*sigh*

i keep coming to this topic and trying to find a way to frame what i feel, and i can't. what libs and ian just expressed above saddens me, and i can only hope i've not contributed to that feeling of 'national superiority' libs mentions. i'd hoped the people here at smarch could overcome the case of mass stupidity that the rest of the world seems to be suffering from, but i see we aren't immune. now, after words have been flung, can we mend this fraying of our community? or are we going to see the community die? it seems to be heading that way.

i know there are external reasons for a lot of the long-time regulars to not be around, but i also know there are internal reasons as well. to all of those smarchers who've reduced themselves to lurking occasionally due to community-related personal issues, i invite you to get involved again. i too went thru several painful episodes that were due to relationships here, and i lurked a lot during them. but the painful feelings receeded and i came back....i don't know if this makes any sense, but man, even when it hurt to be here, i didn't want to lose touch with this amazing group of people. i've never met better people in my life, it's as simple as that, and i would hate to lose touch with you all.

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: dragondawn ]

I hardly ever comment in any of the hot debates. This has very little to do with the lack of time that is preventing me from spending as much time here as I'd want to, and nothing with the other opinions.
Quite frankly, it doesn't matter to me what all of you think about political, religious and similar topics. I have my opinions, you all have yours. Where I have a hope of perhaps fostering some more understanding or want to learn more about a specific subject, I'll participate for a bit, but beyond this... I don't care.
These subjects are so important to people that they far too easily cause hurt feelings - I don't want anything to do with that, particularly as (paradoxically enough) I think these differences of opinion are superficial. They might define what you believe, but they don't define you.
What I *know* is that all of you are just like me. Through all the different backgrounds, ages and life-experiences, all of you are people who read fantasy, who like Tad's books, who are intelligent, accepting others as they are.
Yesterday I had a meet with a dozen people from a dutch fantasy-related forum. One of the people who was there for the first time said afterwards, "I didn't feel like I was spending time with strangers, I really felt like I *knew* all of you."

I have met far too few of all of you so far, but I have no doubt that when I will meet you, we'll have a good time; just hanging out together, doing nothing really - but simply having fun.
Just the fact that all of us are here means we have more in common than all our differences can undo.


I miss seeing most of you post as much as you did once upon a time - I don't manage to stay in touch with just a fraction of everyone who's here through email and icq - I miss being able to feel like I'm keeping up to date on what's happening with the bunch of you simply by reading posts everywhere...

[ October 20, 2002: Message edited by: Aan allein ]

I have the only valid excuse for lack of posting lately.  The rest of you are just pikers.

*nods smugly*

I don't think that people should start thinking "I wonder if it was me" - I've had similar issues to Libbette as well, but as Sheryn said, not everyone is going to have the same opinions, or get along completely, or like one another necessarily. I don't think it's a good idea to expect that either.

So to create a hypothetical situation, if someone posts "Let's go bomb those damn Iraqis off the map" odds are that I'm not going to want to be their friend. That's fine. And though I may argue against them, I won't go out of my way to say that I don't like them either.

I'm sure all of this is stating the obvious, but I'm hyper...

*rimshot*

doh!

I think people started drifting away sometime afte 9/11. Not that I neccessarily blame the events for the drift. But I know a lot of people began to find other things to do, spend time with family and concetrate on things that were mor eimportant to them. Which is admittedly not a bad thing to do, but has slowly lead to people drifting off.
  I don't know about the inflammatory posting bit as I usually refrain from commentary in general in which I'm not particularily well informed. Maybe it's kept me out of a certain loop of friends as most of the friends I've made here I've made in the mint, but either way I AM happy with the friends I've made and the general lack of flaming on this board.
  I miss having my friends to chat with in Mint, especially my friends on the otherside of the globe. Grnated ya'll post in other topics a lot, but sadly, as Kev said, the 'Mint just doesn't do it for some folks I guess. Dunno how one loses interest in pointless conversation...*shrug*...I personally find it kind of refreshing...8)
  Plus that's what made the Board so great for me was the wild and zany conversations.
If you don't want to talk about potentially inflammatory topics, well DON'T POST THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! Sheesh!...8)
  Shadowmarch was designed to be about Shadowmarch and tad, NOT about politcs. Since it's inception Smarch has been a very international community with friends scattered across the Globe...FRIENDS. Y'know the poeple you like to hang out with? I like to think We're all still friends here.
  But I've also notice a kind of "Clique" mentality has developed amongst certain groups of people and it's one of those things that makes me sad. Smarch has always been about open mindedness, but lately...
  I'm not going into this any further except to say; I miss my old friends and wish ya'll would come back and visit....8)

Um well the only other spelling would be PICA and I'm just NOT going there....

One . . . two . . . three . . . four:

I've hearda YMCA.

<boom>

I've hearda PDA.

<boom>

I've even hearda PTM.

BUM: (offstage) Uh-oh!

<boom>

But - I - ain't - nev-ah heard of PICA . . . !

Goddess above, you guys have stoked my curiousity now.... I`m gonna have to do some research and I so hate research grrrrrrrrrr

I wasn't going to post a reply to this, but what the hell...

Renfield wrote:

If you don't want to talk about potentially inflammatory topics, well DON'T POST THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! Sheesh!...8)
  Shadowmarch was designed to be about Shadowmarch and tad, NOT about politcs. Since it's inception Smarch has been a very international community with friends scattered across the Globe...FRIENDS. Y'know the poeple you like to hang out with? I like to think We're all still friends here.
  But I've also notice a kind of "Clique" mentality has developed amongst certain groups of people and it's one of those things that makes me sad. Smarch has always been about open mindedness, but lately...

Shadowmarch may have initially been about the story and Tad, but the story's done and Tad is scarce these days. I think it's become more about the community and I think it's natural for that community to want to talk about things that are important in their lives. I feel very strongly about the things going on in my country right now, I feel very motivated to talk about them. If I felt in any way that I couldn't (or shouldn't) post those kind of things here, I would spend even less time around here.

Politics, religion - these are topics that people feel strongly about - that makes them potentially "inflammatory" I suppose, but I think they're important things to talk about.

As to it being an international community, it is, and I'm glad - I value the opinions that other people give - whether its the global reaction to the US situation, or hearing more about the Bali bombing or neo-nazis in the UK or whatever. I think that talking about some of these topics is a way for these different viewpoints to come across.

As to the clique mentality, I think that's hard to escape. I mean the Neighborhood topics each tend to have their own "regulars" and time zones tend to enforce certain social groups based on schedules.

And I don't think that the cliques, or the associations that people make with one another, really are the result of a lack of open-mindedness.

I have no idea what the magpies have to do with PICA and neither do the magpies. Their agents told me to tell you that. They also want to make it clear that the magpies aren't toys. They don't run on batteries. Please don't break them.

I don't know what PICA is or what the magpies have to do with it, either, and I have no agent.

Please don't bring Sherman into this. He's been on the run ever since he got a mobile gun named after him. Leave the poor guy alone.

And I agree with what Kev said. In fact, I want to marry that speech and have its babies!