Whatever happened to the quality? - No Spam

[VoodooDali]

Interesting topic, Sleep, since I was thinking the other day about talking about my feelings about SYM.

When I look at when I joined GB (march 2001), it is the same time as a lot of the old-timers (although I'm not clear on when SYM was started--Fall of 2000?). I remember the Aerie-bashing threads and Alternate Male Romance threads on the BG forum, but didn't pay attention to them or SYM, since I was too busy playing BG, BG2, ToB, Fallout 1&2, PS:T. Then I ran out of games and found myself here one day, and got hooked.

Honestly, I am really put off by a lot of the griping by old-timers here on the "good ole days." It appears to me a lot of the time that they put zero effort into getting to know newer members, and only post to respond to other old-timers. Not all the old-timers, but a significant few. I've seen newbies post a reply to old-timers, which goes completely ignored. This is high-school age cliqueishness at its worst. I'm too old to have the patience to put up with it. Most of the time I just move on and try to get to know the more open-minded people here (new or old).

As far as the serious discussions on SYM go, I've learned a lot from them. When you have to explain your opinion on something, you end up having to learn more about your own opinion. For example, on the art threads, I ended up learning a lot more about conceptual art and post-modernism than I knew before. I'd been tossing these words around without being completely clear on them before--and now I am. It's helpful to me since my partner is a sculptor and I have to go to a lot of art openings in Manhattan. All I can say about them is that what is a waste of time to one SYMer may be very valuable to the next. I don't think it's possible to find a topic that everyone will find fascinating. I like the political topics, even though I know better than to think I can change someone else's POV. It's really fascinating to me to hear POV's from such widely disparate people. You can't get that in ordinary conversation in your own home town.