On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:55:07 -0700 (PDT), Ananias
wrote:

Oh Dear Lord,

I agree with you on most....but I dont think it will go own the
tubes....

I don't either, but when you've got moderators typing out posts like
that one you quoted here--it's clear things cannot continue to go on
like that without there being some kind of a blowup because it's clear
those folks have some control issues, some real control issues.

I just think it has gotten as close as it could get to being
a good, useful and knowledge based web forum for FP's. Form here on
out its just kittens, bunnies and rainbows.

You got a point. It's not like there are new fountain pens coming out
every 3 months or any new technology and you've got to go to FPN to
keep up with new developments. Once the stuff is covered, it's
covered. How many posts can you write about a Parker 51? How many
posts do you care to read about a Parker 51?

How much are Parker 51s going for on eBay these days? Maybe I'll get
one and send it to Old Griz for Old Griz to fix it up for me. He had
some kind words to say about the Drunken Lord--he said these kind
words on FPN the other day, and I appreciated that.

Old Griz is the one who came up with the plan of drilling a hole in
the rear end of Pilot Varsity pens and pouring new ink in them when
they run dry. I read those posts and thought, "Old Griz must be a
backdoor man." There's a simpler way to refill the Pilot Varsity's,
though Old Griz's way might be better--all you do is pull the feed
off, refill, and put it back on.

But there's Old Griz, drilling away at the backdoor.

Old Griz is a good guy though. And knowledgable.

And apologies to Old Griz if he didn't come with the drilling plan for
the Varsities, but I think that was Old Griz.

Reminds me of a golf site I used to visit....bombsquadgolf.com. Thats
another forum run by a complete sofa king we tadd. He went the other
way and turned his into a business for profit. Forums seem to run best
when they are in the middle of this spectrum. I can think of ****ty
boards like somethingaweful and offtopic where they have google ads
for revenue and can still admit they have an owner and run it to their
like without having to be communist style dictators. I think it would
be good for some of these admin/dictator types to take a peak at how
popular dictators in the real world are. They are mostly hated around
the entire globe...except by their local subjects. Who truly do hate
them but know its in their best interest to keep their mouth shut and
toe the party line.

There are several decent commercial web forums, but generally the
people who run the sites have done a lot more work--and continue to do
a lot more work--than the admins on FPN do. Hell, all that site is,
is some ****ing shareware hosted somewhere. Sites that rinky dink
generally don't make it commercial except for nickel and dime Google
ads. And ****, I know those Google ads aren't going to speed that
place up. The commercial boards I've been to that are decent
commercial boards, such as dpreview.com are not as slow as Christmas
like FPN can often be.