Well, that was kind of my point, though it didn't come across as well as I'd hoped. There are always golden days in the past. Things acquire a glow, and we forget the little irritations, and fewer people means fewer irritations.

Thank you for clarifying that, ita.

I recall the period immediately following the creation of the Phoenix board as unusually halcyon. I don't think it was structural though, rather event-driven.

Yeah. Season 7 hadn't devolved into muck, Firefly was still up and coming, Angel recovered from tripping into the guac the Crapture, and there were only about 400 people registered, making it smaller and more intimate.

For about three months.

But it really was, it felt, a honeymoon period and rather abnormal, push coming to shove.

She said I could, ita.

That is a relief.

I had a realization tonight on why this kind of kerfuffle seems to happen every year about this time. It's usually TV hiatus, and, unlike Summer, it's Winter a lot of places (that is, more housebound/stir crazy). In addition to all the other change of season things, the fact that we're usually jonesing for new episodes of one show or another is a factor. This year, more than ever, given we have an ME-less year coming up(Firefly movie aside, which won't make everybody happy). I'm happy we've got Wonderfalls right now, but the Firefly experience doesn't make that a calming happy, if you see what I'm saying.

At defunct board I was at for Andromeda Ascendant, we called rerun periods AWS, for Andromeda Withdrawal Syndrome.

A whole community AWSing made for some very fine bonfires indeed.

Well, the two other largish boards/mailing lists I'm on are also kerfuffling, and neither are TV related. One is general interest, and going through a similar "who are we, and are we the same as we were when we started" identity crisis to this one. The other is skating-related, and has managed to get into a political argument started by discussion over the streaker who disrupted Kwan's warmup at Worlds (sounds goofy, I know, but it's turned into the trade-off of security vs. liberty), plus the usual recurring argument over whether or not Kwan is washed up and should hang up her skates.

So I think it's the time of the year and the tension in the world.

I'd certainly agree with time of year. It snowed here today. I'm so insanely sick of snow I could scream. It doesn't make for feelings of lighthearted joy.

Also, I e-mailed my post to Elena, since I talked about her in it, and she said she's not horrified to have been talked about, so, well, I believe I've just been hoist on my own petard.

John H. left because of the mieskie/schmoker incident. He told me the same by email right after he disappeared. I say this to clear up any uncertainty WRT John H. But a damn shame all around.

Edited to remove the direct quote from John H.'s email which I had quoted w/o his permission. (Although he did tell me quite firmly to never contact him again, so that permission is unlikely to ever be gotten.)

Wolfram, did he say you could post that? (Not wanting to start anything here, but I also don't want to set a precedent of posting back-channel stuff, as that leads to lots of problems. Maybe, if everyone posting a quote from an email or livejournal or IM conversation would just note "X said I could post this" as a matter of habit, it would be useful.)

It's 2am eastern. That means it's even late for the west coasters. Could we, do you think, all vacate bureacracy for a bit and come back to this in, say, 24 hours? Or maybe on Monday? I think we could find tempers cooled and frustrations subsiding if we just gave it a rest.