Balladeer

Yeah, CalRef has a hidden board for mods and administrators to discuss things the masses don't need to know, not that anything very exciting happens there; mostly just maintenance reports and discussing bans/unbans. We had a board for making massive collaborative RP posts for a while and I used to have a private board where I'd tutor BloodMoon on his English to try to improve his RP posts. But private boards are a given on any forum. It's part of what gives an elitist feel to all of them. The in-crowd as it were and maybe that's why I prefer CalRef... because they readily accepted me into the in-crowd. I'm sure there's some psychological manifestations that someone could expound on with that.

If I had to characterize them, I'd say Polaris was a gentleman's club, Desperance was a strip club, Shadow Vale was that bar where everybody knows your name and Calamity Refuge is that one table at the bar where Barney, Robin, Ted, Lily and Marshall all gather to exchange funny anecdotes, life lessons, and explicit exploit tales... or just complain about life in general, you know, whichever.

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus Unliked SV, CRF did in fact have that impact on the boards though. The people on SV continued to post on SW. The same is largely true for Polaris and may have been true about Desp, although the latter board's heyday was before my time. It can still be said with neutrality. "A number of younger members started posting there exclusively." But who are the people who left? Nioca? Sylae? Nalyd? Iffy? ADoS? Neb? Myself? The first three seem to still post here frequently. For myself, I find my own activity at any forum has dramatically decreased. You might notice in Nalyd's post that I wasn't included in the people that chat there every day. Just the natural progression of going from Homemaker to having 4 part time jobs on top of going back to college. And not that I watch his posting habits closely, but ADoS has always seemed to post more at satellites than at SW proper especially since Jeff asked for stricter rules. I didn't really get to know him until I started frequenting Desp. With his mental ailments and personal habits, a non-family friendly environment is just a more... open place for him to talk. Iffy, perhaps, and Neb also would fit the bill of going to CRF to not come back. Anyone else did not stick around at CRF either (Vergil was notorious for being banned at both forums, we'd just let him come back from time to time to try again.) and so showed their tendency to 'hop from place to place'/'move on' as a character trait rather than something that CRF did. Or maybe it is just my uncomfortableness with the assertion that CRF did anything, as it is an inanimate/virtual object. Community members chose to come and go as they pleased. Some found CRF more to their liking than SWF and spent significantly more time there with a few using it exclusively. Some deep friendships were formed. But the statement that CRF 'sucked' those members away, as if the place has the ability to capture and keep anyone from coming back is... I want to say 'absurd' but it is more like 'something to roll ones eyes at'. Silly, perhaps? Just as silly as claiming that the SW forums drove them to it.

My view of what was said about Misc includes "insults, spam, and crudeness that would not be tolerated today" and "Some moderators even used their positions to harass other members" and "abrasive moderators". Not that I disagree with the assessment of how CRF is run (indeed, I think it's a good thing to have a separate place where the talk isn't censored by the company's need for "family friendliness" and I cannot say that our mods have never been abrasive... Sorry Artemis) but I noticed a marked absence of speculation on the crudeness of Desp and SV. If you're going to comment on the climate of CRF, you should comment on the climate of all the satellite boards. I also noted the 'CRF sucked members away' part which could have been said much more neutrally. Edit: Completely unrelated; why is it that whenever I figure it's time to check in over here you're finishing up one of your little projects? It's like that silent mental victory you have reaches out and pulls me in.

Quote: CRF sucked many of the board's youngest members away; in practice, it became more like the Misc. of elder days Dysphemism say what?

Bad for being incredibly old. It's funny, perhaps, the first time. Speaking of first times, I told my Sunday School kids I would do my evil laugh for them but I could only do it if I was already laughing. They started barraging me with knock-knock jokes most of which I'd already heard, but then there was a new one: Kid: Knock knock. Me: Who's there? Kid: Interrupting Cow. Me: Interrupt... Kid: MOO! I hadn't heard it before and it was cute. Made me laugh which I worked into my evil laugh for them. Their response: Kid: Now I'm totally creeped out! Kid: ... Kid: Do it again! The moral of the story is, 'Jokes are funny the first time, but evil laughs are good for an encore or two.'

I find this worrysome... more for the fact that I wouldn't know how to do all of the cleanup that you have if something like this were to happen to TrueSite... One year away from my BSIT:SE degree and I still feel wholly inadequate. Boo.

Only two months? Pft. Two months is just a drop in the bucket. Six months... now that's starting to be a notable absence. But have a *huggles* anyway cuz it feels more like six months to me.

I am pleased by this.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S CRF differs somewhat from Desp, Polaris, and SV. Like them, it drew its member base primarily from the SW boards. However, all three of those forums were populated by some of the most prolific posters from SW. CRF, in contrast, is populated mostly by people who rarely post on SW, at least these days. Yeah, the people at CalRef now, save for Neb and a handful of RL friends, used to post at SW a lot. Iffy and Nalyd were quite prolific back in the day. Myself, I find it difficult to find time to post/chat at either place much but when I do find it I usually spend it there.

Well, my plan is to ultimately get them to give me a year of hosting free for even daring to suggest that my tiny little website is too much for their servers to handle. Implementation is still a work in progress but the secret weapon is available and will be brought out if needed. Edit: And really their complaint was the # of requests rather than the bandwidth. Shouldn't be too hard to fix, but still... We can't even be close to what a 'real' website is using.

'Unlimited' Bandwidth doesn't actually mean 'Unlimited' I guess. After a couple years of having a well used chat, FatCow has decided we're using too much of our 'Unlimited' bandwidth with it and demanded that it be deleted or no website. ... Of course, they have the right to decide how much of 'Unlimited' is too much, since they gave it to themselves in their Terms of Service... Who knew half a dozen people could talk so much?

Necro for lack of wanting a new thread. Originally Posted By: Dantius I dunno. I find IQ test extremely useful for quantifying stupidity. For example, if you tell someone who thinks they're smart that you're in, say, Mensa, and they launch into a diatribe about how they scored ten standard deviations from the mean and are being oppressed, it's easy to dismiss them as not knowing what they're talking about. But beyond using it to eliminate stupid people, it's really quite poor as a discriminatory tool. So I don't use it much. Speaking of Mensa, I looked them up with their 'member benefits' but it didn't look all that great. I mean, other than an ego boost to lord over the other 97% and an 80% discount on Popular Science I'm not seeing anything worth the annual membership fee. Am I missing anything? Anyone with Mensa experience who can vouch for the social aspect of it?

My bank only allows passwords of up to 8 characters... I tried entering the same number of letters, numbers, and symbols it has (some of each) and its only secure for 1 year. That sucks.

I created one of my own when it was possible. Someone took it away when they decidedly thought I was undeserving. So I use my Avatar instead.

*brings balloons and devils food cake*

I misspoke. I do not miss TM. I miss the pre-censored days. But I regress. Apologies. I did not mean to be so short as to sound arrogant in my post. I should have waited until I had more time to respond. I was simply pointing out that his definition of sin ignored its wide use to describe the violation of religious or moral law. Thus my 'quotes' around the word when saying the Bible was the authority on it. I know Buddhism does not accredit the existence of religious or moral sin and neither do atheists believe that any of their acts, morally good or not, are sin. I suppose, though, that I am biased to the New Testament for even the Old allowed for "an eye for an eye". Yet "...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Really, are there any? In all the laws of all the societies of all the world are there any laws against such tenants? So why say kindness and peace should ever be wrong? A law against forgiveness? A rule against mercy? Foregoing religious influences all together, do you really believe, Brocktree, that there should be a law against teaching people to be nice in the face of persecution? If everyone was always kind there would be no bullies. Just because the expectation of everyone (or even a percentage of people) adopting such a philosophy is, as you said, 'far from reality' why is it wrong to hope to instill such a value in even one person? Edit: Just an afterthought... anyone consider Slarty a bully for using the threat of locking the thread to keep us civil? Anyone consider parents bullies for using the threat of grounding to elicit positive behavior from children? Anyone consider teachers bullies for using the threat of detention to keep students on task? They are inline with the examples of the police and governments. In each situation I see potential for abuse. But having the authority to use such threats does not automatically make any of them bullies. It is in how they use that authority.

Originally Posted By: Brocktree Jewels, your advice is so far removed from reality, that it should be a sin to give it to your own children. Providing nice things to those harassing you simply reinforces the perception that you are weak, and provides your bullies with an incentive to continue with their bullying behavior. You speak of sin as if you understand what the word even means. From the authority on what is 'sin' and what is not: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;" - Matthew 5:44 KJV

I would still not want to put a gun in their hands. That can lead to things like Columbine. A dead bully cannot learn to be a better person. Self-defense training, good. Track & Field training, better. Offensive beat-up-the-kids-who-constantly-humiliate-and-torment-you training, potential for disaster. In either case, the armed bullied person has just been taught how to be more like the bully. To use force or threats of force to gain what they want; to be left alone. And I would say they are more dangerous than the bullies because they would be more likely fight out of anger and revenge than for the laughs or social status. This may be Handyman's point, but I say it would only escalate the violence on both sides. I look at it this way. If my younger daughter comes to me crying and says that her older sister has been mean to her, I do not say 'go be mean back'. It would only give my older daughter all the more reason to be mean in the first place, vindicating her actions in her own eyes. Now, I could just punish my older daughter and make her say sorry though she say it through clenched teeth and likely feels more like getting revenge for the tattling. But if I instead say 'try doing something nice for her' and it is successfully executed, my older daughter now has more reason to be nice and may feel guilty for being mean in the first place eliciting a sincere apology. Is it rewarding the bully... or breaking the cycle? In high school there was a girl who really disliked me. I wouldn't say she bullied me but she said nasty things behind my back and scowled whenever we crossed paths. At Christmas time I decided to give out presents to my friends, and I included a nice necklace with matching earrings for her. At school I handed it to her and said 'Merry Christmas' with a smile. To cut a long description of the effect short, she was dumbfounded and from that day was at least courteous if not better to me. When the bullied fight back it enforces the cycle. When the bullied show kindness the cycle can be broken.

Violence begets violence. Compassion begets compassion. I would rather attempt to disarm the bullies and fail, then arm the bullied and succeed.

Apologies, but I do not understand your comment. Nico did expound on the statement though not directly. And my statement does not victim-blame, neither does it absolve the aggressor. Rather it criticizes the way that bullying is dealt with. Really, more than teaching people to be 'normal', though, I think society would greatly benefit from actively teaching all children to have more compassion. Schools have left this critical piece of social learning to parents, counselors, and religions to teach. I think parents(including myself), though mostly well meaning, drop the ball in the execution. The same for religions. Counselors do a pretty good job as far as they can but so few people invest in utilizing them.

It has already been affirmed that it is not the 'fault' of the bullied, per say, but rather a natural consequence of having the qualities that make bullying them, well, enjoyable. When I think of the kids that got bullied in my own grade, I remember them saying and doing very odd things to begin with. But then they would lash out with even odder comebacks and dramatic reactions when picked on for it. Personality traits or genetic tendencies that caused them to behave against the norm and some kids find enticing that kind of reaction enjoyable. It wasn't their fault for processing information differently, but if more effort would have gone into teaching them how to behave 'normally' than just punishing those who bullied them for being odd the bullying could have been lessened rather than policed.

I took a color preference one and it said I was first a creator: writer, web designer, interior decorator, musician, etc; and second an organizer: accountant, administrative assistant, banker, etc. I didn't know what to expect seeing as how all I did was tell it which colors I liked the best and which I liked the least, but I would say it is fairly accurate.

I wouldn't say I was bullied, but the 'popular' kids did pick on me a bit. I did my best to make it unfun for them as in I ignored their taunts. I remember one time in middle school when they decided to play a trick on me. One popular guy started being nice to me; picking up my books when I dropped them, saying hi and whatnot. Two weeks later when I had made no move to upset the status quo a couple of the girls started telling me that he liked me and wanted me to ask him out. I told them 'yea right' they said 'no really'. In my head I'm thinking 'Why doesn't he just ask me then?' I finally got tired of them bugging me about it and asked him if he wanted to go skating. Course he said no, and they all said it was a joke. I rolled my eyes and went back to ignoring their taunts. I think they were hoping for something more dramatic. That was as bad as it ever got. The only time I got in trouble for fighting, it was ironically with a friend. She called me a name, I called her a worse one, she pushed me when I was off balance and I fell. A teacher saw it and gave us both detention. We passed notes back and forth during the whole thing. What a laugh. As for cyberbullying... I miss TM.

eww...