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Thread: Why aren't more people posting on mellophant?

  1. #1
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Default Why aren't more people posting on mellophant?

    Well, huh, yeah, why not????? We're not evil people here, well most of us aren't. Start posting and thread starting you shower.

  2. #2
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    ...shower?

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    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    All right, you caught me. I'm a shower just posting away when people aren't bathing in me. I feel so dirty. Best turn myself on, then.
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

  4. #4
    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Inner Stickler View post
    I feel so dirty. Best turn myself on, then.
    Huh. I usually feel dirty after turning myself on.
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

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  5. #5
    like Gandalf in a way Nrblex's avatar
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    Okay, okay, I posted! I am no longer a filthy shower.

    Now go respond to me.

  6. #6
    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    To answer the OP, I think the main reasons are:

    1) We don't have much to talk about. Our most successful threads are joke, game, and post padding threads - we don't have a lot of real strong arguments or discussions. I think the front page is eventually going to help with that; there's some really good stuff going up there, and hopefully it sparks some more conversation.

    2) For some reason, we tend get a little shrill here, and we've driven away a lot of prolific posters simply by failing to get along. Just off the top of my head, I can think of five or six posters who ran off, or were run off, who were among our most prolific posters at the time.
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

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  7. #7
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post

    2) For some reason, we tend get a little shrill here, and we've driven away a lot of prolific posters simply by failing to get along. Just off the top of my head, I can think of five or six posters who ran off, or were run off, who were among our most prolific posters at the time.
    I think this is big.

    I am still relatively new around here, and am completely flummoxed by how much infighting there is. A shame, because I enjoy posting here.

    Not to whine, but my life is already stress packed. I come here to have fun, not worry about who just pissed on someone's thread.

    What can't we all just get along? Give peace a chance? Fly like an eagle...

    I don't want this to sound ingracious, because I am glad to be a part of all this. I also apologize for having drifted off lately. Just busy as hell.
    "I won't kill for money, and I won't marry for it. Other than that, I'm open to just about anything."

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  8. #8
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    Suggested topics to increase posting interest:

    Nazis
    Anal sex
    Lady Gaga
    Sand Art (loved this as a kid)

    And this is big:

    James Garner.
    "I won't kill for money, and I won't marry for it. Other than that, I'm open to just about anything."

    -Jim Rockford

  9. #9
    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post
    2) For some reason, we tend get a little shrill here, and we've driven away a lot of prolific posters simply by failing to get along. Just off the top of my head, I can think of five or six posters who ran off, or were run off, who were among our most prolific posters at the time.
    Yep. Excessive bitchery combined with being too small/new of a board for folks to give it a second chance.

  10. #10
    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    I CALL DIBS ON LADY GAGA!
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

  11. #11
    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by Inner Stickler View post
    I CALL DIBS ON LADY GAGA!
    Lady Gaga makes me wish I was still young enough to get drunk and dance in cages.

  12. #12
    Elephant Feirefiz's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post
    1) We don't have much to talk about. Our most successful threads are joke, game, and post padding threads - we don't have a lot of real strong arguments or discussions. I think the front page is eventually going to help with that; there's some really good stuff going up there, and hopefully it sparks some more conversation.
    I think this is because activity on a board is highly circular. Unfortunately at the moment we are down to a small but dedicated group. People want more activity and that is the kind of activity that can be forced.
    2) For some reason, we tend get a little shrill here, and we've driven away a lot of prolific posters simply by failing to get along. Just off the top of my head, I can think of five or six posters who ran off, or were run off, who were among our most prolific posters at the time.
    In my opinion one important reason is that with such a small membership it is always personal and always about the board at large. If you are not involved you can't not notice and it is likely that you will pick sides, even if you keep it to yourself for the most part. If you are involved it is hard to shrug it off because you can't avoid each other.

    Of course the fact that the board is remarkably hated in certain circles doesn't make things easier, but I guess we have to live with that.

  13. #13
    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Oliveloaf View post
    Nazis
    Anal sex
    Lady Gaga
    Sand Art (loved this as a kid)
    Godwin nailing Lady Gaga in the ass with the aid of a handful of sand? That's a thread I could post to early and often.
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    No! No! No sand. The first rule of nailing pop stars in the ass is to use adequate lubrication.

  15. #15
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    OneCentStamp is right on the money. Forget chat, post in the threads, think of interesting topics, and make it a pleasant place to be, and things will eventually pick up (or, at least, the few of us left will enjoy ourselves more).

  16. #16
    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    No! No! No sand. The first rule of nailing pop stars in the ass is to use adequate lubrication.
    For a pop star I liked, maybe.
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

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  17. #17
    Stegodon SilverTygerGirl's avatar
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    I think it's too bad that people have gotten scared off. I've tried to start topics when I've had time (or any ideas), but it seems like a lot of new threads just get ignored.
    When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When all you have is a bowel disruptor, everything's a poop joke.
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  18. #18
    Resident Troublemaker beebs's avatar
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    I've read these threads before, about how to help. I don't know. I don't have enough energy to "push" myself into being more active at any message board, even this one. I can promise that I'll keep reading daily, and adding my two cents here and there where I can.

    Not-Your-Most-Super-Poster,
    beebs


    PS: Message board aside, the front page is something I enjoy a lot too.

    PPS/ETA: I love that novel mello is putting together too, I'm just not one to contribute.
    Last edited by beebs; 03 Dec 2009 at 12:40 AM.

  19. #19
    Clueless but well-meaning Hatshepsut's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post
    To answer the OP, I think the main reasons are:

    1) We don't have much to talk about. Our most successful threads are joke, game, and post padding threads - we don't have a lot of real strong arguments or discussions. I think the front page is eventually going to help with that; there's some really good stuff going up there, and hopefully it sparks some more conversation.

    2) For some reason, we tend get a little shrill here, and we've driven away a lot of prolific posters simply by failing to get along. Just off the top of my head, I can think of five or six posters who ran off, or were run off, who were among our most prolific posters at the time.
    Yep, what he said.

    I think we need a mission, and our mission should be: "to entertain the snackpit."

  20. #20
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    How this mission statement?

    A Return to Deliciousness
    "I won't kill for money, and I won't marry for it. Other than that, I'm open to just about anything."

    -Jim Rockford

  21. #21
    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    When did we leave?
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

  22. #22
    Stegodon Walker in Eternity's avatar
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    I'll start a thread right away.
    Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth - Marcus Aurelius

  23. #23
    Stegodon Papaw's avatar
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    I'm a member that doesn't really participate in the main threads here, possibly because of the joke, game, and post padding threads. Just not my cuppa.
    I post in The Darkroom because I am a photographer, and read posts in Write Here, Write Now, because some day I might write something worth reading.
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  24. #24
    Oliphaunt
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    Quote Originally posted by Oliveloaf View post
    ...I...am completely flummoxed by how much infighting there is. A shame, because I enjoy posting here.

    Not to whine, but my life is already stress packed. I come here to have fun, not worry about who just pissed on someone's thread.....
    I hate when people quote someone else's post and then just post "This". But, this.

    Especially the bolded part.

    Real life for stress, message boards for relaxing.

  25. #25
    Oliphaunt jali's avatar
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    I shouldn't have written that horrible post about arguments in chat and then run off for a couple of weeks. I should have directed my anger properly.

    I was extremely frustrated that evening, and it really got to me to see people I liked arguing like children over "he said she said". I was upset that Elyanna quit over yet another argument.

    I don't know what I thought running away was doing, but I didn't want to be a part of any of that and I left the rest of you guys hanging.

    It's either chat or certain people in chat that seem to be running people off. If we allow this to continue, there will eventually be no one left.

    I really care for many of you and I don't want this to happen.

    Can we ask for promises to stop the crap?
    They weren't singing....they were just honking.
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  26. #26
    Oliphaunt
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    FWIW even though I hardly ever go there I wasn't referring to chat specifically. I'm often just surprised at the level of conflict here generally (and the SDMB, and to a lesser extent the Giraffe boards).

  27. #27
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    The grand majority of chatters don't start or take part in any kind of conflict in there.

    Laughing Lagomorph, I've noticed the same thing about the Doper community in general. On the SDMB, it's easier for it to be ignored or avoided because there's so much going on and yet there's always some rage and resentment boiling under the surface. Since there aren't very many people here, two people engaging in Dope style war is very in your face. There's no way to avoid it and it feels much bigger than it is.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  28. #28
    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    (I just noticed your sig, Zuul. Damn right I said it, and I stand by it wholeheartedly.)
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

  29. #29
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    (It was just too awesome of a line to not be saved.)
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  30. #30
    For whom nothing is written. Oliveloaf's avatar
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    Group hug?
    "I won't kill for money, and I won't marry for it. Other than that, I'm open to just about anything."

    -Jim Rockford

  31. #31
    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    {{{you, plural}}}
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

    find me at Goodreads

  32. #32
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Awwww...I think I'm gonna cry.

    Jali, I'm glad you're back.

  33. #33
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    One of my co-workers use to post here a while back before he quit message boards in general.

    In his words, "90% of our communication is through means other than the words we use. There's pitch, intonation, facial expression, gestures, tempo, etc., which are all lost in this medium. We read the words, and then unconsciously fill in the rest based on our own emotional state at the moment. That means that 80-90% of what I 'know' about these people is a figment of my imagination, and I decided I was devoting too much time and mindspace to a group of people that barely even exist."

  34. #34
    Clueless but well-meaning Hatshepsut's avatar
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    "Barely exist?!?!" Pshaw. I am not bare nearly as often as I'd like to be.

    Seriously, I take your friend's point, David Blue Three, but it doesn't speak to Mellophant in particular, just the general message board phenomenon. As far as that goes, his view is perfectly legitimate,but there are other ways to look at it. For me, communication through reading and writing is the fun part. It's up to me to write in a vivid fashion that reflects my personality and feelings, so that people can form an accurate picture of me despite the absence of pitch, intonation, etc. (As a minor additional point, message boards do offer tools to replace intonation and such; we have font size/color/style, emoticons, etc. These should be used judiciously, just as we limit our theatrics in real life). Further, it is up to me to read what my fellow posters write with care and appreciation, and use it to form a mental image of people I will probably never meet in person.

    All of this makes for an entertaining challenge with little to no downside. For me, anyway. (There WOULD be a downside if I ended up spending too much time on line instead of devoting attention to real-life concerns, but a benefit of our modest size is that I don't have to devote much time to keeping up. At least since I stay out of chat. I have no idea if any Mellophanters are spending disproportionate amounts of time there.)

  35. #35
    Stegodon Papaw's avatar
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    Many of us are here (maybe most) because of disenchantment with The Dope, am I right?
    Why then do we sometimes seem to be acting the same way?
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  36. #36
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Papaw View post
    Many of us are here (maybe most) because of disenchantment with The Dope, am I right?
    Why then do we sometimes seem to be acting the same way?
    Truly curious, in what ways?

    I think my only complaints on the Dope were technical in nature and they have fixed many of those and Ed interfering in the running of the board in a way that showed he did not understand the community that had built up. He seems to have backed off of this too.

    That leaves GD being a place of usual suspects and parsing and not being interesting. But that is easy to ignore.

    This is my own list, everyone has different reasons. For most of us at this point, this is just a new community, related to the Dope but not really in protest of the Dope.

  37. #37
    Stegodon Papaw's avatar
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    I guess I was referring to the little pissing matches that sometimes go on. I never paid much attention to the technical complaints on The Dope, nor the interference you note. Maybe because I really just lurked there most of the time.
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  38. #38
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Papaw View post
    I guess I was referring to the little pissing matches that sometimes go on. I never paid much attention to the technical complaints on The Dope, nor the interference you note. Maybe because I really just lurked there most of the time.
    I think the pissing matches might be unavoidable on message board.

    Whether the Dope was doing great or poorly, it always had pissing matches. It think they are more exaggerated here though as the population is small and when it happens, people have a tendency to move on to somewhere else instead.

  39. #39
    Yes, I'm a cat. What's it to you? Muffin's avatar
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    The hostile chatter (e.g. the attack on Elyanna) is a big turn-off. It's one thing to play cat and mouse with a nut, but quite another to make a responsible poster feel unwelcome. Why would anyone sign on for such behaviour?

    Beyond the hostility problem that a few (a very few) posters have, there is the matter of the need for a critical mass so that there will be enough threads of interest at any given time. Zuul and others have been doing a very good job at encouraging posters to start interesting threads, but let's face it, there are only so many posters, and at this point, there are not yet enough posters to make enough interesting threads to in turn make mellophant a place that will attract new members.

    What I very much like about mellophant is that there are some very well spoken posters here whom I very much respect. The small size of mellophant means that I get a chance to listen to what these posters say with greater frequency than I would on a larger board. The signal to noise ratio here is much better than on a big board.
    Last edited by Muffin; 23 Jan 2010 at 11:12 PM.

  40. #40
    Stegodon Papaw's avatar
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    The signal to noise ratio here is much better than on a big board.
    I agree wholeheartedly!
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  41. #41
    Go Phillies !! Cartooniverse's avatar
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    Meh. I've got more going on in my real life than I used to. Since I'm a '99er and I joined this wonderful place pretty early on, I can say it's not cause I'm a newbie to the overall community.

    One gets busy. Do I miss this? Yes. Do I force myself to give it 30 minutes a day? I can't. But I do miss it. The chat wars, shrill thin-skinned b.s. and such are a part of the growing history here.

    Savor it !

    Cartooniverse, who still idly debates suicide by Mod "over there"....
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  42. #42
    The Apostabulous Inner Stickler's avatar
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    Meh, as much fun as it would be to run naked through ATMB shouting CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT CUNT, one must maintain a semblance of composure. For the little ones if nothing else. *Drinks tea with pinkie extended and a fake arrow through his head.*
    I don't think so, therefore I'm probably not.

  43. #43
    Go Phillies !! Cartooniverse's avatar
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    I stand corrected.

    If you want to kiss the sky, you'd better learn how to kneel.

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    Quote Originally posted by Hatshepsut View post
    Seriously, I take your friend's point, David Blue Three, but it doesn't speak to Mellophant in particular, just the general message board phenomenon.
    True. I think the only boards he posts to now are ones where he regularly meets the other members face-to-face.

  45. #45
    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    I'm just too busy. I came over here to play in What Exit?'s excellent LOTR D&D game, and have posted in a few other threads here since, but otherwise spend most of my online time over in the Dope. It's what I'm used to and has more people, thus more going on. I like it here, but there are only so many hours in the day.
    Last edited by Elendil's Heir; 27 Jan 2010 at 07:41 PM.

  46. #46
    Stegodon
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post
    I can think of five or six posters who ran off, or were run off, who were among our most prolific posters at the time.
    I hope I'm among those five or six--if not, add me to your list. I was a heavy-duty poster for the first weeks, maybe months, but there was just too much ad hominem nastiness (especially in chat) for me to get much pleasure out of posting here.

    I despise the Dope, but I'll post there from time to time, just because there's a fair chance that my posts will be taken at face value instead of "What irrelevant poo-flinging have I gotten into with you lately and can start up again here?" I think this is the first day I've posted here in a long time, and I'm just slow waking up today.
    There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. -- Ray Bradbury's "Coda"

  47. #47
    Clueless but well-meaning Hatshepsut's avatar
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    Hi prr, welcome back. I hope there is a chance you'll give Mellophant another try, as I remember you (mostly from the Dope) as an interesting poster.

    No question, there have been MANY mistakes/problems here - in fact, if you left after a few weeks, you may not even be aware of later kerfuffles we've been through. As we come up on our first birthday, it has definitely been "interesting times."

    I can't speak specifically for chat, as I rarely even look at it, though my sense is that things are in good shape there now. But overall, I think it is fair to say that we have learned from our mistakes and we've definitely evolved - we have a small band of committed posters left who really like this place and feel a genuine connection to each another. But, there are not enough of us (at least outside of chat) and things get too quiet sometimes - hell, MOST of the time, as far as I can tell. If we are to survive in the long run, we need more thoughtful posters. Lately it seems like we are getting a few (Tinker and F-X come to my mind), and so...who knows?

    Anyway, I probably speak for all of us when I say "welcome...stick around a bit and see what you think about how we are now."

    PS - I was not incredibly prolific on the Dope so you may not remember me from there, but I've changed my name since you left. I once was Carol, from Cairo.

  48. #48
    Stegodon
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    Sure, I remember Carol from Cairo. You're a cool lady. I don't know if I bugged out at the beginning of the kerphluffle phase--I think I did, bailing before I got too invested. It just seemed like there was an inner circle here, not very accepting of views from outside that circle (and often pretty nasty within that circle)--rather than get into it again (especially when I can't remember much, other than not feeling very welcome), I'll just open up Mellophant on occasion now and check you out. I do like What Exit?, and Sarahfeena, and others (including you) from the Dope and from here, so maybe this will work. It's funny to be complaining about the nasty tone, since I'm pretty edgy and in-your-face myself, but it's a little much when ALL you get is shit, and that was all I was getting for a while, so I figured "Why post here? I can get shit very easily IRL."
    There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. -- Ray Bradbury's "Coda"

  49. #49
    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Good to see you again prr. Hopefully more like yourself will return and post some more.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  50. #50
    Resident Troublemaker beebs's avatar
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    Default Why aren't more people posting on mellophant?

    Have you considered Google Ads?


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