A Gratuitous Response, Perhaps, With Apologies
Dear santo,
The following is a parody and written purely in humor. It's also
because I've been longing to do as you have done, write about E2 from my
own personal point of view, break a few rules, and celebrate having
found this place. And my sincere congratulations upon the occasion of
your earning level 2. You're old enough to vote!
Best Regards,
shaogo
- Today, with this writeup, in fact, I acquire a few XP (maybe) or
such, but nothing else. I am, however, still a newbie and am indeed in the
habit of visiting and posting a few random thoughts. Those writeups have been
nuked. At the risk of again having my many laborious keystrokes whisked away
at an editor's whim, I will completely violate all of the observations and
advice that have accumulated in my grey matter and commit a mortal sin: I will
node about noding about noding. I have no radical ideas about noding and I often
find that when I come up with an idea for a node I write about the topic more
often than not, taking care not to reiterate nor comment on that which was
written by others before me.
I've put this in a daylog because it often surprises me how many people indeed
read the daylogs.
- In the first place, the people here are a lot closer
than I thought they would be, that is, until some of them in Great Britain
called my cell phone in the United States as I sat beside my father's hospital
bed while he lay dying. That re-assured me that none of these
"noders" were too close. Physically. Then one of them called an ambulance
when I did something astoundingly stupid and
self-destructive. But it's okay; I was in Connecticut and he was in the
Southwest. There are so many other anecdotes about how close the members of this unique group are; but I've just scratched the
surface. I can't imagine what wonderful bonds will be made once I've been around
here eight times longer. For I have only been here about one-eighth of the time
this place has existed.
- It's the nature of my business that I meet people "in real life" that
I've first communicated with on the internet. Privately, I've met four or five
people; via this website and also another site, one dedicated to fans of Frank Sinatra.
It's a natural evolution of the internet as a social tool that sooner or later,
one who's not frightened by stories on television about Internet predators will, in fact, meet
someone, or a group of people, they've first interacted with in cyber-space. And
indeed the members of E2 are educated risk-takers in that they do in fact
organize gatherings to which all are invited, utilizing precious little, if any,
screening techniques to weed out those who'd perhaps compromise the joviality, or worse, the security of such a gathering.
Rest assured, however, that nodermeets offer a little
something for all who attend.
- Everything2 is not a forum. The catbox is a forum. I'm often
logged in for many hours at a time whether or not there's something to do at
work. Because when there's shit swirling all around me I know I can settle down
for a moment and read something worthwhile herein. I've seen so many one-line
responses to large, well thought out writeups. But that's what the editors
are for (as well as those who would choose to take their time to gently
encourage the writer of such responses to refer to E2 FAQ or some similar
reference).
- Everything2 can be a legitimate source of information. It's also
crammed with misinformation and occasionally visited with the piece of trite, tasteless drivel. The same can be said for Wikipedia,
or for that matter any source of information which fails in some way to be
purely objective, a difficult, if not impossible feat indeed. (Just ask Kitty
Kelley.) My own discovery
of E2 occurred when I was searching for information on a very
peculiar subject.
- C!s and positive rep are like life blood to new noders. Occasionally.
The assumption that C!s are to be tossed as "bones" to new users is
a concept that I find offensive. Writeups that I ching are, of course,
newly-written, damnit - but carefully read, too. And God forgive me but I've
more than once given a C! to an article with a point of view I despise. Why?
Because the article is well-written, well-cited, logical, and makes me think.
- This place is intimidating. Of course it is. For me, it's
intimidating because there are people who write here who have more
intelligence in their left pinkie finger than I have in the entirety of my
fat, old body.
- The last time I used a link like my life depended upon it, it was
part of a chain that was holding me to a Para-Sail. The damned thing broke and I plunged into the water about 20 feet below, where the
fishies nibbled on my toes.
That's all for now. In the end, I like Everything2 and I think I'll stay.
Until I have to make a cup of coffee or use the loo.