Feeling a bit down lately about the forums. I originally started hanging out in the V4L forum, and for awhile it was a lot of fun. Felt like homebase, made some friends, played games, shared stories. I'd occasionally pop into the Bloog forum (once I could find it), but it wasn't as active and was mostly dry -- just the usual questions about cartos and equipment. Not much camaraderie.
Not sure what turned that around, but one day things started picking up in Bloog. Started seeing familiar faces and posts became more friendly, less all-business. And then the "Ignore" thread started... first as an accident, then it snowballed. We had so much fun there, which spilled over into other threads. I was really enjoying it there. And around that same time I started losing interest in the V4L forum. Lots of nice people, but a few immature ones monopolizing it with nonsense or topics that didn't interest me.
But then came The Great Bloog Vanishing Act. The two people that regularly monitored and participated in the forum just stopped one day. Questions were left unanswered. Problems with orders were not being addressed. We tried to wait it out, but after a week we all began to wonder what had happened... were they closing their doors and afraid to say anything? New customers were either worried or angry or both. They started fleeing over to V4L.
That didn't bother me, seeing as I buy from both places. What I took issue with was a few people felt the need to complain about the Bloog forum members in V4L, saying we were all mean, unhelpful, and cult-like. Never say anything bad or they'll jump down your throats. And the V4L people were jumping on the bandwagon, yes they are awful - we are wonderful! And the amazing part is, many of the Bloog members were not just full of praise, but in fact we were complaining loudly ourselves! Yes, one person said something they shouldn't have. One. So it was really disheartening to have this false picture painted of the whole group. I wanted so much to set the record straight, but I knew it would just fall on deaf ears.
Not sure what turned that around, but one day things started picking up in Bloog. Started seeing familiar faces and posts became more friendly, less all-business. And then the "Ignore" thread started... first as an accident, then it snowballed. We had so much fun there, which spilled over into other threads. I was really enjoying it there. And around that same time I started losing interest in the V4L forum. Lots of nice people, but a few immature ones monopolizing it with nonsense or topics that didn't interest me.
But then came The Great Bloog Vanishing Act. The two people that regularly monitored and participated in the forum just stopped one day. Questions were left unanswered. Problems with orders were not being addressed. We tried to wait it out, but after a week we all began to wonder what had happened... were they closing their doors and afraid to say anything? New customers were either worried or angry or both. They started fleeing over to V4L.
That didn't bother me, seeing as I buy from both places. What I took issue with was a few people felt the need to complain about the Bloog forum members in V4L, saying we were all mean, unhelpful, and cult-like. Never say anything bad or they'll jump down your throats. And the V4L people were jumping on the bandwagon, yes they are awful - we are wonderful! And the amazing part is, many of the Bloog members were not just full of praise, but in fact we were complaining loudly ourselves! Yes, one person said something they shouldn't have. One. So it was really disheartening to have this false picture painted of the whole group. I wanted so much to set the record straight, but I knew it would just fall on deaf ears.
