My view of what happened to the Bronze is my own, though, Steph. A whole lot of people HATED the old Bronze, the constant fighting, the quick stomp on newbies that spoke in chatlice dialects, etc.

I was a meanie, there. I came here because I could just talk without feeling the need to boot every third person in the teeth for cluttering the board with chatcrap and idiocy.

than your suggested alternative

Michele, what alternative did I suggest? The one about "Do we have enough glasses?" It was more of a wishful thinking about how I wish things would have gone. Not many alternatives at the moment, just dissection and cleaning up.

Well, like I said, I'm sorry if my talking about back-channelling makes people uncomfortable. But I'm not sorry I do it, because otherwise my head would explode.

This is fascinating for me because it's challenging my worldview. I take it for granted that if you're friends with A,B, and C, you will occasionally quietly say to C "What IS with A lately?" and you assume that B sometimes does the same about you. I think that that sort of quiet venting helps keep the larger friendship alive; if you sit on the resentment and never vent it, it builds up. If you do a reality check with one person, you get to vent, and you also get to find out if you're misbehaving. I think of it as midcourse correction; now I'm learning that some people think of it as betrayal.

Well, like I said, I'm sorry if my talking about back-channelling makes people uncomfortable. But I'm not sorry I do it, because otherwise my head would explode.

I have no problem with it. I call it "venting".

If you do a reality check with one person, you get to vent, and you also get to find out if you're misbehaving.

Yeah, exactly.

I feel bad because I don't want our community to implode or explode or go up in a flamey explosion. I want us to keep our identity.

But I want growth as well, I don't want change to adversly effect us but I do want us to evolve.

I think that's reasonable.

Well, like I said, I'm sorry if my talking about back-channelling makes people uncomfortable. But I'm not sorry I do it, because otherwise my head would explode.

Honestly, I think a little bit of backchannelling is good for the soul.

A lot of it *is* "Did I go overboard? Should I apologize offthread?"

Some of it's "I'm going to SCREAM NOW PLEASE DOBLERIZE ME!!!" venting.

Either way, they help.

Putting it that way, Betsy, makes me more ok with it. I know I do it with my friends. I guess it's just the thought that I wouldn't know if I upset someone, and I wouldn't have a chance to make it up to them.

A private eyebrow-raising between friends about someone else seems the least explosive way of dealing with an odd situation.