My favourite book is Franny and Zooey. On the first page, there is a description of students waiting on a railway platform,

talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries.

Which is pretty much how I feel about the tone on this site these days.

This site used to be useful (well, not that often). It also used to be funny.

It's become negative, sniping, personal and full of tedious, undergraduate certainty.

Oh, the certainty. It's so boring.

More succinctly:

People I know have been coming up to me and saying that they used to post here, but don't anymore. It feels a bit like a really good party that all the interesting people have left, driven away by the strident voices.

This is a roundabout, reasonably pompous and self involved way of saying that I don't know what to do next. We've talked about suspending a handful of accounts, turning the site off, or trimming the site membership right back. These are all options.

Something's got to change. I want the old site back.

In the words of Bill & Ted, "Be excellent to each other".

And for fuck's sake, bring the funny.

@Joev - not a doubt in my mind. At all. And you're a complete idiot for suggesting it.

@ ford - i love you.

@ Emma - you're right. This was a forum for our mates that morphed into something a bit different. That was great when it happened, but I'm struggling to work out how we balance being open enough to be useful whilst stopping it becoming a school playground. Our first strategy was to treat people like grown ups, because the alternative is banning & moderating the site and none of us like the idea of that.

@ JoeV - I think that Andy was continuing the joke that he initially made and that you followed up. That's how I understood it anyway.

Been thinking about these recent interactions on Stroudgreen (not just this last one!) and I have come up with a theory.

I think that reading the posts on Stroudgreen is like reading a play or a script for TV.

Many people write posts in the same way as they speak, as this is more informal and suits the medium.

However, it does mean that there is no nuance of facial expression or tone and this leads to misinterpretation.

Sarcasm and deadpan humour rather lose their effect or produce the absolute opposite.

An example that came to mind for me was if one read the script for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) one could think that it was a rather inane tale about American teenagers with stupid vampires added in for schlock value. When actually, IMHO, it has moments of real comedy.

Which leads to my next idea: We do not know each other in real life and thus have a very narrow means by which to judge each other.

For example, from my posts I could be construed as a smiley-hippy type, who loves Whitney Houston, puppies & other small animals and watches children's television whilst wrapping up forever friends bears for her friends.

When in fact really I am a morose, depressive indie-type who, as a small part of her make-up, rather likes birds and wildlife, has a slightly shame-faced love of Shakira (which does not mean I like Whitney, Mariah, Celine and their ilk!) and S Club's "Don't Stop Moving" and a former addiction to stupid Age of Empire games (i.e. I finished the old ones and they haven't brought out a new one for a while).

My point is that perhaps we need to start imagining that all the people on the site are genuinely nice human beings who don't mean to say hurtful things to each other.

Perhaps we've had a bad day and SG.org is where we like to let off steam. Perhaps we have a rather dry sense of humour that doesn't really translate into the text on a forum. Perhaps we like to say smiley things rather than relate the horrible things that happened today. Add whichever other "perhaps'" you can think of.

Flower power to you all.

Lots of love,

Lxxx

Apologies, hadn't realised my last post was so looooooooooooooong! You'll be glad to hear that's me done for the day - clearly have not had enough to do.

oh, by the way - the Noble is for sale again. £99k. christo and co if I remember correctly.

It was in the metro ads bit the other day. I am pretty sure it was the Noble - although it was described as 'Crouch End'...

Sorry, Christie and co.

http://www.christie.com/search/brief/2/30654?1218536002

Businesses are put up for sale all the time; it doesn't mean that they are not a going concern/viable/good etc.

Mr Pegg should make an offer.