There are times...

[scheherazade_79]

I'm not really the kind of person who keeps things to myself, and this has been stagnating inside me for quite a while, so I'm afraid the time has come to let it all out.

There are times when the AH pisses me off to buggery.

I pretty much made the decision to call it quits last week. I'm not really a community-type person, but there was something inside me that liked the thought of swapping ideas with other writers - using them as a source of inspiration and discussing writerly things.

I don't know when it happened - maybe it was always the case and I just didn't notice - but recently there are several things about the AH that have been crawling right under my skin. And it true celtic style I intend to cover them all without making any apology if my views offend anyone.

The Rampant Political Correctness
Yes, it has reminded me a little of 1984 - words that you're allowed to say, words that you're never ever allowed to say under any circumstance. In fact, it's the complete ignoring of individual circumstance that's frightened me the most. To some it's become a blanket doctrine that must be followed at all costs - often at the expense of a normal, human being reaction. We're not robots - we're people, who are full of passion that sometimes overpowers logic and political correctness. And I don't see that as a bad thing.

The Banality of Threads
I'll hold my hands up and confess that in the past, I've been as much a culprit as anyone else. But these days I look through the AH and there's nothing I feel like resonding to. They're all things like:
"How Big is Your Penis?"
"How Deep is Your Vagina?"
"How Spherical is Your Clit?"
"Do you Spit or Swallow?"
"What Colour Underwear Do You Have On?"
"How Many Hairs Do You Have In Your Pubic Region?"
Once in a while threads like that are amusing - when you have a healthy mixture of debate threads and writerly threads. But these days when I look at the AH, I wonder how it's any different from the GB. With the exception of Svet's random bullshit, it probably isn't that different at all.

The Clique
Yes, I know this has been discussed dozens of times already, but as you know - there's rarely any smoke without fire. I'll keep this short and just say that there are certain individuals in the AH who go slightly overboard when it comes to certain other individuals. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if I should be doing the American Summer Camp thing and jumping up and down, clapping my hands when certain figureheads enter the scene.

The Predictability
I decided last week that enough was enough, but last night I decided to post one final discussion thread - just to see if someone would meet my predictions. It was about fairytale creatures - pixies, elves, witches etc. and how they came into being. As I was writing it, I knew that someone would either:
a) Object with real venom to terms such as "giantism" and "dwarfism" for the sake of political correctness.
b) Respond with the sanctimoniousness of a sex-starved monk, and argue that things like this shouldn't be analysed, any more than the Bible should be.
c) Misinterpret the entire thread as an "I'm better than you, because I was born several hundred years later" rant.
Two out of three isn't bad, I guess.

The Brinnie Thread
This was probably the turning point. It sickened me that a thread which did nothing but breed antagonism went on for so damn long. Six-seven pages of aggro, that stayed up around the top of the AH threads like a floating turd. For God's sake - if you come across someone like that again, bloody ignore them. It was obvious that neither side was ever going to give in, so why perpetuate it?

So, on that note, I'm going to love you and leave you now. I've had some good times, and there are people I'll miss. I'll still be writing the occasional story for Lit, but I'm moving away from the community aspect of it. I wish you all the best for the future

 

[sun_lover_61]

Is it really that bad?

There are things about AH that have pissed me off, and I have only been here 6 weeks - but on balance it seems a great place - frequented by a fairly progressive and accepting (and gentle in nature) group of people. Every community, virtual, or otherwise - will have individuals who get up your nose.

I thought your criticism of political correctness was particularly unfounded. Hell, erotic literature/porn is not even pc (although there has been a swing toward of weak acceptance of its validity of late). There are some AH'ers who have been snared by the "pc trap", for sure - but others are genuine badass rebels!

If you leave I will be left flying the Welsh flag on my own!

Cymraeg SL61

 

[Guest]

babe, ill miss you. i hope youll pop in every now and then to say hello?
but, i totally understand where youre coming from. be good to yourself...do what ya gatta do but please, do keep in touch?
*hugs*
v~

 

[Metrodance]

And I thought this was a respectable haven from the GB.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I thought your criticism of political correctness was particularly unfounded. Hell, erotic literature/porn is not even pc (although there has been a swing toward of weak acceptance of its validity of late). There are some AH'ers who have been snared by the "pc trap", for sure - but others are genuine badass rebels!

I think you must have missed the thread when poor Doormouse made the mistake of condemning "Abbo bastards" after being broken into for the third time by them....

 

[scheherazade_79]

babe, ill miss you. i hope youll pop in every now and then to say hello?
but, i totally understand where youre coming from. be good to yourself...do what ya gatta do but please, do keep in touch?
*hugs*
v~

Miss you too, babe. I might come back once in a while when I can be sure the PC Squad are looking the other way, or embroiled in another feud with some loopy halfwit like Brinnie

 

[scheherazade_79]

And I thought this was a respectable haven from the GB.

The GB's a zoo. This is more of a safari park

 

[Metrodance]

The GB's a zoo. This is more of a safari park

Come down to the GB - there is a small welcoming group of open minded intelligentsia - a little left wing for some but that's fine. Even Sub Joe pops in from time to time.

 

[impressive]

Best to you, Scheh. You know where to find me.

 

[Guest]

 

[Liar]

I don't know when it happened - maybe it was always the case and I just didn't notice -

Pretty much so, yes. It follows the seasons. Kind of. Sometimes it's better and sometimes worse. Whichever is which.

Sad to see you go. You're definitely one of the good ones.

 

[Black Tulip]

I'm not really the kind of person who keeps things to myself, and this has been stagnating inside me for quite a while, so I'm afraid the time has come to let it all out.

There are times when the AH pisses me off to buggery.

I pretty much made the decision to call it quits last week. I'm not really a community-type person, but there was something inside me that liked the thought of swapping ideas with other writers - using them as a source of inspiration and discussing writerly things.

I don't know when it happened - maybe it was always the case and I just didn't notice - but recently there are several things about the AH that have been crawling right under my skin. And it true celtic style I intend to cover them all without making any apology if my views offend anyone.
...

I'm sorry to see you go, but you've made your point of view very clear.
Take care and just pop in from time to time, will you?

 

[CharleyH]

I'm not really the kind of person who keeps things to myself, and this has been stagnating inside me for quite a while, so I'm afraid the time has come to let it all out.

You're a buggering midget? Who'd have thought.

Best to you!

 

[Softouch911]

I've lurked for over a year, posted for near 2 months. I agree with everything you say. But your list of gripes left out all of the interesting conversations and creativity I find so often .... the discussion of banned books this week comes to mind, another member's concerns about writer's block, sometimes the witty iconoclasm that takes the puff out of some stuffed shirt.

The main reason I went from lurking to posting is that I thought I might have some thoughts to contribute and it would give me a chance to ask questions of the many folk here who have a lot to say on things I know little about.

Sometimes I have nothing to offer and just read ... like in the thread you offered on fairies & magic. I try to simply avoid all of the board heroes. And like you I find too much silliness and inanity ... not that we don't all need it, but it seems to me like there are too many silly threads posted by folk who have nothing to do but find a way to get some personal attention. The PC thing is a problem, but where on earth will you go where some version of it isn't a problem? Bigots are everywhere, even when they're PC.

Be that as it may, I wish people like you wouldn't leave but instead keep offering up interesting stuff for those of us who enjoy the broad variety of info. Surely, there's a thread a day that offers something worth reading? That's well ahead of the record of cable TV. Leaving AH when you have something to offer reminds me of the folk who carp about the quality of writing in the stories posted on Lit. as if theirs, because they get 5s for good reason or bad, are of a quality deserving emulation. In fact, the best of us here are little more than professional wannabes.

I plan to stay with AH at least for awhile because it gives me an open forum in which I can get better. And there is no place I know in my town where I can go to discuss either vagina depth or the quality of a piece of erotica.

Best wishes. Softouch

 

[she_is_my_addiction]

I'm not really the kind of person who keeps things to myself, and this has been stagnating inside me for quite a while, so I'm afraid the time has come to let it all out.

There are times when the AH pisses me off to buggery.

I pretty much made the decision to call it quits last week. I'm not really a community-type person, but there was something inside me that liked the thought of swapping ideas with other writers - using them as a source of inspiration and discussing writerly things.

I don't know when it happened - maybe it was always the case and I just didn't notice - but recently there are several things about the AH that have been crawling right under my skin. And it true celtic style I intend to cover them all without making any apology if my views offend anyone.

The Rampant Political Correctness
Yes, it has reminded me a little of 1984 - words that you're allowed to say, words that you're never ever allowed to say under any circumstance. In fact, it's the complete ignoring of individual circumstance that's frightened me the most. To some it's become a blanket doctrine that must be followed at all costs - often at the expense of a normal, human being reaction. We're not robots - we're people, who are full of passion that sometimes overpowers logic and political correctness. And I don't see that as a bad thing.

The Banality of Threads
I'll hold my hands up and confess that in the past, I've been as much a culprit as anyone else. But these days I look through the AH and there's nothing I feel like resonding to. They're all things like:
"How Big is Your Penis?"
"How Deep is Your Vagina?"
"How Spherical is Your Clit?"
"Do you Spit or Swallow?"
"What Colour Underwear Do You Have On?"
"How Many Hairs Do You Have In Your Pubic Region?"
Once in a while threads like that are amusing - when you have a healthy mixture of debate threads and writerly threads. But these days when I look at the AH, I wonder how it's any different from the GB. With the exception of Svet's random bullshit, it probably isn't that different at all.

The Clique
Yes, I know this has been discussed dozens of times already, but as you know - there's rarely any smoke without fire. I'll keep this short and just say that there are certain individuals in the AH who go slightly overboard when it comes to certain other individuals. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if I should be doing the American Summer Camp thing and jumping up and down, clapping my hands when certain figureheads enter the scene.

The Predictability
I decided last week that enough was enough, but last night I decided to post one final discussion thread - just to see if someone would meet my predictions. It was about fairytale creatures - pixies, elves, witches etc. and how they came into being. As I was writing it, I knew that someone would either:
a) Object with real venom to terms such as "giantism" and "dwarfism" for the sake of political correctness.
b) Respond with the sanctimoniousness of a sex-starved monk, and argue that things like this shouldn't be analysed, any more than the Bible should be.
c) Misinterpret the entire thread as an "I'm better than you, because I was born several hundred years later" rant.
Two out of three isn't bad, I guess.

The Brinnie Thread
This was probably the turning point. It sickened me that a thread which did nothing but breed antagonism went on for so damn long. Six-seven pages of aggro, that stayed up around the top of the AH threads like a floating turd. For God's sake - if you come across someone like that again, bloody ignore them. It was obvious that neither side was ever going to give in, so why perpetuate it?

So, on that note, I'm going to love you and leave you now. I've had some good times, and there are people I'll miss. I'll still be writing the occasional story for Lit, but I'm moving away from the community aspect of it. I wish you all the best for the future

This would account for why I don't come around as often any longer.

 

[Honey123]

I wish you the best, Scheh ~

 

[Op_Cit]

Sheh is right. The only thing is she left out more examples of of the unending supply of stupidness.

I have contributed to the crap that goes on here. I would like it as much or more than her to be about writing/learning. I gave up that ambition some time ago--that is neither good nor bad. Here's what is good:

Sheh, Perdita, etc. who say, "you know, this is a silly waste of time," and move on.

It is good for them, and it is good for the concept of quality discussion. That is, the silly digression into complete waste of time will not end until all pretenses die off. It's an evolutionary process.

There is nothing wrong with silly/blow off steam/waste of time activities. They are beneficial at times. Where the conflict and problem lay is in people's perception that an activity is or is not a silly waste of time.

Now people are going to mis interpret what I said earlier but here it is again: Voting with your feet (that is, leaving) is a good thing because you are able to make better use of your time, and the silliness will not be curbed until more people make this choice. Those that move on are maybe making more of a difference in (perhaps eventually) bringing it back to substance... (I could go into more detail but it gets offensive in the anthropological aspects).

Anyway, how's that saying go, "You're a better man than I..." Seriously.

 

[matriarch]

I'm not going to agree or disagree.....your point of view is your own, and your conscience is there to be acted upon.

But......I'm going to miss you, babe. You know it.

 

[cloudy]

You'll be missed.

 

[oggbashan]

You'll be missed.

I agree. We missed cloudy even though it was only for a few days.

Whenever I feel that some of the threads have gone on long beyond their purpose, I just ignore them.

Back to editing. I have nearly managed to print off a complete hard copy of all my work. That is worrying. So much editing, so many loose ends, so many incomplete stories - and that is just from the posted work.

Whenever I am irritated by the AH I take a break, if only for a few hours, and WRITE.

It helps me put things into perspective and reminds me that most of the time I enjoy this place.

Og

 

[minsue]

A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do. Best wishes to you, Sheh.

 

[pink swirl]

 

[KarenAM]

I find myself posting less and less at the AH. Certainly several of scheherazade_79's opinions are ones I hold as well, but most of all it's the venom here that I simply can't take. I don't need to identify the threads where this is going on, since we all know which ones I'm talking about, and the topics they cover. It's becoming more and more clear that a significant number of the people who post here really hate a significant number of the other people who post here, and that it's affecting all of us.

I could list those who've made me angry, who I feel have wronged me here, but this would do little good, save for one: KarenAM. A little while ago I found myself participating in one of "those" threads, and I said some really angry things. Disrespectful things.

And I found myself pulling my own post.

I've been trying, since then, to be reasonable in my posts, to use language that is not confrontational, and to avoid the really bad threads. You can all judge my success at this for yourselves; I've tried to police my posts, but I still find myself lurking, like a damn junkie, in the sea of hate that some of these threads are.

It's all I can do to keep myself from diving right back in. I get physically sick at some of the things said, and worse yet, at some of the responses I form in my head.

I need to work on this. It isn't healthy for me.

I'm not going to make some grand announcement that I'm leaving, because I intend to come and go from the AH as I please. In what has become a much smaller presence here I'm going to try and be a positive, constructive member of this community. When I have something positive to say, as this last week when my book had a jump in sales, or I've read or seen something interesting, and I'm happy about it, then I will post. When I feel I can comfort someone who is hurting or afraid, I'll do that. And when I feel I can state an opinion reasonably and peacefully on something I feel is important, I'll do that.

I hope I can do this.

There are people here who I really like and respect. To them I say thank you and that I look forward to our continued acquaintance.

 

[tolyk]

You know, the inane things that do occur here are part of why I keep coming back. It shows that we're all human, and we, as the rest of humanity, have our faults. I've not seen anyone in here that tries to pretend they are perfect.. even with all the things you just posted Sheh, none of those people believe they are perfect. THey might think they're right about an opinionated topic, but that's their right, to believe in their opinions. If you don't agree with them, that's your right too. Argue about it, ignore it, or bitch and whine about it. Those are your choices really, here and anywhere in life.

Yes, we have a lot of people who chose to argue about topics, but that's been explained: We're writers, we have big egos There will be the occassional clash, and all hell will break loose. But really, that will also happen almost everywhere in life. Groups of friends in real life have the occassional squabble, but they tend to pull back together after it (not always)

You feel that posting all these reasons for you to leave justifies your leaving? If you want to leave, that's all it takes. "Oh, the AH pisses me off lately, I think I'm going to put down one last rant and bash everyone in there, maybe in the hopes of knocking some sense into the place." that's what it seemed like, probably not how you meant it, but it is how it came off to me.

I too will be sorry to see you leave, I know it probably doesn't sound like it thus far, but I shall. It's just such a silly reason to leave.. I mean, I would understand "It bores me", but that the AH pisses you off? I mean, doesn't that make leaving just running away from the problem? (No, I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, I'm just rambling.)

Remember the Anger thread? How someone thought that all anger came from within, about us being discontent with something in ourselves (or something like that), have you analyzed the anger and know exactly where it comes from? Which people, which circumstances within a thread... if so, avoid those people or outright ignore them.. stay out of the political threads, they're all marked with the word Political now, so we know before even going in them.

I've never seen this clique that everyone refers too, perhaps because I've been a social outcast most of my life and I don't really understand how groups of people function.. but the people here don't seem any different then people I would encounter in real life.. and real life is much more annoying You can't press an ignore button to get rid of stupidity in RL.

Oh, and Op_Cit, it is stupidity, not stupidness.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I respect your feelings on this, Scheh, but, selfishly, I can't help but wish you'd stay. The diversity of idea and opinion and voice here is what makes the AH stimulating for me. I will indeed miss your voice.