Al Schoonmaker is being stubborn

[silver book]

i dunno if a lot of ppl get that many of the posts made here are not intended to be serious. this is supposed to be a community right? what's wrong with a community having some humor? I guess it sucks for serious minded people, but if the community was super serious, then it would suck for the goofy folk. and there is absolutely still a lot of serious posts out there.

[BigPoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
Its not just u... I have asked many times what SIMP qft ldn and the like stand for....

I still dont know but i find teh spellaments and grammaments very funny.

Does it really matter that u dnt know these sporadic abbreviations... I find the posts pretty clear generally, just stay away from BBv4life.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT: Quoted for Truth
LDO: Like, duh, Obviously

Urban Dictionary should help out with any others.

....and I think the whole "Balla" thing is hilarious, especially given the nerdy kids who've never been away from home that it emanates from.

[Soundwave]

[ QUOTE ]
Very professional and businesslike, makes me want to do business with you in the future if I was a potential investor, backer or wahtever reading these forums anonymously.

You sound like a pissed off 17 year old.

[/ QUOTE ]
You sound like someone with no sense of humour and a big, misguided chip on his shoulder. Am I right?

[Shadowrun]

A man always has two reasons for the things he does---- a
good one and the real one.
--- J.P. Morgan

[Silverhawk]

Send me the checks. I'll find something to write.

[Carlson411]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Very professional and businesslike, makes me want to do business with you in the future if I was a potential investor, backer or wahtever reading these forums anonymously.

You sound like a pissed off 17 year old.

[/ QUOTE ]
You sound like someone with no sense of humour and a big, misguided chip on his shoulder. Am I right?

[/ QUOTE ] Nah. He just sounds like a tool to right something like that about one of the owners of this site. Either we play to much around on this site or people are just to dam dorkie and don't know when to seriously play around.

[Milo]

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He's standing here in my office telling me he lost interest in participating in this forum.

Should I screw with his royalty payments or should we just let him be?

[/ QUOTE ]

Al is like that. Getting mad at him for being stubborn is like getting mad at the sun for being all shiny and hot.

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been registered for three years here and have barely made any posts. Before it was because I was intimidated, but lately it's just because the site seems to have been taken over by the "baller" attiude you see a lot in poker today. The posts are so full of "inside baseball" verbage that it's almost impossible for someone who isn't in the club to decipher what is being said.

I still love 2p2 and find a lot of meaningful content here. There is also qiite a bit of junk that just screams "outsiders not welcome".

It could just be me, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

It isn't. I am, I suppose, as close to a "professional message board poster" as can be found. Been on boards for almost twenty years now - ancient history. ALL forums get this way unless the managers are pros at forums - not just pros at their topic or at computer code.

It's actually been the subject of a few dissertations, I was told. It is also the nature of people to form groups, we are a social but territorial species. And any three kids will make a club so thay can exclude the third. Point is: unless you have a forum pro who knows how to manage this inevitable slide into proprietary cliqueishness - posting drops off, people lose interest and pretty much every thread devolves into a flame war.

As to the cyberspeak issue - they handle it very well on The Leaky Lounge site - a Harry Potter forum: they don't allow it. As they do not allow any language but English at a table in the WSOP, they don't allow incomprehensible posts.

(I think that site did more for literacy in America than all the elementary school teachers put together.)

It's the responsibilty of the list owner to grow the site, guide the evolution of the dialogue, train moderators and so forth. Most don't have the time or the experience.

But it's not just you.

-prax<---always ready with a long-winded dissertation on any topic!

[Piemaster]

Do you have a link to any of the dissertations? I've always considered forum sociology a fascinating topic.

[/threadjack]

[Al Mirpuri]

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I'm always open to feedback on the site and what encourages/discourages posters.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have been around here a long time. I went away for a bit (and I am very thankful to Al Schoonmaker for the advice he gave me through this forum) and when I got back what struck me most was the size...The forum has lost its intimacy. It used to be a cherised secret but now it is mainstream. All of which, is good for the forum but bad for the sense of community.