You don't know me. I've been around long enough to have been banned just for standing too close to Lidless.
I know you're well thought of, and I enthusiastically supported your invitation here.
The consequence of your current perspective on this is to assign someone else control over the image you project of yourself and how you react.
I think I understand what you're saying here. Perhaps I
may be giving them control, but I'm really only thinking of myself if there's any image I try to project, and not how others would think of it.
This isn't a case of me wanting to be thought of a certain way and fighting to protect that image. I
can't control what others think of me, which is why I don't try to impress them, and just carry on doing my own little thing. Have since high school. But I'm not going to draw attention to myself and hope they'll just be kind, when I know darn well they will not.
I'm not embarrassed by board77, and I worry that people think I'm saying all our previous threads are an abomination. I was in there through it all: whining, debating, laughing, crying, supporting people, needing support, trying to move on. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't need to.
I also don't need to be reminded of values when I came here being told it was a private board, and now it's going to be free for anyone to see. It's not that I was lying then, or lying now, it's that I wrote for a certain audience, and now that audience is changing. My posts need to as well.
But it's not me that I'm worried about. I believe that the only people interested in those old threads are the ones who aren't going to have as good intentions as you guys have, and I don't understand why you want to make it so easy for them.
I love our old threads and I do want to keep them around, just not for anyone besides whoever is here now, really. I don't want people changing or deleting their posts - it was so amazing what it brought out in them, be it humour, intelligence, insanity, etc. They were crazy, fantastic, frustrating, sad, giddy, amusing days, and I enjoy revisiting them, but I don't care for others to. I can only imagine they'll focus on the bad, and we'll have to see it every single day, or every time someone new comes along.
I was one of those people in the threads encouraging people to ignore the trolls, so I definitely encourage everyone but the admins to do that again next week, but I also don't see the point in feeding them and
then hoping for good results. Yes, if someone's going to be a tool, it is simple to write them off as one and carry on. But is it? Seeing that person face to face isn't going to be easy in any way, and having them spam the boards isn't going to make me enjoy it. It doesn't take much (and sometimes nothing at all) for people to get offended. I just lost a friend of 8 years because she found out I wrote "I wish Courtney had stayed to watch the end of the movie." Sure, I guess you could say it is easy to chalk it up to her being a goose, but in the end, that's 8 years and a great friend down the drain, and I don't think you can tell me it was worth it. I
did wish she'd stayed for the end of the movie, but if I'd known she was going to react that way, I woulda kept that comment far out of reach, not shoved it in her face and hoped for the best, satisfied in knowing that if it didn't turn out that way, I could just say, "oh well, who cares what she thinks?"
I'm not sure why you would care about their reaction
I hate the prospect of anyone dumping on my for being honest. Especially if they themselves are not going to be.
or provide them a willing audience for their misguided views.
Well, they're going to
have an audience for their views, being able to post here and all, but I've no qualms with that. I know B77 will see the good along with the bad, and that's how it's always been (in life, not B77).
But what I'm against is willingly providing them
ammunition for their little agendas. This is what will happen. I can try ignoring it, but I know there are going to be situations where I will just not be able to, and that's where it gets my goat.
No one owes them a response.
But you're giving them one by keeping these threads viewable because you feel you owe them transparency. I don't think anything I said on TORC or in e-mail differed greatly from what I said here, but it's not about that. It's about moving forward, and keeping our past here for the trouble-makers who are still stuck in it is gonna be a problem, and I see no need of aiding them. I owe them no explanation of what went on back then. I tried numerous times to do so, but they won't listen, so I hardly see why it would sink in now.
Yep, stuff got out thanks to a mole or whatever. But one person betraying our trust and telling one or two others isn't exactly the same as
all of us telling dozens of people, "here.... take it all.... Do with it what you will". I couldn't help the one, but I can try to do something about the other, especially since it's on a much larger scale than the first.
Let's be honest about who we are
Have always tried to.
be proud of it
Always have been.
show a little tolerance for the immature
Um... to reverse roles a bit: "The dead do not suffer the living to pass." "You will suffer me." I don't wanna suffer.
and keep moving forward.
*I* will, but I see the site getting bogged down with those back-pedallers I mentioned before.
*E*