Dear ILE - a plea

My best friend in elementary school was Fanny.

The skill needed to get the best (i.e. what I want) out of ILX these days seems to be about identifying where the little islands of civility exist and enjoying them, and trying to forget that the rest of it is there, and so very pish. (This is the view correctly ascribed to me by Keef above).

I used to be able to use ILx differently, and follow conversations about which I knew little or nothing, because the general tone made it a pleasure. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. So it goes I suppose. Things change, so do I. On those occasions where I see what appears to be bullying, most usually low-level unpleasantness, it reinforces my view that most of ILx is not the place for me to hang out, so I don't. That's what grimly recommends, I guess. Well done me, proper Thatcher's child behaviour.

So, in summary: I got old and less grouchy and I don't have the time or the energy to waste it on fights here, or (for that matter) to try to convince other people that they might like to behave differently. Hats off to anyone who feels like giving it a whirl, though.

Or, more likely, another pub? ILX isn't full of fannies (let's call them wankers to avoid offending Nathalie's Fanny). I think of ILX as the pub people go to to avoid the ones full of wankers. It has a better good guy: wanker ratio than most other Internet forums I've been to.

(love the zingmonkey!)

I like the idea of I Love Books but whenever I feel the need to start a literature thread, I'm pretty sure I'd do so here. The last Pynchon thread on ILE got way more responses than the equivalent ILB thread. That said, I like the idea of ILB and I'm glad it's there.

(xpost - ILB ended up in like five newspapers!)

hahaha remember when I started a mini feud between ILB & NB last year? no blood spilled. I can be such a dick sometimes.

what newspapers was ILB mentioned in? UK I presume.

no-one's "irreplaceable".

xpost

Better than what ILM/E have become even in the past 6 months, but still pretty bland.

a ton of euro papers. cuzza the one thread that mikey started. it was briefly a webenomemon.

Alisa, post on TITTWIS. it is open to all posters and all topics.

The Campbell - MacDonald feud, including the Massacre of Glencoe
The Capone - Moran feud, including the St. Valentine's Day massacre
The Clanton/McLaury - Earp feud
The Donnelly - Lucan community feud
The Gunn - Keith feud
The Hatfield - McCoy feud
The Lancaster - York feud
The Percy - Neville feud
The Talbot - Berkeley feud
Njál's saga, an Icelandic account of a Celtic-Nordic blood feud
The Pleasant Valley War

S... I'm a bit late here, but the problem with this statement is that it's an impossible ask.

If you can think of an answer that isn't qualified with an if, then we might be getting somewhere.

p.s. fuk u! lolz HI DERE!

What? Tell me more!

maybe so. but then so is saying: "hey, stop zinging/bullying/being nasty to each other."

my point is simple - it's far more useful to say, a la mark seven billion posts ago: "look, people, how about we just ignore posts that irritate us" than it is to say: "right dudes, no more irritating posts." i mean, irritation is in the, er, brain of the ILX0r. one man's troll is another man's nabisco. or something.

fill in the blanks: it's an i----n-t m-ss--e boa-d. lighte- up, pe-ple.

Wow, for the first time ever, I'm proud of my ancestors!

Mmnot as I remember it... CJ sounds about right, but not entirely sure.

Dearest admins, who decides what it is zinging, what is bullying, and what is just making a point to someone who then takes it personally?

I know this! It's the admins!

teh_kit, if you can't be meta on a meta-board, when can you be meta?

(haha, that looks like a theaudience album track title)

luv ailsa_xx