What's up?

I got promoted to a cabal! Ple and ita and I are planning...stuff. Except ita's got crazy notions. Ple is surprisingly lucid, however.

Nutty's Queen Bitch of the Universe.

Ooh, can I join the cabal too?

Nutty's Queen Bitch of the Universe.

And she has cool new rules.

(and for the record, I was just joking, I read it all.)

Ooh, can I join the cabal too?

I dunno. It's supposed to be secret and shit, and Shawn's got the list. You might be on it already. Who can say?

I dunno. It's supposed to be secret and shit, and Shawn's got the list. You might be on it already. Who can say?

So if no one knows who is in it, I can just pretend I am.

Probably won't have to do any of the cabal work that way.

Cool.

Lee=sneaky

damn, Robin is on to me. Must remember to get the mind control device back from MM

Ple is surprisingly lucid, however.

T minus 2 minutes, the whisky hits, and lucid don't mean fuck-all.

I want to make one thing clear here before the blessed numbness of the alcohol hits my system: no matter how I feel about someone personally, like or dislike, my positions in THIS THREAD are motivated by my concern for the health of the board as a whole. Always have been, always will be.

What *I* think might be best might not be what you (general you) think is best, might not even, in the end, be what *is* best. Hell, sometimes, it's not even what I want, but it's what *I* believe is best.

Me, I can't speak to people feeling unwelcome or alienated, because I personally have dealt with that by retreating. Threads change, tone changes--mutable, all of it. Sometimes, things change in ways that make me rethink if I should be there. Bitches, well, I miss the people, but not the thread, if that makes sense. It got to be too much for me, so I left, not without regret.

These things happen, like it or not. Ain't no stoppin' change, not really. Even if you want to.

I feel the need to point out - just for clarity's sake - that Rafmun is a real person. He is not a sock puppet.

You can believe me or not, as is your right.

What happens when it's a long-time poster who feels like this? Isn't the fact that they feel this way something that may need to be addressed in terms of board dynamics?

Exactly.

And for all the talk of "my point" being about some 'cabal' - that is wrong. Trudy and I both clearly pointed out that that wasn't the case. It was unorganized meanness that was (and is) the problem.

Karl - excellent post, and most than a few kernels of wisdom. Thank you for cautioning and considering with actual insight. Fwiw, the post that trouble you was the post/moment where I caved/gave up/succumbed to the deluge, and went, for lack of a more clinical term - starkers. I had hoped the *tone* of zany-gleeness might convey that a bit. That said, the characterization/paraphrazing done there still seems accurate in the hard light of the next day.

'Sit back, play nice, you'll fit in eventually' is great advice - were it on point. The problem is that too many long-termers feel alienated. So bitch-slapping a newbie with promises of future fit-in-ingness is not the answer, when the problem being highlighted is not dependent on newness.