I've been around over a year, and I'm about ready to be a n00b.

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Sex Piano.

Just to be clear, I think the number of "cool people" has gone way up around here. For every great old reg we've lost, we've got at least two new ones. The problem is, we've also got a buttload of jerkoffs. But that's the way of things. Broad is the path and wide the way etc, but narrow the way and strait the gate and so on.

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What others say about boorite!

He said "butt".

You havent bumped your thread in nearly 9 months.

Get to it. Avanti!

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

You know, just a while ago I was thinking about how it didn't make any sense for Bunner to delete his comics and leave, but it would make perfect sense for Nate to.

Not an attack on Nate, as I'm too thick skinned (and headed) to have been out to get him, even in the old days. He just... well... wasn't all that funny.

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"Only things I approve of should exist." -some guy on the internet

I lurk in a few forums, and I think the big difference here is very unrigid moderation. People's perceived personality problems aside, I think the problem of inane posts, pointless thread bumping and agitators would only be solved with more strict moderation.

I've seen a lot of forums where they routinely lock threads, steer threads back on topic, and relentlessly ban users not paying attention to the rules.

If that happened here, from what I've observed, users would have to give up a lot of freedom in posting, and this would no doubt take up a lot more time for the moderator(s). Other than that you can't really control the staying or leaving of "cool" and "uncool" people, but you could definitely enforce a little more politeness, if that's the big issue. And that would be my only big negative observation, that there is a general level of impoliteness as far as forum posting is concerned.

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www.allenhenderson.com

I know I'm a n00b, but I do have some experience in other groups that have dealt with similar sentiments (i.e. the past was much better, who are all these newbie idiots, etc.).

Restricting the forums to donors only and such is not really a good idea (at least the whole forum). The problem is that when you start making new people feel unwelcome, they go away. And if too many new people go away, the entire site will die of attrition.

In the SFS club I was in, the older students took an overbearing "elitist" attitude. They figured that new people suck and treated them like dirt until they got older. This caused that club to have an average membership of about 12, with freshman often joining and then leaving after only a few months as members.

Then, new officers came into power with the attitude that everyone who could play and have fun was cool. Now membership is insanely high (it's one of the larger groups on campus) and they do a lot more things.

The point? Treating newbs like dirt weakens the organization, because you have to replenish those who you lose through regular attrition to keep the community healthy. Having a donor only chat (in addition to the donor only comic showcase) is viable, though, since you encourage people to become donors (money for Brad = good) and you have a place where only regulars can post, while still keeping a place for new people to introduce themselves. You need a mechanism for getting to know the new people so the best of them can advance and be made to feel accepted, otherwise, again, you fall into the atrophy model.

Speaking as one of the few over-30 noobs, I love the hell out of this site.

I learned early which users made funny strips and who made meaningful posts. When Brad banned Schlong the other day, I had no idea why, because I hadn't read any of his posts or comics in months. When it comes to idiots and juvenile behaviour here, I take the ostrich-in-the-sand philosophy--I just bury my head and ignore them. I was lucky enough to have donated four days before Brad restricted the forums, but that would have been my impetus to donate if I hadn't. Things were pretty calm then. Now I just pick and choose which comics and posts I open and I'm happy with what I read.

The New Faces of 2003 Comic Competition was my idea. (I asked jes to run it so the voting would be fair.) The idea behind it was to show that some funny people joined in the last year...mmyers, matchbook_romance, inflatable_man, mikey_g, Atheist_Diary, Ivy_the_Plant, KungChiFu, lukket...gosh I could go on, and probably should, but you get my point. There are good new users joining every day.

I think we should all stop navel-gazing and get on with making teh funny.

A hooker, a priest, and a lawyer walk into a bar.
The bartender says, "What is this? A joke?"

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I was gonna send a robot back in time, but I got high.

funny--i'm exactly in the middle of this argument, feelings-wise. yes, i loved the old regs, and yes, i like the new regs. whenever, as inevitably it does, it happens that a reg posts his or her intent to leave the site, it makes me sad; but as long as people who know how to be funny are trying to be, it's impossible to completely screw up stripcreator.

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

I'm tired of hearing about how great the old regulars were, too. I think it's about time we took them out back, stripped them naked, and gently massaged their godly bodies with warm oils.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

[Click to view comic: 'Missing Title: Please Title Your Comic Strip. (III)']

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

You havent bumped your thread in nearly 9 months.

Get to it. Avanti!

I looked for it the other day, but after hitting the >>> twice, I got too tired and had to take a nap.

Huzzah for lack of motivation!

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dcomposed:11-06-05: If I was a viking invading your village, you'd be the first to get raped.
Crabby: 10/5/06: i would love to feed you fresh fruit while bathing you.

Damn those handsome devils.

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Peeing sitting down is the gift you give yourself.

I've pretty much heard enough about how much better the site used to be. I take personal offense to that. I am one of a few newer donors, who include Inflatable_Man, mmyers, and more. I consider myself funny, and I love mmyers, Inflat, Zaster, Xuanwu, and a bunch of other new guys. I'm also a fan of the older fellows like boorite, Spankling, and quite a few others.

In plain English:

I donated twice so far to this site because I am enamored with it. For all its faults, for all the cool people, the cool people whose comics suck, the sucky people who make funny comics, and the just plain sucky motherfuckers, I will never stop coming here until it is abandoned or run into the ground. I love the dichotomy of an intelligent, spirited, and sometimes nasty political discussion and posting simply 'MEH' as a response in RMDC both on the same site. Humor is both startlingly intelligent and gutter-scrapingly juvenile.

Now, the issue is not who is cool, or whether the site sucks. The issue is Brad. Brad runs, maintains, monitors, and moderates all aspects of this site. Apparantly, he is displeased about certain things. I fucking hate kowtowing to anybody, but I also know that if it were not for Brad, I would not have this fucking amazing outlet for my creativity. We need to keep Brad interested in KEEPING THE SITE. I for one, would not like to see this site deteriorate, and it has not so far.

As for the forums being restricted, I don't like the idea AT ALL. Being in the forums was one of the main reasons I donated. I got to see the coolness one could have (I know, I'm a geek) when donating, and wanted to be a part of that. Furthermore, I wanted to be able to post in Comic Showcase. There are a lot of non-donors whose contributions would be restricted if the forums were donors-only. See, this site, above all, needs TRAFFIC. Traffic means clickety-clicks on the googley-google ads. Plus, the more people like this site, hopefully the more people willing to financially help keep it up. Let's not restrict people too much or we may lose traffic.

That being said, people SHOULD respect the site. I honestly think Brad has been pretty spot-on in curbing some of the more egregious abuses. SinatraFonzerelli2, as I remember from my truly early days, was suspended or something like that for flooding the front page with his stupid-ass comics. I say GOOD. Dcom came close with his 'Why I Hate' comics, but those turned out to be pretty cool when he took them seriously. Several idiots have been banned for just truly racist, idiotic comments. I DO believe in freedom of speech, even if it is racist, but I also like their banning. I think the best way to deal with someone like that is to ignore them completely, but Brad is ultimately the last word, and we've ALL got to respect that.

Brad, please don't let your interest in maintaining this site wane. We've got a few juvenile people here, myself included, but every clique is bound to have one, and I consider this site a big fuckin' clique that I am priveleged and honored to be a part of. I've gotten to know a few of you, some of you who I didn't even like when I first got here, and I really do like most of you. Except for mAAk. Nobody likes him. Heh heh.

I apologize for the length. I have a lot to say on this issue.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

:C

I'll...I'll just go....
FOREVER!!!!!

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

How come you guys keep forgetting me when mentioning new members who are good?

...

Oh... I get it...

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Poop.

Leaving forever might score you some attention.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

This is a digression, but the other day they showed a picture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on the news, and for a moment I wondered why makk was on TV.

Duh! mAAk is an international superstar.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

I say that when I see that picture on TV.

"Oh man! I'm on TV!"

Then everyone in the bar slowly turns towards me.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

That reminds me. You ever get that pool cue out of your ass?

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Obviously not.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I likes it there!

=]

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008