[Carrie]

Sorry to break the turn into the niceness farm the thread's taken, but want to make a few observations. Take 'em or leave 'em.

I hope the board does not go to pay to post. The discussion here is usually intelligent and above-par, even when just joking around. Paying folks to post brings in the stupidity crowd who fill the board with useless babble. (Not saying there's isn't a good share of useless babble here, but it's a different level of babble - hard to explain.)

The mention of a "hired gun" made me think not of paid mods steering conversations, but mods being encouraged to make and use fake names to troll the boards and get people reacting to dumbass statements. A huge pasttime over at GFY and encouraged at certain other places. (Or at least was at one point.) I hope this isn't the case either, as it drives away the veterans and intelligent posters and again, draws the stupidity crowd.

That being said, I know that both of these methods increase pageviews, which drives the advertising, which is the bottom line for the board. It's a fine line between quantity and quality - I hope in all of the changes you guys are planning, you're leaning on the side of quality. I'd hate to see this board become what Netpond has become, and y'all know how much I love Netpond and Meat and Aga. Well, what Netpond's board used to be, anyway.

Just try not to kill the quality while going for the increase in pageviews, eh? That's all we as members can hope for.

And no matter how many times I tried to re-write this, I just couldn't get my point across well enough and explain what I'm trying to convey - so if you get pissed at anything I've said, please know that I didn't mean for it to piss anyone off. Just disappointed at what a place I used to love has become and don't want to see it happen again over here. Hoping it won't.