Thanks, p8. I appreciate you, bruh. You're a real one.
I gave that faggot ItsOver a bloody nose for disrespecting your gangsta, my G.
And what's up with all the niceties and gladhanded backslaps on the New BellGab? Is this the same site that bullied a wheelchair bound woman to death, and tried to break my spirit so severely that I wound up on the brink of suicide?
What do you think of their new format? It feels clunky. I prefer the version/theme/look and feel of this site. I guess its the old version. But I actually think its more responsive and smooth on the user.
But I'm interested in your thoughts on the matter.
I vaguely recall reading some post over there where you were yelling at ItOver about something. I will have to go back and actually read what was written. I typically use the skim/scan/read approach when there is a lot of material to parse.
I can say that particular post stood out in that you didn't seem to have the
gladhand backslap nicety feelz going on with it. Not to say a "breath of fresh air," {
perhaps something a bit smellY? -HA!} but it did have a sense of "realness" while this bonhomie of the Return Of BellGab does seem to have a bit of High School Reunion fakery about it...
I shall pontifi
pate moar: I have always noted a bit of clique-ish-ness at BellGab, I do not think it is intentional: I think it is more a reflection of how vastly different and regional the United States are.
There is a sort of West Coast faction, which makes sense as they have a similar use of language and way of thinking that is different from the rest of the country. I find them to have an attitude of false superiority, sort of like the Rude American Tourist when abroad: they like to come to the MidWest or South and tell us how backward and quaint we are. Perhaps that is being a bit mean? I probably learned that from a West Coastie! HAH! There is a tendency to ignore folks from other regions, I think this comes from a fundamental inability to understand people outside of their culture/group, in short there is a cultural lack of actual empathic ability there. They may recognize this and say things that might lead you to believe there is some empathy there, but it is mainly a surface-gloss covering the "chocolatey nougat" inside them. HA! I of course generalize, hear? Not all West Coasties are dicks, and probably most of the BellGabbers from that region are likely decent folk: they were just raised in the wrong village as it were.
There is the Midwest/Southern faction: although they are distinct from each other I will lump them into one category. I happen to have a foot in each camp due to long family history on the continent ranging from French Canadia down to the bayous (and many points between). I am most certainly NOT representative of the Midwest/South faction: I am a bit odd and my brethren have not failed to note this & inform me of the fact throughout my life! I don't mind it so much anymore, it is clearly an artifact of my being so far on the right of the Bell Curve, my god-like intellect allows me to forgive them of this. I digress. I have over the years found that there is a Kung Fu mentality with the Midwestern/Southern folks, or the
Grey Man mentality: there is frequently more than meets the eye with us.
I think Teddy Roosevelt (
an actual East Coaster) summed it up with his "Speak softly & Big stick" thing; although that seems to indicate a proclivity for the
physical rather than the
intellect. Which naturally leads me to the East Coast Faction, I think this emphasis on brute force is an artifact of their habit of living in close packed cities.
Consider them to be in the feed-lot that immediately precedes the slaughterhouse, while Midwesterners/Southerners are allowed to range a bit more freely in pasturage and therefore can think about things without being jostled & disturbed by nearby mindless meat-bags. I digress again. I nominally include the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes folks in this one: From Illinois east to Ohio, basically the Ohio river valley folk (but not Kentuckians as they should be Southern). The Ohioians are the square peg we try to fit into the East Coast round hole, you see.
Then there are the OCONUS people, you are among them. This is entirely unfair to categorize y'all into one giant group, it is a reflection of my innate American centrism and also an oversimplification: to my knowledge YOU are the sole member of the South African faction. I think it takes more than one person to make up a faction, so I lump you into the group of people that speak some weird version of the 'Murican language: the Ozzie/Kiwis, the Anglishers, the Paki/Indians(
dot-not-feather) & Asiatics that have Engrish As A Second Language. It is really difficult to make a generalization about this OCONUS group other than they are, in fact, Outside the Continental United States.
Basically, the point I am trying to make hear is: with all these disparate groups happily mashing keys on the board and posting there is bound to be a sense of cliquishness. I do not think it is a conscious thing, even though we all share the English language there is a sort of cultural dialectalism at play that at a deeper level prevents understanding between the groups. The way Midwesterners use language to communicate complexity is completely different from the way a West Coastie would (
I frequently find myself wondering if West Coasties are capable of complex thought?),
Nautical Shore!
And yes, there is that sinister aspect (
REE: being mean to 'tards like your wheelchair lady):
Frankly, I don't get that: the Senda-hate, Amy, (Red) &c. I mean, don't you have something better to do than point and gibber? I suppose it makes you feel superior, I think it is a West Coast thing, again: Nautical Shore!
As to the version of SMF, I agree with you: it does feel clunky (
This may or may not be due to my unfamiliarity with it, why for god's sake does Bill Gate$ et al feel the need to break/remove/disable features you are used to and changing shit with each and every iteration? Leave that shit alone dammit, 'tards CANNOT fix anything; they only make it worse, I digress). Here is an example:
I could absolutely NOT manage to embed that image (
or any like it) with that version of SMF, although I had no trouble with other images not of Baboon Asses. I tried using the silly "embed image" button, HARD CODING it in:
[img]http://modminds.pages.roanoke.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/71/2017/10/Baboon-Butt.jpg[/img]etc. No avail. And the
Bold &
Underline being turned off is mildly annoying, but survivable. I still hard code those into my posts as I believe that when and/or if that functionality is restored they will magically appear as I wrote them even though I will no longer have the ability to edit those posts. These are minor technical complaints, I don't really need all that so it comes down to minor Stylistic Disagreements.
Certainly, I don't like the look of the new board? I wonder if there is some sort of Legacy Setting in guts of the new SMF version that would restore the appearance of the older interface? Were I running that show, I would enable that just for the aesthetic appeal. That is just personal taste.
Honestly, I like that BellGab is back up and running. No shade thrown at you, but there is a wider audience there so long as we don't mutually drive each other away from the place this is a good thing I think.
Ha! I almost forgot: there is some sort of code artifact from the older SMF files that when transferred into the new one it replaces the apostrophe with the text "
’" which is
really wierd. I was drunkenly having fun with that last night; I would write as normal and then when I was done I would replace all the apostrophes I had used with
’. I figured this would be in character for me, I even intentionally included apostrophes where they weren't (
weren’t) needed. Hah, the poetical apostrophe like "gov't," " 'twas" &tc. those became gov’t & ’twas respectively. I think I missed a few.
I think I am approaching the thousand-word limit, hear. So although I have plenty moar thoughts on this matter I will table the discussion for the thyme bean.
