVE NOW! We don't want you here. Same goes if you are sexist or any other hate filled "-ist". You're essentially trash and you should stay at the curb where you belong.
If you just want to sell your crap, there is this fine place: http://www.ebay.com which can help you out. If you are that down on your luck, there is another place that is pretty much free called http://www.craigslist.com that can help you out too. Try there because most of us don't care what ware you have to peddle if you don't care enough about this community to do anything more than profit from us. Nobody is saying you have to sell at cut rates but many people here offer more than fair prices of their own accord because the consider everyone here a friend at the very least if not family. You are not expected to follow suit because we are not out to swindle you out of what you deem a fair deal wither. But if we are going to give you that respect and help protect you and ourselves from being swindled through flea market rules then give us the respect of following the rules because we are affording you the respect of a low post count to sell.
If you are a spammer, just die already. You waste time, money and resources. All of which are critical to a functioning society. Therefore you are the exact opposite of a functioning member of society and you should just save us all the trouble and eat a gun already.
Yeah, this is probably going to get deleted. Hopefully it just gets locked. Either way, it's time to stop this nonsense. Most people hang around here because of the relative lack of drama compared to other places. Lately it's gone from a dull roar to a clamoring ruckus and I don't know where all the sand in everybody's knickers came from but maybe it's time for a new set of drawers.
