Why I'm Leaving E2

I have sadly come to the conclusion that this is not a place for me. While there's a lot of cool stuff here and some pretty neat people, I just don't seem to be able to become assimilated. And yes, I deliberately chose that word.

I'm 7 writeups away from Level 3, with more than enough XP. I've studiously avoided noding for numbers. I've had a few writeups eaten, for reasons I more or less understand, and I've had a few ching'ed.. I think I've added some useful things to the nodegel. But I have an ongoing problem with the navel-gazing attitude that E2 is, well, everything. It shows up most clearly in the reaction to anyone who has the temerity to offer opinions about E2 itself and is not an "old timer".

For example, the last straw for me happened this morning when I logged in and discovered that Klaproth had eaten my latest writeup. No big deal, right? I've had a few eaten before. But what sticks in my craw was the reason. The writeup was a new node that basically was trying to encourage people to not ignore old writeups, and to go back and spend some of their votes on things not on the "New Writeups" list. I spent some time doing some (I thought) interesting linking, made sure I wasn't being judgemental, and tried to keep it light. I felt pretty good about that node when I submitted it. I felt better after I got three quick messages from people who thought it was a good idea. So what did I find this morning? Klaproth ate my node because "noding about noding is a bad idea unless you're a wizened old noder", if my memory is still working.

So what's my gripe? Well, first of all, I wasn't noding about noding, you assholes! I was noding about voting in particular, but really about E2 and how we relate to it. Now, you may say that that's the same thing, but I'll tell you that the way it felt when I read the curt note was that I was being dismissed and nobody even had the courtesy to personally tell me why.
Second, this notion of "wizened old noder" is bullshit. If an idea is good, it shouldn't matter if the noder has been here since E1 or not. That, to me, is the basic flaw in the current incarnation of E2. I have noticed that there are some users whose bullshit gets upvoted and C!'ed while it wouldn't last 15 minutes if it had been written by a newbie. What's that? "Earn your bullshit", you say? There's one big problem with that statement. Two, actually.

1. Earned bullshit is still bullshit.
2. There's something fundamentally wrong with the idea that E2 is the only place you can "earn your bullshit."

I've only been around here for a couple of months, but I've been on the net since before browsers. I've earned a lot of bullshit in my time. I try not to use it though, because, well, see item 1 above.

E2 is well on its way to being seriously inbred. It has definitely already formed its own version of "political correctness" and the notions of "us" and "them".

And I guess that's really it. I don't care to stay when I feel like I'll always be a "them." Have a nice life.