Venting

Stephen Hust wrote:
Can somebody tell me where the infamous "Chatter" forum is? I
gathered that it was to be reopened, but I don't see it. Or is it
something only FPN members see?

Since it was re-opened, only members can see the chatter forum.
The practical side of this is that Google doesn't index it,
which means that robots don't hit the servers quite so much. It
also means the stuff that's useful about pens is indexed.

As I've said here before, I don't understand why so many people
prefer Web-based forums to Usenet. I don't like having to register
at a Web site (and register separately at each Web site), I don't
like having somebody who "knows best" (the moderator,
administrator, or whatever) censor articles, and I don't like the
Web forum interfaces I've seen. I find them all cumbersome and not
nearly as user friendly as a newsreader. The poor interface alone
is enough to put me off reading Web-based forums. And this latest
business makes them sound more unattractive than ever.

I don't mind it, but I don't mistake it for the free-for-all that
usenet offers. I think some people do, and that's where there gets
to be trouble on boards.

A web forum's owners bear all the costs; FPN is ad-free, and has
chosen not to take money from advertisers. They raise money through
CafePress and ink and pen sales (of their own inks and pens) and
accept donations.

In contrast, usenet server owners distribute costs broadly.

Here's a post I wrote about the whole chatter forum [text in
brackets not in original post but added for context]:
This is how I see it (and why I don't have a problem with the
moderating). I see it [FPN] as the owner's parlour. The owner's
brought in some people to help run the party as they have
time. Any guest who agrees to the parlour owner's sense of
decorum can speak their mind on pens and many other topics.

Here we are, long-term guests in a pen party, and that's what
we a guests.

FPN isn't "our" place, though we share a larger experience.

Ultimately, though, airing forum dirty laundry in public is rude,
both to the owners and admins, and to the other guests --
most of whom are here to learn and talk more about pens and inks
and not who likes who or who did what to whom.

That's just my take.

If Frank were still alive and posting on a Web forum, maybe I'd
read it regularly, but even then I have my doubts that I could
stand it for long.

I find that there are a lot of valuable insights on FPN, but they
can get lost in the volume of the traffic.

I'll make sure to start posting my pen and ink reviews here as well
as on FPN (and I'll add them to one of my blogs as well).

--
_Deirdre web: http://deirdre.net blog: http://dsmoen.livejournal.com/
"Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!"

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:24:50 -0500, "Bluesea"
wrote:

"masqueblanche" wrote in message
...
I noticed tonight that a thread on FPN got locked because it questioned if
you could get banned for posts outside the FPN domain.

1. Banning someone for something posted offsite is the work of a control
freak.

2. That someone felt to ask if it's possible indicates paranoia.

3. That the thread got locked indicates that #1 applies to FPN and that #2
was a valid question, not paranoia.

For sure they're a bunch of control freaks on FPN.

I read those threads too. Wim needs to stick to ink reviews because
he's a **** ant as an administrator.

That's what I've been saying about FPN for awhile now--it's a censored
forum and the admins and moderators are full of ****.

I went to Pentrace to read more about it. Somebody needs to direct
those people here. This is a much better place for discussion than
some censored web board.

On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:26:17 -0500, Stephen Hust
wrote:

Can somebody tell me where the infamous "Chatter" forum is? I
gathered that it was to be reopened, but I don't see it. Or is it
something only FPN members see?

I saw it today. They should call it the horse**** forum. What
happens is people post religious and political views, generally pretty
orthodox, and then when somebody posts an opposing view, the religious
right whines to the moderators and the unorthodox posts are censored.

As I've said here before, I don't understand why so many people
prefer Web-based forums to Usenet. I don't like having to register
at a Web site (and register separately at each Web site), I don't
like having somebody who "knows best" (the moderator,
administrator, or whatever) censor articles, and I don't like the
Web forum interfaces I've seen. I find them all cumbersome and not
nearly as user friendly as a newsreader. The poor interface alone
is enough to put me off reading Web-based forums. And this latest
business makes them sound more unattractive than ever.

The thing is, most of the dumbasses on FPN know how to find FPN but
have never heard of the usenet. That's how dumb they are. If you
read their posts, you can believe they're that stupid, or even
stupider--I mean, they've posted about such things as putting ink in
microwave ovens--one guy posted that it turns out, ink has staining
characteristics. He said it "permanently stained" his sink but he
removed the permanent stain with elbow grease. And I don't mind a bit
calling this idiot out by his FPN login: SamCapote.

If Frank were still alive and posting on a Web forum, maybe I'd
read it regularly, but even then I have my doubts that I could
stand it for long.

Nathan Tardif still posts sometimes on FPN, but only about his inks
and not about pens, and sometimes his posts are about as nutty as the
other bull**** you can read on FPN

On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:30:24 +0000, MatthewK
wrote:

On 2008-06-03, Stephen Hust wrote:

Can somebody tell me where the infamous "Chatter" forum is? I
gathered that it was to be reopened, but I don't see it. Or is it
something only FPN members see?

AFAIK the chatter has been reopened and recently closed again.
You can read about it in comunity feedback along with some
other interesting threads.



As I've said here before, I don't understand why so many people
prefer Web-based forums to Usenet. I don't like having to register
at a Web site (and register separately at each Web site), I don't
like having somebody who "knows best" (the moderator,
administrator, or whatever) censor articles, and I don't like the
Web forum interfaces I've seen. I find them all cumbersome and not
nearly as user friendly as a newsreader. The poor interface alone
is enough to put me off reading Web-based forums. And this latest
business makes them sound more unattractive than ever.

Yeah, I think most people just either can't figure out the
software or deal with free speech on unmoderated forums.

95% of the people who post on FPN are idiots. About 2% are people
like Splicer who go there basically to **** with the mentally
retarded, like the guy who posted that he drank a bottle of Noodler's.
I can't remember who that was. The rest include some people who are
just interested in pens and ink. You just got to wade through a bunch
of bull**** to get to their posts.

FPN is a waste of time. There's not as many people here, but at least
they ain't no where near as stupid as the average FPNer.

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 16:10:08 -0700, Deirdre Saoirse Moen
wrote:

Stephen Hust wrote:
Can somebody tell me where the infamous "Chatter" forum is? I
gathered that it was to be reopened, but I don't see it. Or is it
something only FPN members see?

Since it was re-opened, only members can see the chatter forum.
The practical side of this is that Google doesn't index it,
which means that robots don't hit the servers quite so much. It
also means the stuff that's useful about pens is indexed.

As I've said here before, I don't understand why so many people
prefer Web-based forums to Usenet. I don't like having to register
at a Web site (and register separately at each Web site), I don't
like having somebody who "knows best" (the moderator,
administrator, or whatever) censor articles, and I don't like the
Web forum interfaces I've seen. I find them all cumbersome and not
nearly as user friendly as a newsreader. The poor interface alone
is enough to put me off reading Web-based forums. And this latest
business makes them sound more unattractive than ever.

I don't mind it, but I don't mistake it for the free-for-all that
usenet offers. I think some people do, and that's where there gets
to be trouble on boards.

A web forum's owners bear all the costs; FPN is ad-free, and has
chosen not to take money from advertisers. They raise money through
CafePress and ink and pen sales (of their own inks and pens) and
accept donations.

In contrast, usenet server owners distribute costs broadly.

Here's a post I wrote about the whole chatter forum [text in
brackets not in original post but added for context]:
This is how I see it (and why I don't have a problem with the
moderating). I see it [FPN] as the owner's parlour. The owner's
brought in some people to help run the party as they have
time. Any guest who agrees to the parlour owner's sense of
decorum can speak their mind on pens and many other topics.

And here they can speak about FPN horse**** if they please. Damn, it
feels good to blast those ****nuts. This place has been dead--or
close to it--for ages--and I've had to buzz through FPN to find out
about new stuff and that kind of crap. I still have to go to FPN, but
glad to see this place seems to be reviving.

On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:33:06 -0700, masqueblanche
wrote:

The Drunken Lord wrote:
I went to Pentrace to read more about it. Somebody needs to direct
those people here. This is a much better place for discussion than
some censored web board.

Wait, was it PenTrace or Twitter? I got the impression that stuff was
posted on Twitter and the FPN admins got the update and that is what got
the ball rolling...maybe I'm not reading the same thread.

Damn, I can't go back and look right now--it's bedtime--but I'm sure
it was Pentrace that was mentioned in the thread I read. It said
there was a lot of stuff on Pentrace about censorship on FPN.

I don't even know what Twitter is. Do you have an url?

But I went to Pentrace today and didn't see the stuff. I don't know
if I just didn't look good enough though.

"The Drunken Lord" wrote in message
...

A lot of those dip****s on FPN go in for traditional
crap, which is why a lot of them use fountain pens.
...and they prefer some old ugly ass blue-black that goes
along iwth their antique pens.

Let's face it: if we couldn't get
Nathan's ink or PR's ink or the new Diamine inks, we'd be left with
the old ugly colors they used back in the days...

I like blue-black and jet black. They're my favorite colors after turquoise.
I like bright colors, too, because they're fun. I think conservative colors
will always have a place and be the inks that you'll never be wrong using.
For example, I was taught to never, ever, write a letter with red ink; it's
rude and an insult. Then, I learned that brown is acceptable for non-serious
letters, but green is to be used only for Christmas correspondence. Later, I
read that purple has gone in and out of fashion over time and it's rude to
write in purple when it's out of fashion.

--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi, but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

"Stephen Hust" wrote in message
...

As I've said here before, I don't understand why so many people
prefer Web-based forums to Usenet. I don't like having to register
at a Web site (and register separately at each Web site)...

That's why I haven't joined any. I've already got enough usernames and
passwords that they're too much bother compared to the ease of Usenet. But
then, I started interacting with others online on Usenet. I think that most
of the people using the forums started on them. Many of the people I know
haven't heard of Usenet. Those that have, don't know the first thing about
how to access it, except for the few who already post and/or lurk.


--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi, but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

"masqueblanche" wrote in message
...
Take a look at www.twitter.com, it's basically a system for providing
continuous updates about what you are doing. Kinda like a micro-blog.

I PMed some of the contributors in the know on the closed thread and it
seem they had an ex-Mod who tended to use the forum to promote his
pro-GLBT...

Giant Lettuce, Bacon, & Tomato?


--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi, but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

"Deirdre Saoirse Moen" wrote in message
...

Here's a post I wrote about the whole chatter forum [text in
brackets not in original post but added for context]:
This is how I see it (and why I don't have a problem with the
moderating). I see it [FPN] as the owner's parlour. The owner's
brought in some people to help run the party as they have
time. Any guest who agrees to the parlour owner's sense of
decorum can speak their mind on pens and many other topics.

Here we are, long-term guests in a pen party, and that's what
we a guests.

It's a good simile.

I'll make sure to start posting my pen and ink reviews here as well
as on FPN (and I'll add them to one of my blogs as well).

Kewl.

--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi, but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.