Where is sozobe?

Hullo!

I have not ditched anyone for Facebook. (I do use my "real name" Facebook account a fair amount, but not the A2K version.)

All is well!

I just started disengaging maybe 6 months ago or so (less interesting, less fun, felt more like work), but checked in occasionally so nobody would worry about me, but nobody seemed that concerned when I did check in, so I gradually checked in less. (Not because I was sad that nobody seemed that concerned, but because if the only point to check in was to allay concern but nobody was concerned, not much point in checking in!)

Then dlowan contacted me off of A2K and I filled her in a bit and she promised to let people know I was fine if it came up (as she has, thank you!!), so then I backed off a bit further yet.

And now the lovely dlowan has notified me of this thread... thank you again!

The book is indeed proceeding apace, not a sure thing or anything, still very much in process, but helping to fill the "writing" niche.

How are all of you? What's the big news from around here?

While I have never commented very much, I have always looked forward to seeing you here.

Absolutely!

well, you've been gone sooooo long that wandeljw's daughter Annie got all growed up and joined the site...

Well hullo back atcha'!

When I see people check in occasionally I always think they're okay but busy but when they stop checking in at all I get a little worried. Thanks for checking in and letting us know that all is well. I have missed hearing what you and yours are up to.

Things here are good. We've been hit with relentless rain this week which has left me too much time indoors pondering where everyone is and what they're up to.

This is a lot of the reason I've mostly stopped posting. The attention span for discussing the topic and not the individual making the point lasts about one page. And, then, the usual three suspects show up and suck all of the air out of the room. I still read what's new on new topics, but I've pretty much stopped posting.

<waves to Soz!>

My A2K ennui started when every time I'd click on "new topics" every thread was already marked down to zero and all the tags were name calling bullshit.

Then I'd post something only to find it was immediately marked down to zero and tagged with name calling bullshit.

The new topics threads haven't all been marked down lately -- that makes it feel easier to join conversations. I'm not sure why that's true for me but it is.

I had a dream the other night that I died and was sentenced to Hell.

I was led to my room, which was labeled a2khell.

I thought wow, maybe this won't be so bad after all...

then I entered and sat down.

a voice said "let it begin"...

a constant unending debate teaming whackeyes and waterbuoy against billy and gunga.

dave was the moderator.

one of these days I hope to wake up...

nice to see soz back.

the constant efforts to cleanse A2K is both a symptom of what is wrong with A2K and a driver of it. That so many are like you, that is ignorant of the basics of group dynamics, goes far in explaining why A2K does not pull out of this dive.

you Rock were and are in the vanguard of the killers, driven by your intolerance and lack of respect for others.

OK, this is, i suspect, just the kind of sh*t that Soz and Boomer are talking about.

OMFG. It amazes me how you just don't get it. Are you attempting to convince others on your POV or do you just don't care where you take a dump? Why even bother to comment here on such a thread ...where there are so FEW people who share your peculiar kettle of fish? Why not thumb your nose where others can appreciate it more?

The thing is -- one of the reasons I come here is that I like people who challenge me and I include hawkeye, David, and gungasnake amongst the challengers. Sure we have wildly different opinions on many things (that's what keeps it interesting) but I have managed to find common ground with each of them on some issues.

It's easy to ignore the people you don't like even without using the ignore button. There are, I think, two people who I pass over but even those two have something worthwhile to say once in a while so I don't put them on ignore.

Yep.

I think of a2k as a garden.

some plants are more fragile than others, but as a rule we can all co-exist.

but some plantss are aggressive and dominant and unconcerned with other plants, or the overall condition of the garden.

like kudzu or bamboo.

there might be something redeeming about them, but once in the garden, they run rampant over the smaller but equally or even more valuable plants.

we need more flowers and less weeds...

I kind of agree with hawkeye -- not about A2K dying or about Rockhead -- but that there was an attempt to "cleanse" people away with constant harassment by tagging and name calling.

I was asked "Why do you come here and ask questions?" once.

I kind of thought that was the point of A2K but it did stop me from asking questions for a while.

But if all we use is herbicide everything withers....

I rarely use poison, just a very sharp pair of hand shears...

a little moderation was a very good thing IMHO.

Why is that? If you are ignoring someone, they are virtually dead to you. Why would you care whether they see your posts or not?

(If you don't reply to this, I'll know why! )

That is the dumbest idea in the history of this website and means that we will then need to run two windows with one using a read only account.

Lipstick that would not even stay on the pig lips. You would just need to have two accounts one a read only account and the other is your posting account open in two tabs and there go all of Robert hard work.