Ah, thank you ita! I've been looking for something like that. Too many cool things to refer back to and no way to find them.

A lot of interesting discussion. Much more so than I would have thought possible, although quite a bit of it seems just window dressing. Still, after reading all of it, you definitely made the right decision suspending me. I likely was not going to change my tone, so eventually I was gone anyway.

But the posting here in this thread (a thread which I was never invited to in order respond to any of this, by the way) was so voluminous that I wished to make one more post for a few reasons.

First, I did enjoy my time on the board. I had some really fun discussions with people regarding all manner of topics. Most notably the posts about dialect and religion in the future. There is some cool stuff going on here, and that was fun to participate in.

Secondly, I would also like to let you know that I didn't register under any /mieskie-type name, nor under fuckers. I did post that mmieskie good-bye, but I think the rest of those names are coming from someone who might possibly enjoy pulling your collective chain. No matter what you think, I have not intentionally tried to upset anyone, nor did I enjoy getting into it with people. And while once I did accuse someone of being hypocritical (which the person copped to being but said I should have phrased it more politely, i.e., use 100 words instead of ten to say the same thing, something I will never be very good at doing) and once I called someone obtuse for, I felt, misstating a post of mine and then ripping it), but I never engaged in any personal attacks of any nature. I certainly disagreed vehemently with some opinions, but it was that disagreement that was taken as a personal attack, not any name calling.

That's where you get the whole Big Brother thing going. You take disagreement as a personal attack, but then you characterize that disagreement as name calling, something which I certainly never engaged in.

It would have been nice to have come to this Admin board had I known I was causing this much trouble, but it's not something to worry about. Likely as not, I would have probably just faded away had I not been banned. After all, I don't enjoy arguing regardless of what some of you think. But I don't back down from an argument, and I thought that was one of the things that a message board was about. Any argument I participated in normally came from people jumping down my throat for posting about something silly, such as the amount of people who read the New York Times, or exactly how much X-Files was nurtured by FOX. People felt no compunction about telling me I was flat ass wrong about those topics, so, of course, I felt no compunction about telling them the same.

The Porn? Well, I wasn't sure about that, but some people seemed to like my Xmas poem, and no one objected. And certainly there were a number of people that posted extreme crudity from time to time, so I thought it was cool.

Dawn's breasts? Well, it was an offhand comment about the irony that she's making Buffy look rather plain by comparison and how that was likely not expected by the ME people. It's a little ironic also that many of the people that jumped all over me don't mind posting about their attraction to James at 15, and talking about his getting sex at 16. Methinks it was the messenger and not the message in the Dawn post that was objected to.

People wondered about warnings. I didn't receive any back channel warning. There was a post on the FF board, and it did direct me to the FAQ, and for my money that was enough. You have the right to run your site as you see fit, associating with whom you please. No warning was needed. I was surprised a bit that I got canned, as apparently some strong disagreement over the meaningfulness of the New York Times was the straw that broke things, which seems a little silly and childish. But, hey, I can be childish, too. No reason you can't be so on your own site.

But to people who think they know my intent...well, you people are nuts. Let me get one last slam in before I am gone forever. The hyper-sensitive who felt because I disagreed with them that I was purposely baiting, you need a life. Getting into arguments was never my thing. Defending my opinions was. Thinking that I was purposely into pissing you off is even more egomaniacal that even I can be. And I have pretty large ego. But those that think I actually was trying to get a reaction out of them just to get a reaction, well, you put my admittedly enormous ego to shame. It wasn't that I was trying to bait you. It was a lot more about you being so baitable. Anything you did not agree with set you off steaming, and then not knuckling under when you post how wrong I am set you off like a volcano.

But I guess that something for you and your analyst to hash out.

In any case, don't add feeling uncomfortable about the banishment to your therapy sessions. You had the right to do so 100%. There's no moral question here. It's your site. Run it the way you will. But there were one or two things I have to mention.

"Piss you off later." If you can't tell my tongue is practically breaking through my cheek, that's not something I can fix. Nor do I feel the need to. Which is, of course, why I probably should not be here. But that wasn't a giant fuck you, it was just a chuckle. A simply gibe over what I thought was a bit of an overreaction to my post. In other words, I'll be back later with something I think is innocuous but that will, I guess, piss you off anyway.

"Idiots." Did feel, and still do, that anyone who was desperately waiting for Firefly and then blew it off after a couple of shows is an idiot. But that wasn't directed at anyone here, because everyone here loves the show. Someone said they didn't like the first few shows, but now they love it. Well, I didn't like the first few either, but I had a bit of faith and came to love

"Idiots." Did feel, and still do, that anyone who was desperately waiting for Firefly and then blew it off after a couple of shows is an idiot. But that wasn't directed at anyone here, because everyone here loves the show. Someone said they didn't like the first few shows, but now they love it. Well, I didn't like the first few either, but I had a bit of faith and came to love it. If you did not like it either right away, but then came to love it because you hung in there, well, you prove my point. And that point was, you would have to be an idiot to think you can judge a show based on two episodes. And it was true. By the time three more shows had aired, those that were on the fence and hung in, they were glad they hung in.

"Spelling" Someone was ripping James Cameron a new asshole. I defended him and mentioned that I couldn't take the poster too seriously when they couldn't even spell correctly. Since they committed a personal attack on Cameron, I didn't think it was too outrageous to note something about the poster's grammar. And I didn't bring up the Nazis, someone else did. Cameron's special WAS about a W.W.II battle, so Nazis kind of come up when you discuss that. I didn't call anyone a Nazi. I mentioned that those dead people on the ocean floor WERE Nazis. And I thought it was a little odd to worry about the feelings of a bunch of dead Nazis.

"Joss" I did come on and sort of ask Joss what he was thinking going on Fridays on FOX. Friday's are a dead time slot, and FOX is legendarily stupid in the exec department. If that's ripping Joss, so be it. But I merely meant to point out that the show had two strikes against it from Day One. It was on Fridays. It was on Fox. That usually spells doom. It just doesn't seem that outrageous to point that out.

Ok, that's it. I'll go away now. Most of my posts were normal, and I think I participated and helped along a lot of very cool discussions on the board. I don't exactly feel bad, but I will miss some of the good discussions that did go on. Like as not I would have either faded away anyway, but who knows? Maybe I would have toned it down to please the one and only Betsy.

Nah, probably not.

Sorry, but it may well be true.

Angel is in exactly zero danger of cancellation. And they're still talking a Buffy spinoff, and I've heard rumors that the animated series is back on. So, not really.

You know what---if you had sounded like that during anyone of your posts in Firefly, no one would have had a problem with you.

If you had responded to any one of the complaints against you in Firefly like this, it wouldn't have gotten out of hand.

But you didn't.

Several people pointed out to you that your humor wasn't getting across, that should have been a sign to pull back and change the way you were posting.

My humor doesn't always come across when I post, because a lot of my humor is in facial expressions and vocal inflections.

Facial expressions and vocal inflections don't come across in type.

Instead, what most people saw was someone who was hostile and baiting and wouldn't not take criticism and instead turned to personal attacks.

Also--program creators have NO SAY in where the programs are placed. None.

And calling someone an "idiot", especially someone you don't know or just met, that's just bad manners.

Sorry, but it may well be true.

Angel is in exactly zero danger of cancellation. And they're still talking a Buffy spinoff, and I've heard rumors that the animated series is back on. So, not

I guess I misunderstood. I thought *rumors* of a Buffy spin-off or S8 were going around, but that there was really no serious discussion.

I also though Angel wasn't doing very well this season.

Great. I'd like to keep discussing the shows. Thanks for the info.

the Betsy's.

If there are two of me, I wish the other one would take over half the workload. Not to mention this head cold.

I volunteer to be a Betsy!

Probably would have been, had I not been on vacation. Which I still am. Yep.

Don't have the head cold. Instead, eat something spicy for me. But with no tomatoes.

I've suspected there are multiple Betsys, for the sheer volume of knowledge. Although the One True Betsy claims it's Google.