tbh, i was wondering if he had a view on peoples opinions. I didnt want to hear the views, was just curious, so his post helped me.
Someone please point me in the direction of the membership applications. Dont worry, i have my own pen.
If you've got nothing constructive to contribute, we'd all be that much better-off without your innate ramblings.
Either way... as promised, some stuff that comes to mind reading the (sensible) posts in this thread...
Manju, I warn you here and now - don't go on.
With regards the birthdays... something I've been thinking for a while: it'd be a good idea to have "The *Official* Birthday Thread" or something along those lines. Does get a bit tiresome with new threads ATT, but I don't like to do birthdays for "the big posters" and ignore those for those who post less. Who's to say who's inactive? Sam made me a birthday thread in September 2005 when I hadn't posted for months, and I eventually read it and it was very nice to do so. Likewise, I tend to think anyone who has at one time been a heavyweight (be it Jesse who's disappeared without trace or Marc who's announced his departure) it's still nice to say happy birthday. Sure, they
might not read it, but you never know.
But yes, it would be quite excellent to round-up all those pesky birthday threads, merge 'em into one, and just keep it in one from now on, from my POV. And I'll happily do the collating too if, understandibly, there's a CBA-factor from the Mods.
Let's put it to the poll.
What Jack says is something I kinda tried to say earlier on, and not surprisingly he put it better. This, beyond question, is something people are going to get sick of, and if
Rob is, even to a lesser extent than most, this tells you something. But this isn't that surprising - heck,
I get sick of saying "Hayden's crap" 50 times a month, especially when it's usually the same people (person?) who it ends-up in a rehash-of-exactly-what's-been-said-before. The trouble is, it's impossible to avoid the matter being touched-on. It just boils down to this: I must make an effort, very forcibly so, to say "but we're not doing this all over again" rather than simply plunging into it.
With regards to
what Gelman says about the broken-down-quote thing... I'm well aware it's something you don't like, we've discussed the matter often enough - this is unfortunate, as it's something I myself much prefer. It's so much easier, from my POV, to break quotes down rather than having multiple paragraphs saying 30 different things. The reason it can look so daunting to the non-participant is because multiple quotes take-up way, way more space and as a result 3 or 4 lines becomes 15 or so. There's only ever been a handful willing to engage in them with me, though - tec back in t' day more than anyone, and KaZo recently.
It's greatly disappointing to hear that my posting style causes the loss of good posters like
Kev and
np10. I confess, in the latter case, it's something I only hear of now. I'd not taken note of any reduction on your part, you seem to me to be as active in the threads I'd expect you in now as ever.
Either way, I can't really do much about it. I'm either here, or I'm not. As I said - I'll make a great effort to put a stop to
the same old things - be it Hayden, be it non-international-class sides, be it first-chance records, be it MacGill, be it Harmison, be it whatever else. If you simply dislike the fact that I have a high postcount, and that I don't stop at one post if someone responds to a post I've made... there's really not a lot anyone can do. It just doesn't occur to me that this is a problem, and TBH it baffles and disappoints me that anyone feels it is. If a Mod (at whatever site) took me to task for it, my reaction would be simple: not much point me being on this forum then.
There's even a trouble with the former part of it, though: there are always more people who
do want to discuss the issue, and haven't heard what I have to say on it before. It seems borderline impolite to say "I've discussed this before and you're a n00b so all I've got to say is you should have been here earlier". It's one or the other: you patronise the n00b, or you annoy the heck out of long-term posters who don't deserve to have to read the same stuff over and over. And having "the official Rich-bashes-Hayden thread" or "the official Rich's-why-Test-standard-teams-only-should-have-Test-stats-considered thread" seems a bit silly, really, not to mention the fact that it basically says "here's a place where no-one else need post".
