> I remember when everyone would always be talking about something or roleplaying in chat. Now if you walk in and try to start a roleplay half the time you will be shushed or kicked. Some people are annoying, but I've seen people get snubbed simply because they were not serious intellectual Rinkies. Because of a few people who cannot use punctuation a lot of cool people are afraid to try and do fun things.

I definitely have to agree with that. I think *way* too much emphasis is placed on punctuation and grammar rules around here. Yes, yes, AOLSpeak is a bit of the ridiculous, but I have seen people *instantly* gain nothing more than cold shoulders and snide comments because they say things like "l8r" or "u". Punctuation and capitalization and grammar and what-not is *not* a function of intelligence or coolness, but one of laziness or typing speed. The kid who's going to graduate my high school as valedictorian is, obviously, an incredibly bright kid who I can get into a debate with at school about any number of deep topics. But were he to come into chat one day, you would all dismiss him as a silly, stupid little teenager because he has a tendancy to *not* type out every single word or to not capitalize the first word of every sentence.

> Picking on newbies has become a Rinkchat favorite passtime. At first I thought it was funny, but after the fifty millionth time I began to wonder why these people were not just kicked and left alone. They're kids. They don't know better a lot of them. Should they be shunned because of it and treated like less than humans? People used to be mad at Sam because he kicked them. Now people are mad at Rinkies because they ridicule them. Personally that makes me feel the standards of regular have gone down. When I first came here people treated you equally whether you were new or old. Nobody was a regular or a newbie. Some people on Rinkworks have become very stuck up. It makes it harder for others to feel free to try and join in conversations.

I realize that this has absolutely nothing to do with what BG was saying, but this is another thing that has been bugging me lately. There is definitely a hostility towards newcomers here. What's weird is that, to me, it seems a relatively recent development. I don't remember feeling any hostility towards me when I first signed in to chat. (Although I believe Matthew was in there, and hey, I *did* try to steal his name ;-) ). But I have had this discussion with others, and anybody new who comes into chat is not made to feel welcome. I almost sense a sort of "This is *our* little community, we don't want you coming around here and ruining it" sort of attitude. And it's understandable to a point, because a lot of the recent influx of new names into chat have been idiots. Nonetheless, many new people who come in are given the proverbial "eye-rolling, sigh, and ignore" treatment because they ask how to make the blue text, or they want or talk about sports, or they don't capitalize anything, or something like that. I have definitely felt a waning welcoming of newcomers around here lately.

> Chat, often enough now, is dead silence interspliced with a few web sites. Occasionally you get a conversation, usually brief. I know that I have stopped myself starting conversations before because I thought that I might be made fun of. I don't know if anyone else has, but I wonder why the dead silence otherwise. (And none of this is a dig at BG or pretty much anyone who has posted about the decline. Actually these people have been some of the lesser of the Rinksnobs and deserve commendation, but there are still some people on Rinkworks with serious egos).

That's probably because a lot of the people who *would* start the interesting conversations are:

A - Busy with the rest of their lives.

or

B - Hiding behind PMs and Private Rooms

I would hope that it's the former of the two, and not the latter. I don't really think it could be anything else. Unless everyone suddenly became uninteresting, or something.

> As for the forum I have not seen it decline as much as you make it sound. There was a conversation the other day on a seemingly newbie thread I found very interesting on why people try to be different. I read almost every post in the Acadamy Award thread. As far as I can tell, intellectual conversations are still happening. I read in a post on this thread that there was a conversation about black holes in chat the other day. Perhaps Rinkworks hasn't declined so much as a)Some people have become afraid to post or b)The good old days have become coated in gold in our memories so thickly we cannot see that we still have a good thing, as I think Andrea was inferring.

I think this is a common occurence at most any on-line meesage forum. At least, the relative few I've had experience with. I was surprised it took this long before the "Glory days of past postings" message finally showed up. I think that says a lot about the quality of this place to begin with, in comparison to others.

> Me, I don't plan on leaving Rinkworks anytime soon. This is still the most intellectual place by far that I have ever been as well as the wackiest, the most creative and often times the most fun. There have been new people who don't have the punctuation of Kindergartener's, but I do not think they outnumber the intelligent population or even threaten it. I thought Rinkworks was the best site on the internet when I came here, and I've been here longer than any other place I ever came too. This place rocked then, and it rocks now, Rinksnobs or no.
>

I can't agree more with that. I have yet to come across a place anywhere close to matching the caliber of this one. I just think it's a matter of the sort of complex that Andrea mentioned, where an influx of new people has changed the way things are.

> Melanie

The Other "Man, this hole's just getting deeper and deeper over here. Someone take this shovel away from me." Matthew