Community and the Footnote Fetish

[Neroon]

I had intended, over the weekend, to write a light little piece and indulge my sense of humour.  However, those of you that know what I'm like will  know that various other things- general chatting (both by IM and in the SB), messing about in Second Life and rather boringly having mid-day catnaps- got in the way.  So on Saturday evening I began to think about posting something from my mainstream blog¹ (which is kept up as infrequently as this) as a means of getting something here.  After all I did sort of road test the Suspension of Disbelief blog there.

However, those that saw my little rant² will know that other matters superseded such things as blog writing and I was a somewhat disgruntled Neroon and it looked as if it would be a long time before I became gruntled again³.  However, my teenage daughter, Monster, changed that and, it has to be said, saved the day⁴.  Consequently, I had to post an update to my rant⁵ and I then began to plan my blog here, possibly with some footnotes⁶.

The topic for my blog came quite naturally to me, after my experiences of the last couple of days.  Now I am not going to post about the specific problems of the weekend as I've already done that elsewhere⁷.  Indeed, you might well have noticed I don't tend to post a great deal about my real life worries, as I am always worried that to do so will cause the Drama Llama's ding-dong to tinkle and none of us want that⁸.

Instead I am writing about the way that the community here at E offered me support, advice and good wishes.  If I ever doubted that E was a community- and I didn't- the replies, PMs and IMs I got would have soon disabused me of that notion.  I was very heartened by them and I'd like to thank everyone who was thoughtful enough to offer me a thought, some advice or just let me know they were sympathetic; it really meant a lot.

It is that sort of consideration for others that makes E special.  Believe it or not, I was not an online community virgin when I joined Elliquiy.  I have been knocking around various online communities for years.  I would say that out of them all only one is as good as E as far as being so supportive- and the members of that small community have known each other for the best part of a decade and shared RL names and addresses years ago.  For a community like E, which is so large and pretty much anonymous, to come close to being as supportive as one like that which is so closely knit says a hell of a lot about this place.

I've got to see a lot in the last couple of months about how the community here works and, quite frankly, it is utterly fascinating.  At the moment I write, there are 192 members online and those members have a dizzying array of of personality types, interests and backgrounds.  I can think of few places that can integrate so many so varied people with so little fuss and trouble.  Sure, there are inevitably disputes and the like but, compared with other places I've been, the community here seems remarkably good natured.

I've had to ask myself why that is, being the curious so-and-so that I am.  It would be trite to say that it's all down to the hard work of the staff and the mentors, trite and a little self-serving.  Trite it may be, but it doesn't make it untrue.  Indeed, it is, as my uncle Bill would say, stating the bleeding obvious⁹.  I would say that as much as these people, it is every other member that makes E special.

OK, so now I've descended into being nauseatingly validatory to you all, which was hardly my intention.  Then again, I wasn't really sure what I was going to write about as I started, other than to offer thanks to everyone here for the support I  received this weekend.  I expect that I'll probably post something here every week or so and hopefully, normal service will be resumed next week, with something suitably frivolous.

And no, as far as I'm aware, there is no actual footnote fetish¹⁰, it's just that I like footnotes.


¹Just google Haldo Longwidget and you'll find it.  If you really have to.  Trust me, you don't want to.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

²It's not particularly important what it was about, as the matter is a) resolved now and b) covered in this blog entry.  If you really must look at it it's here.

³Just so as you know, that's a turn of phrase I've recycled from P.G.Wodehouse.  It can be found on p.6 of The Code of the Woosters, 1976 Penguin paperback edition.

⁴Or more accurately, weekend.

⁵Which can be read here.

⁶But not too many, as that would be silly.

⁷See footnotes 2 and 5 for details.

⁸The stains are a real bugger to get rid of.

⁹Only he would have said it without the letter "g".

¹⁰I bet that someone will find evidence for one, now that I've said that.  They would probably call it hyposemeiosisophilia.  Or something like that.

[Vekseid]

And no, as far as I'm aware, there is no actual footnote fetish¹⁰, it's just that I like footnotes.

There is now >_>

[HairyHeretic]

Rule 34B    
   
(a) An extension of Rule 34. - If it exists, there is porn of it.

If porn has not been made of an object that has been Rule34'd, porn will be made of this object as soon as your request is processed.

[Neroon]

Damn! I should have had that as a footnote to the footnote.

[Mithlomwen]

*Laughs*  You all are too much.  ;)