please don't.

Matt

Emazdad-I hope you hang in there and do not leave and that tony returns. You both have contributed to this forum. It's difficult to maintain the diversity of ideas necessary for creative exchange of ideas within any forum structure. The way I handle it is to ignore that which I am not interested in or inagreement with that I feel that I cannot ofer any contribution that the other concerned would find useful. Ed Gilmore

Billy Tony possibly Clive (Emazdad) are not the only ones either. I'm also heading the same way.

Too tired of the very same questions being asked - going round and round in circles.

Then those thread's which are initiated by those who go on and on about the same thing - establishing themselves as a "real expert" in the topic. Instead of replying in what should be a one paragraph reply no they use 10+ paragraphs.

Blindly, most members seem appreciative of the fullness of the reply - where as some of us realise it's a pitch for something or another.

I could go on, but cant really be bothered as this post will soon be swamped by further covert sales pitches.. good luck to you all.

Goodbye, guys... and good luck in future endeavors.

Jeez, it's not up to me to judge, but if you're not having a good time I guess you'd better go and not be a bringdown for the rest of us.

That's a cryin' shame, really, as Emazdad and others have shared some really good thoughts with me, at least.

I know a similar feeling - I went from a year as President of a big-city IBM ring one week, to never wanting to see them again the next, and I've never been back. The list of complaints was long, and of no interest to anyone but me, but I understand some of your feelings.

Nonetheless (failing to vitalize a good-old-boy same-old-crap magic club aside) I liken the Café more to a party ... there's a few annoying old blowhards talking loudly and selling insurance on one side of the room and I'd just give it up and go home, except that there are many others there who ARE interesting to talk to and who make it worthwhile to stay.

Any forum or club you join, other than "the absolutely no girls allowed real cool magicians' club, membership: 3, and not growing" is going to have some annoying people in it. As Lincoln said: "you cannot dip clear water from a muddy stream."

If you look up his profile, it is no longer available...this means that the member has indeed been temporarily or permanently dis-allowed.

He possibly sent a really nasty PM to the moderator concerned as he left, so they've now cut him out. But as he doesn't want to come back it's no problem.
Posted: Jan 31, 2005 3:40am
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Nonetheless (failing to vitalize a good-old-boy same-old-crap magic club aside) I liken the Café more to a party, there are a few annoying old blowhards talking loudly and selling insurance on one side of the room and I'd just give it up and go home, except that there are many others there who are interesting to talk to and who make it worthwhile to stay.

Love this Ross, you've described the Café pefectly,

You've got the real coalface workers who know what they are talking about, and are not afraid to voice an opinion, if people don't like it, Tough.
You have the fence sitters who just agree with everyone so as not to cause upset
You have the ones who think they know how to entertain kids, but really don't have a scooby.
You have the clones who think anyone who's written a book must be a god of magic and their writings must be followed religiously.
You have those who use every oppertunity to promote their own goods/books/dvd's etc.
You have the ones with little or no sense of humour, this is usually enhanced by the cross channel divide. We understand our colonial cousins, more than they understand us. Probably because our TV's a crammed full of yank TV programs
You have the complainers, the moment the discussion goes of at a tangent in order to discuss an answer that's come up they start sbreaming and moaning. Despite the fact the the conversation went they while following way in its natural course. A conversation is like a river, it doesn't run straight, it wanders all over the place before it gets to the end.

To stop the circle spinning everytime someone comes up with a question we've discussed before, All we should post is the link to the original discussion. That way we all don't have to repeat ourselves, again.

To stop the circle spinning everytime someone comes up with a question we've discussed before, All we should post is the link to the original discussion. That way we all don't have to repeat ourselves, again.

To stop the circle spinning everytime someone comes up with a question we've discussed before, All we should post is the link to the original discussion. That way we all don't have to repeat ourselves, again.

Sorry I couldn't resist it.

What you guys need over here is an "information curator" (that's the title they gave me on another forum). Now I am not volunteering to do it here on The Magic Café, but maybe someone here (or several members) can take on that task.

Here's what I do as the "information curator" on The Dean's List forum, in a nutshell. I started doing it because I was getting bored / slightly annoyed with seeing the same topic started again and again, by people who were unaware or new. I nipped the problem in the bud, and posted a link, when I recalled that it had been discussed before. Then, for the most part, members didn't continue to discuss it on that new thread. If they wanted to add more, they went to the original thread. That also helps to end the cycle.

You just need someone(s) to read all the threads in The Little Darlings section, and take a little time to remember what was there. Then they use keywords to search to find those older discussions. I am sure there are several members here, that do remember what was discussed, and the basic jist of the conversations.

I know it can be done, and that the talents are here. Look at the time and effort that went into the index.

Again, I won't accept the nomination, but know there are qualified candidates out there.

- Donald

Hi Donald,

Nice idea, I don't think it's a job for one man, as we all can't remember when a question has been asked before, if whoever thinks it's a repeat takes it upon themselves to look it up in the index and post the link to the original topic, it should work.

Looking at this post reminded me that the "Cat" said goodbye forever to the Café. So what do you think his new name is?

Hi Everyone,

If you feel you have ideas then you should take them up in "I want to see the manager forum".

Although my post count shows only 8oo some odd post, I have actually posted closer to 4000-5000 as I have greeted New Arrivals for a couple years which doesn't show up as a post count. I also post often in, It's not magic, where post are also not counted. I have read many of the "spiral post" and am a little bemused that the same people that appeared condesending to me in their response to my replies ...turned around and repeated almost my words exactly, a few weeks or months later much to the admiration of the others. Perhaps they saw the wisdom in my words then?

I have performed aprox 5,000 shows and won several awards, have degrees in business, education and criminology, but this is probably the first time I have "tooted my own horn". The Café is not about that. Again it's magicians helping magicians. I really believe in this.

Do I appear bitter? No! as I'm not out for my own glory and really believe the Café is about magicians helping magicians. Would I have posted more often and had a higher count if I didn't greet 4000-5000 newcomers? The answer is yes. I do read the majority of post in here and can usually tell if it's a question that was asked before, but, there are also many new people that arrive to this forum that are happy to give an answer and their suggestions may be refreshing. If you stopped all questions the Café would become stagnant if you constantly referred them to previous post. It is helpful to do a search, but new people bring new ideas. Look how many of us posted when one member brought up a post that was three years old! The majority of us (myself included) felt we had to add to it.

There is currently almost 800,000 post at the Café .The search engine is suggested to ask a question but then again how many people have read the rules or checked the other forums, regarding how the Café is run? Some people have the most terrible grammar and yet their post (with corrections from the grammar staff) come across as very well written. It's important to note that words are never changed only grammar is corrected. If you see a post with missed punctuations or spelling corrections it usually means that the very busy grammar staff have not yet seen it.

There's an old saying too... but I forget how it's worded, but the thought behind it is if you complain then do something about it, offer to volunteer and greet New Arrivals, offer to be a Grammar host, put in a ton of money and start up your own web site and run it the way you want to.

I should clarify that I'm not writing this in anyway other than to be informative and helpful, as with lack of intonation on a forum it's hard to understand the feelings behind the written word.

Chrystal

Looking at this post reminded me that the "Cat" said goodbye forever to the Café. So what do you think his new name is?

I would imagine they have banned his IP and I doubt he wants to come back anyway.

Matt

Ooops, spoke to soon, he's back!