Time to give up on TOB

I still lurk on that other board, but I think it's time to stop doing that. The last few months it has degenerated even further into chaos, trolling, hatred, judging, patronizing and disrespect. No answer is safe, no question is safe, no matter how polite and unassuming. Members whose posts I used to respect have fallen down into the same circle of hell that the usual suspects have always frolicked in. Reading some of this stuff makes me sour for the day. That's more than just sad and troubling: it's a sign of the times, and I don't like it.

Jreboll wrote:I guess when you’re all cooped up, you start climbing the walls and attacking anyone you can communicate with.

Fortunately, that isn't true for everyone. However, I'm seeing posts from people who have gone from adolescence to old age without stopping at maturity.

CG, I have to agree with you. I find myself turning quite grumpy almost every time I look at TOB. The sniping, rudeness, hatred and just plain nastiness is so disappointing. There's truly no excuse for it.

Newbie Andy Panda just burst onto the scene sounding like an old timer. I just have to think that this one is not as new as he appears.

I see a lot of that, actually. Lots and lots of "newbs" who have obviously been around awhile and just changed their logins, for whatever reasons.

Holalola wrote:CG, I have to agree with you.  I find myself turning quite grumpy almost every time I look at TOB.  The sniping, rudeness, hatred and just plain nastiness is so disappointing. There's truly no excuse for it.  

And that really shows you the sad level of moderation employed by one mainecoons. I believe if they got rid of him, and his alter-egos, it would go back to being a good place to get information and help. As it is, it's like Trump's Twitter account gone mental.

Better he's there than here.......lol. He was a real PITA when he hung on this board.

It will change in mid December. The U.S. election will still be dysfunctional - far too many people in the media whose income will depend on keeping the fires burning. The change here will be Yahoo suspending all groups on that date. There are many local and vocal yahoo groups.

TOB is a disaster!

Gave up on it a long time ago.

CHILLIN wrote:It will change in mid December. The U.S. election will still be dysfunctional - far too many people in the media whose income will depend on keeping the fires burning. The change here will be Yahoo suspending all groups on that date. There are many local and vocal yahoo groups.

What is a Yahoo Group?

ComputerGuy wrote:I still lurk on that other board, but I think it's time to stop doing that. The last few months it has degenerated even further into chaos, trolling, hatred, judging, patronizing and disrespect. No answer is safe, no question is safe, no matter how polite and unassuming. Members whose posts I used to respect have fallen down into the same circle of hell that the usual suspects have always frolicked in. Reading some of this stuff makes me sour for the day. That's more than just sad and troubling: it's a sign of the times, and I don't like it.

Yes, there is some truth in what you say CG...But the posting's are still significantly higher than INL..Perhaps we should be happy that we have choices, given the size of our community.

"Some truth"? I can't agree. Quality over quantity every time. Show me five threads that haven't sunk into the miasma.

RickS wrote:

Lady Otter Latté wrote:

CHILLIN wrote:It will change in mid December. The U.S. election will still be dysfunctional - far too many people in the media whose income will depend on keeping the fires burning. The change here will be Yahoo suspending all groups on that date. There are many local and vocal yahoo groups.

What is a Yahoo Group?

Google is your friend....  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Groups

Yeah. Read that. Still really don’t know what it is/was and how folks used it. I don’t care enough to read more — especially seeing as how I guess they no longer exist or soon will not.

Yahoo groups are like Facebook groups......

CanuckBob wrote:Yahoo groups are like Facebook groups......

... but in your email?

Not in your e-mail unless you choose (like this forum) to be notified of something you're following.
The yahoo groups were probably the precursor to forums like this one. They are badly planned and badly laid out and hard to follow. I was a member of a yahoo group in San Miguel de Allende way back when.
Irritating format but there is one for every interest you may have. Crocheting, knitting, gardening etc. YMMV. Very specific. And very outdated.

And Compuserve, Usenet, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) were precursors to Yahoo groups. Compuserve is long gone, Usenet is still around after they agreed with servers to remove all pornography. IRC is still around but mostly turned into the dark web, using secrecy cloaking software such as Tor. I guess AOL is somewhere in there too, I don' t know.
I liked this quote.
" Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarreah. Massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it. Gene Spafford, 1992"

I really liked usenet but I lost the ability to get onto it. I can't remember if it was something about my ISP or my browser that kept me off of it. I think that I was finally able to get access through Google Groups but just not the same. By that time sporge had pretty well ruined the best of it. I don't recall there being any kind of moderation. The wild west!

I used a few Yahoo groups until about a year ago. When the end was in sight many groups beat the rush and moved elsewhere or just closed the doors. Yahoo groups were mailing lists with a generally narrow focus and a few options for how to receive mail from the group. With some groups you'd get several messages each day and with others you might not get three messages in a month. A nice service in its day.

Thank you all for the tutorial in Yahoo Groups. I lead a sheltered internet life.