Re: Member Announcements Thread
Pre-disclaimer: Those of you reading this in a sour mood, I would ask you to please skip over this post for the sake of your own health. Due to the subject I imagine that it may suck some the joy out of people, and if you don’t have much to begin with, that could be disastrous.
Some of you are new and don’t know me. Some of you do know me – and some of those who do may currently have a sinking feeling, as they remember what the last thing I was doing before dropping off the forum was; namely, arguing.* This primarily addresses the last group.
*(Though, strangely, the actual reason for my dropping off the forum was only mildly related; for the 0 people who give a damn, I got sick, and didn’t have enough willpower to argue while also sick. …And then I got b& off the computer for a month like a little bitch.

After that, I just figured I’d take a break for a little while.)
Now, I am not one to give up on an argument; it isn’t in my nature, and it certainly isn’t in my moral code. I’ve never considered time to be an issue, either. But I would also be foolish to ignore the negative effects that arguments almost inevitably have, most notably the drain on willpower and general enjoyment that they cause in readers. To a certain extent, this is acceptable, given that the readers do have a degree of ability to choose to ignore the argument in favour of more enjoyable things. But that degree of ability is not as significant as would be liked, and people
will read arguments that are going to make them unhappy, for various reasons - most of which they really can’t be blamed for.
When there are too many arguments on a forum at the one time, people will themselves become hateful and prone to starting arguments, which will cause others to become unhappy, resulting in a Dwarf-Fortress-esque ‘tantrum spiral’ of arguments, and the temporary loss of most of the forum’s enjoyability. Obviously, this is terrible and should be avoided when at all possible, by carefully observing the general mood of the forum, and only starting or continuing arguments when there is little danger of causing a massive problem.
At present, ULMF has recently had a small spree of arguments occur, mostly in the hentai section though occasionally elsewhere; as such, I’m going to refrain from continuing the one I had been in the middle of until times are less turbulent. After all, I did say that I don’t consider the time that has passed to be an issue. Now, of course, given my own noted inability to remember, or follow through on things at times, it is quite possible that I will never get back to the argument to continue it. (And I am quite certain I have saddened many a person with that declaration, as they will now be less likely to partake of my ‘great wisdom’.) But, in a choice between ‘Don’t argue for the moment’, and ‘Be detrimental to the forum’, I’ll choose not to argue for a moment every time.
…And I mean besides, it’s bloody
Christmas! As much as I like defiling holy days, if I did it now I’d be spoiling everyone’s fun. (I’ve even got one of those ridiculous hats.)
…In before someone starts an argument about something in this post.
