Awww that's really sad :( I know you have your own reasons for doing so but its still odd when someone says they want to leave. If I can make anything better then say the word (probably useless - but I have to try) When the characters keep disappearing it makes the site flat for a while each time :(

I joined buffyuk.org in the winter of 1999 and then had to rejoin in January 2000 when I think Stu revamped/moved the site to a new server or something.

Its been a long online life - but even I'll admit that people come and go for whatever reasons. The people who "originally" made it fun for me just don't seem to have the contact time anymore.

But after a long process I'm in the mood for re-capturing the excitement that first made it all worthwhile for me.

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Thanks for the thought... but it's gone beyond the point where it's worth trying for me. I'm not a science fiction fan and most of the threads in general chat don't interest me any more. I used to enjoy reading the politics ones (although I get far too much politics in my day-to-day life to actually want to join in) but the big row about whether or not they should be allowed killed that for me.

Thinking about it, it must have been summer 2000 when I joined B-UK. Anyway, it was when Alyson Hannigan came over and did a signing at the Virgin Megastore, whenever that was.

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Which was when you had the pleasure of meeting Len and I in the store *grin*

It is sad to see you go hun, but at least we'll still get to see you around :) *hugs*

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I hadn't forgotten :o)

I'll still be around and about, just not there.

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As you know, I'm coming to a similar conclusion myself...and every time someone else leaves it just reinforces that. It's a shame, because once upon a time it was one of the best sites I knew.

White Hart

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I don't think T21 ever was - the long delay between the end of BuffyUK and the launch of the real Tangent21 meant that people found other places to chat while they were waiting, and that killed it the atmosphere and community that made B-UK so good.

I also think that when people started meeting up in real life, a great deal of damage was done to the boards. The focus of people's interaction shifted away from the boards and the chatroom, which became more a place to follow up and discuss things that had happened offline than a place to initiate new things.

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I agree with you somewhat on the meeting up thing - but more from the perspective that when groups fell out it was then also apparent in the interaction on threads. People who were once chatty towards each other became quite hostile.

However, on saying that I have great fun at conventions - but they aren't really the same scale as a minimeet and I get to see people there who are hardly online every 4-6 months.

I agree with the people desiring to leave T21. I have done it myself, althoug not gone to the length of deleting my account. For me it was long before the firestorm raised by the Politics Forum thread (as you mentioned above) and the realisation that T21 has never become the bastion of democratic debate we were promised, but rather a playschool for posts that are generally either verbal drivel or bad news; I left because I felt the choices made in staff were apallingly poor-sighted and biased as hell, and because I no longer felt the site was giving me any worth.

-Ciri

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Hi Ciri - nice to see you dropping by.

The thing that I thought worst of all about the politics stuff was that it started with a complaint from people who were unhappy that a politics thread was being disrupted by people who weren't interested in politics: but when the staff met to decide what to do, their decision was "we'll let you discuss politics so long as you behave yourselves". Not a word about the original complaint regarding disruption.

Having said that, I do agree with the people who say that staff mean well and put in a lot of hard voluntary work. They're good people, I respect what they're trying to do, and I like them personally - in a couple of cases I count them as being among the closest friends I've ever had.
I just feel that they've got into a collective mind-set where they expect people to judge them according to their effort and not the results of that effort. Which isn't good.

I also like a certain amount of verbal drivel - it lightens the day!

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