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[lentower]

as some of you know,
i started a "get new member back" experiment
that was rendered useless by some boxers

the experiment was partly inspired by these posts
of billh's and murmuringmurder's from the early day of the new box
http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=39.msg173#msg173

the experiment was to start a happy birthday thread for
new members who had not posted much, and send
them an email, or pm pointing at their birthday thread

i had hoped that by showing them one of the good sides
of the box, they would get involved

i like to thank those boxers who treated these threads as a
happy birthday thread for active members,
and posted the usual kind of greetings
they are among my heros

other boxes, who acted like
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas,
turned the threads into those that show the
bad side of the box

for their actions, i've labeled these boxers,
the baby grinches who stole birthdays

another hero said
(i have replaced the user names of the inactive boxers)

Poor Inactive Boxer. What happens if he comes back? Then how will he feel when he learns about his b-day thread being full of anger?

i can't in good conscience point new members
at something that is suppose to help celebrate their
birthdays, but have been turned ugly by those
who act like the grinch

so i have deleted the threads
(thread creators can do this on the new box)

for those concerned about their post counts,
who posted to these deleted threads,
your post counts have gone down

but i expect they will go up again, especially as
i expect those who acted like the grinch
to restore their post counts, by posting here
perhaps their whole deficit
they may surprise me,
might this be a zero reply thread?

hurricane hugo, another hero noted

for someone who's so pro-board cleanliness, you sure do like to make oodles of useless birthday threads for people who have never posted, or in the case of Inactive Boxer, posted 3 times about a question and have never come back.
Inactive Boxer, and the others,
just an observation.  ; - }

I've done this shit waaaay more than len has, and no one's jumped on my ass for it.
Just an observation.

plur

a few other heros

• all those who posted real birthday greetings
  
  
• caju
  
  

  I’m frankly a little disgusted at the backlash Len is getting.   In terms of diskspace used his birthday post is costing approx $00.0005 US.    Even at dialup speeds it will only take 0.1 seconds to download.   Even a slow reader could digest Len’s entire note in less than 10 seconds.  Subject matter, hmmm…the person above you thread is up to 98 pages.
  
  So, it’s not diskspace or bandwidth or reading time or subject matter, all of which leads me to believe that it’s just Len you don’t like.  Not a surprise there, for some of you have already expressed that openly. 
  
  You don’t have to like Len but he has the same right to be here that any of the rest of you does, until the admins say otherwise.   What’s happening here is schoolyard bullying.  It was wrong in the schoolyard.  It was wrong with Donna.  It’s wrong with Len.
  

  
  
• Devery [who posted constructive reasonable criticism of the experiment, that i responded to in one of my posts at the end
  
  

  Len, seriously, you have to stop doing this.  The members of this forum are capable of deciding for themselves whether they want to post or not.  Quite a few just want to read the forum.  It is insulting to them to contact them in this manner.  I have traded music with a couple of "lurkers" who posted, at most, once a month, and they were perfectly happy with that type of involvement here.  Nobody here knows Inactive Boxer; at least I've never heard of him/her.  Let Inactive Boxer decide.  Besides, it renders the birthday greetings almost meaningless by starting these threads.  You simply can't decide that you are somehow doing something good and worthwhile with this, because you are not.  It is astounding to me that you cannot comprehend that.  The people who have spoken before me are not naysayers and grinches.  They are simply stating the truth of the matter and are becoming increasingly exasperated that you are continuing with your birthday threads in an effort to "help" people become more involved.  It is unfair to the people you are "celebrating" and annoying to everyone else.  With all due consideration to your stated motives, please stop.
  

unusual, but ineffective posts

if someone is inactive for a certain amount of time we shall do an obituary. but wait, if they come back someone'd make a "WELCOME" thread and that'd take up too much space. and time.

shouldn't that be a "RESURRECTION" thread?

to the naysayers
fewer then those who posted here

you're acting like baby grinches

do you steal christmas too?

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

LEN, I REPEAT, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

some of my posts in the deleted threads

i have replaced the user names of the inactive boxers

they have had enough unwarranted grief

  happy birthday Inactive boxer

i don't know you
but have a greatest of birthdays,
this and every year.

and we love to have you stop lurkin'
and come join the box party the
other 364 days a year!


pm sent

hi Inactive Boxer

on the shadowbox.net, we sometime celebrate a boxer
with a thread in their honor.  one for you is at

http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=1482

please give our community another look
we love having new people take an active role
in posting and discussions

best -len

Inactive Boxer:

apologies for the discussion that is not birthday greetings

so much that could be commented on, but the important items:

.sarah:
happy birthday
though i already hb'ed you in your hb thread

Send them a PM if you must. They're more likely to see that than any of your posts since it may or may not email them.

i sent each of the three of them an email
(if they hadn't had an eddress, i would have pmed)
with the URL of their birthday thread in it
as soon as i did the post

something like:

Inactive Boxer:

on the shadowbox.net, we sometime celebrate a boxer
with a thread in their honor.  your's is
http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=1461.0

please give our community another look
we love having new people take an active role

Poor Inactive Boxer. What happens if he comes back? Then how will he feel when he learns about his b-day thread being full of anger?

also poor Another Inactive Boxer
so far Yet Another Inactive Boxer has been left alone

who would want to be part of a community where the
act of wishing them happy birthday results in so much
off-topic discussion?


it's a bit of a long shot to get any of these people back,
but i can do several month's worth in the time it
took me to do this post

and i like to see what happens - if it's effective or not

so for a while,
i'm going to continue to post hb threads for inactive boxers
and email them about it

and if others want to continue to add off-topic discussion,
that is their choice

I've done this shit waaaay more than len has, and no one's jumped on my ass for it.
Just an observation.

plur

• a fair neutral thing to point out,
  as someone else did recently in another thread
• i've noticed you posting birthday threads for inactive boxers for a while,
  which makes me a bit amazed at all the discussion here for me doing just three
• you have also started birthday threads for a lot of active boxers
  perhaps that why people haven't noticed the inactive ones?

the points at the end of this post of mine, also address Devery's constructive criticism

i do believe this thread may have derailed itself, len.
it may be your fault, even.

• Mandolin Rain
  
  i raised the language of my posts to a more dignified level
• i can't remove the old language where it's been quoted
• it be courteous to the Inactive Boxers,
  for someone to create a thread to discuss this,
  then doing so in this thread or other happy birthday threads
• it be courteous to the Inactive Boxers,
  if the non-happy-bday posts were either moved to
  a discussion thread, removed,
  and/or converted to happy birthday greetings
• all the actives boxers have to do is ignore the threads. 
  only 3 or 4 more a week
  most, if not all of us, skip many threads as it is
• these inactives posted their birthdays here
  not all inactives or actives do
  it's very common for that info to be
  used to send birthday greetings
• in 37 years i've been on the internet,
  i have never seen someone not like birthday greetings
  and they existed on pre-network computer systems,
  at least a decade before that

best -lentower

[imaginary friend]

To len, and to everyone who's been riding him, whether justified or not:











 

All y'all people need a vacation.

plur

[lentower]

To len, and to everyone who's been riding him, whether justified or not:

 

All y'all people need a vacation.

plur

a plur vacation?!?

either way,
a superb idea.

[tonic pancake.]

^
exactly why i'm happy to just about completely stop posting in the everything else and anarchy sections, and only skim the important stuff up top. 
len, you're tiresome and irritating.  please don't send me a birthday message next year encouraging me to come back and see "the nice side of the box". 
it still scares me to think you aren't a gerard finneran or a dick brought a gun - but in fact, very, very real. 

[Kovacs]

Well, at least Devery's post is here, because that was the point.

Play the martyr if it suits you, I guess. It's honestly kind of sad though. I don't mean that as an insult, I actually feel kind of bad. Not for objecting to you spamming the boards, but for you in general.

And if you want to continue your experiment, create one post where you wish these people a happy birthday. I doubt anyone would mind, (though you will likely get trollers).

for those concerned about their post counts,
who posted to these deleted threads,
your post counts have gone down

but i expect they will go up again, especially as
i expect those who acted like the grinch
to restore their post counts, by posting here
perhaps their whole deficit
they may surprise me,
might this be a zero reply thread?

Clever. Now if I post, I'm doing what you said. Well, you're right. I really do care about my post count. I always have, in my years on the box, as has been obvious by the frequency of my posting. It's by far the most important thing to me, here. I'll fight, to the end, to defend it.

At least you have more clearly defined the idea of "passive-aggressive" in my head. I'll take that away with me from this nonsense.

[caddy]

back on my roleplay boards, when people reacted in such a way, we have a short, yet sweet response for them.



you need to unplug. shut off your internet/computer, and go for a walk or five. i'm really seriously. from personal experience, anybody seriously affected by this sort of thing needs to step away. i've had to do it more than a few times, and it's the hardest thing to do, but it works so many wonders.

don't shut the fuck up, fuck off, or get fucked. no. just take a deep breath, step away, and...i don't know. go have lunch with a friend, dude.

[Mr. Anagrammatism]

back on my roleplay boards, when people reacted in such a way, we have a short, yet sweet response for them.

you need to unplug. shut off your internet/computer, and go for a walk or five. i'm really seriously. from personal experience, anybody seriously affected by this sort of thing needs to step away. i've had to do it more than a few times, and it's the hardest thing to do, but it works so many wonders.

don't shut the fuck up, fuck off, or get fucked. no. just take a deep breath, step away, and...i don't know. go have lunch with a friend, dude.

Those are really good points!
I've been on those kinds of binges too.
But I'm all cured now  ...

[caddy]

about as cured as ham.

>_>'

[85283-071]

as some of you know,
i started a "get new member back" experiment
that was rendered useless by some boxers

the experiment was partly inspired by these posts
of billh's and murmuringmurder's from the early day of the new box
http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=39.msg173#msg173

the experiment was to start a happy birthday thread for
new members who had not posted much, and send
them an email, or pm pointing at their birthday thread

i had hoped that by showing them one of the good sides
of the box, they would get involved

i like to thank those boxers who treated these threads as a
happy birthday thread for active members,
and posted the usual kind of greetings
they are among my heros

other boxes, who acted like
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas,
turned the threads into those that show the
bad side of the box

for their actions, i've labeled these boxers,
the baby grinches who stole birthdays

another hero said
(i have replaced the user names of the inactive boxers)

Poor Inactive Boxer. What happens if he comes back? Then how will he feel when he learns about his b-day thread being full of anger?

i can't in good conscience point new members
at something that is suppose to help celebrate their
birthdays, but have been turned ugly by those
who act like the grinch

so i have deleted the threads
(thread creators can do this on the new box)

for those concerned about their post counts,
who posted to these deleted threads,
your post counts have gone down

but i expect they will go up again, especially as
i expect those who acted like the grinch
to restore their post counts, by posting here
perhaps their whole deficit
they may surprise me,
might this be a zero reply thread?

hurricane hugo, another hero noted

for someone who's so pro-board cleanliness, you sure do like to make oodles of useless birthday threads for people who have never posted, or in the case of Inactive Boxer, posted 3 times about a question and have never come back.
Inactive Boxer, and the others,
just an observation.  ; - }

I've done this shit waaaay more than len has, and no one's jumped on my ass for it.
Just an observation.

plur

a few other heros

• all those who posted real birthday greetings
  
  
• caju
  
  

  I’m frankly a little disgusted at the backlash Len is getting.   In terms of diskspace used his birthday post is costing approx $00.0005 US.    Even at dialup speeds it will only take 0.1 seconds to download.   Even a slow reader could digest Len’s entire note in less than 10 seconds.  Subject matter, hmmm…the person above you thread is up to 98 pages.
  
  So, it’s not diskspace or bandwidth or reading time or subject matter, all of which leads me to believe that it’s just Len you don’t like.  Not a surprise there, for some of you have already expressed that openly. 
  
  You don’t have to like Len but he has the same right to be here that any of the rest of you does, until the admins say otherwise.   What’s happening here is schoolyard bullying.  It was wrong in the schoolyard.  It was wrong with Donna.  It’s wrong with Len.
  

  
  
• Devery [who posted constructive reasonable criticism of the experiment, that i responded to in one of my posts at the end
  
  

  Len, seriously, you have to stop doing this.  The members of this forum are capable of deciding for themselves whether they want to post or not.  Quite a few just want to read the forum.  It is insulting to them to contact them in this manner.  I have traded music with a couple of "lurkers" who posted, at most, once a month, and they were perfectly happy with that type of involvement here.  Nobody here knows Inactive Boxer; at least I've never heard of him/her.  Let Inactive Boxer decide.  Besides, it renders the birthday greetings almost meaningless by starting these threads.  You simply can't decide that you are somehow doing something good and worthwhile with this, because you are not.  It is astounding to me that you cannot comprehend that.  The people who have spoken before me are not naysayers and grinches.  They are simply stating the truth of the matter and are becoming increasingly exasperated that you are continuing with your birthday threads in an effort to "help" people become more involved.  It is unfair to the people you are "celebrating" and annoying to everyone else.  With all due consideration to your stated motives, please stop.
  

unusual, but ineffective posts

if someone is inactive for a certain amount of time we shall do an obituary. but wait, if they come back someone'd make a "WELCOME" thread and that'd take up too much space. and time.

shouldn't that be a "RESURRECTION" thread?

to the naysayers
fewer then those who posted here

you're acting like baby grinches

do you steal christmas too?

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

LEN, I REPEAT, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

some of my posts in the deleted threads

i have replaced the user names of the inactive boxers

they have had enough unwarranted grief

  happy birthday Inactive boxer

i don't know you
but have a greatest of birthdays,
this and every year.

and we love to have you stop lurkin'
and come join the box party the
other 364 days a year!


pm sent

hi Inactive Boxer

on the shadowbox.net, we sometime celebrate a boxer
with a thread in their honor.  one for you is at

http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=1482

please give our community another look
we love having new people take an active role
in posting and discussions

best -len

Inactive Boxer:

apologies for the discussion that is not birthday greetings

so much that could be commented on, but the important items:

.sarah:
happy birthday
though i already hb'ed you in your hb thread

Send them a PM if you must. They're more likely to see that than any of your posts since it may or may not email them.

i sent each of the three of them an email
(if they hadn't had an eddress, i would have pmed)
with the URL of their birthday thread in it
as soon as i did the post

something like:

Inactive Boxer:

on the shadowbox.net, we sometime celebrate a boxer
with a thread in their honor.  your's is
http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=1461.0

please give our community another look
we love having new people take an active role

Poor Inactive Boxer. What happens if he comes back? Then how will he feel when he learns about his b-day thread being full of anger?

also poor Another Inactive Boxer
so far Yet Another Inactive Boxer has been left alone

who would want to be part of a community where the
act of wishing them happy birthday results in so much
off-topic discussion?


it's a bit of a long shot to get any of these people back,
but i can do several month's worth in the time it
took me to do this post

and i like to see what happens - if it's effective or not

so for a while,
i'm going to continue to post hb threads for inactive boxers
and email them about it

and if others want to continue to add off-topic discussion,
that is their choice

I've done this shit waaaay more than len has, and no one's jumped on my ass for it.
Just an observation.

plur

• a fair neutral thing to point out,
  as someone else did recently in another thread
• i've noticed you posting birthday threads for inactive boxers for a while,
  which makes me a bit amazed at all the discussion here for me doing just three
• you have also started birthday threads for a lot of active boxers
  perhaps that why people haven't noticed the inactive ones?

the points at the end of this post of mine, also address Devery's constructive criticism

i do believe this thread may have derailed itself, len.
it may be your fault, even.

• Mandolin Rain
  
  i raised the language of my posts to a more dignified level
• i can't remove the old language where it's been quoted
• it be courteous to the Inactive Boxers,
  for someone to create a thread to discuss this,
  then doing so in this thread or other happy birthday threads
• it be courteous to the Inactive Boxers,
  if the non-happy-bday posts were either moved to
  a discussion thread, removed,
  and/or converted to happy birthday greetings
• all the actives boxers have to do is ignore the threads. 
  only 3 or 4 more a week
  most, if not all of us, skip many threads as it is
• these inactives posted their birthdays here
  not all inactives or actives do
  it's very common for that info to be
  used to send birthday greetings
• in 37 years i've been on the internet,
  i have never seen someone not like birthday greetings
  and they existed on pre-network computer systems,
  at least a decade before that

best -lentower

tl/dr

[Devery]

Well, at least Devery's post is here, because that was the point.

Play the martyr if it suits you, I guess. It's honestly kind of sad though. I don't mean that as an insult, I actually feel kind of bad. Not for objecting to you spamming the boards, but for you in general.

And if you want to continue your experiment, create one post where you wish these people a happy birthday. I doubt anyone would mind, (though you will likely get trollers).

for those concerned about their post counts,
who posted to these deleted threads,
your post counts have gone down

but i expect they will go up again, especially as
i expect those who acted like the grinch
to restore their post counts, by posting here
perhaps their whole deficit
they may surprise me,
might this be a zero reply thread?

Clever. Now if I post, I'm doing what you said. Well, you're right. I really do care about my post count. I always have, in my years on the box, as has been obvious by the frequency of my posting. It's by far the most important thing to me, here. I'll fight, to the end, to defend it.

At least you have more clearly defined the idea of "passive-aggressive" in my head. I'll take that away with me from this nonsense.

While I slept, I experienced a transformation.  When I tucked my 'puter in, patted in on the head and said "nighty night", I was a splendiforous Full Member.  And now, after a night of fitful dreams, I awoke to find that I was back to where I had been before, as a basic, common Jr. Member.  What a crazy old world, huh?

[Musings]

The Shadowbox is the fountain of youth, you know.  Also "grinches, heroes, and happy birthday threads" sounds like the name of a great kindergarten game!

[murmur]

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to inspire 8 different birthday threads. 

[Kenny Wisdom]

tl/dr, anyone?

[Devery]

Oh, and one more thing - after 9/11, freaking everywhere you turned, some other person or group was called "hero".  The word became very popular - and meaningless - especially when, say, an actor would call another actor his or her hero.  Actually, most words that once were reserved for the extraordinary have become common descriptions for the average. 

[Mandolin Rain]

*shakes head* you have way too much time on your hands, len.

find a different hobby.