This pretty much sums up my feelings on the RS forums: I registered for the RS forums before the CSW absorption took place, and reregistered there when that occurred. In the five years or so I was registered there, I made about 45-50 posts total. By way of comparison, since I've been on JD's boards, I've made almost that many posts in the last six months. I'm a veteran of the old Usenet rec.arts.sf.starwars.collecting* newsgroups, and to say that Usenet was much more friendly and mature than RS's boards is really saying something.
I just didn't get any feeling of community with RS's boards. It all seemed like one big pissing contest with nobody being all that willing to help others out. On RASSC, we pretty much all knew each other on some level (or at least knew of each other), it was very communal, and even if we didn't care for a particular person, there was still a mutual respect. I made some lasting friendships from RASSC, but when the great newsgroup split proposal failed in 1999, I made my exit. I still keep in touch with many of those people, but the newsgroup as a community pretty much died.
With RS, as I said, it's more about "my dad can beat up your dad", if that makes any sense. It's all about "RS just put up photos of something a guy in Timbuktu found in a yard sale...f**k you, other SW toy sites!" Or, in more recent cases, and not a direct quote, "JD has had a report about who an exclusive figure is for the last week, but since they're not a 'reputable' website, we're going to ignore it and act like it's news only when *we* post about it!" As someone else in the thread said earlier, it does have the feel of a cafeteria in high school, with people doing everything in the world to undercut everyone else. To quote the films, and cement my nerd status, "there is no civility, only politics."
(at this point I made some rather inflammatory comments about certain moderators whose name ends in one or two "G"'s, but to avoid any problems, I have deleted that portion of the original post)
As for moderators and site admins, that's another reason I don't go to RS anymore. After the mess with the TFN boards (how did that work out, by the way?), I'm done patronizing Philip Wise's sites at all. I went over a few minutes ago to see what had happened to the RS forums (I hadn't seen the changes that had been made) and just started laughing. I still remember Wiseacres.com, Philip; way to sell out the entire fan community you claimed to love so much.
As for other sites, I take my hat off to the fine folks at JD, Yakface, and GH.com. You're all doing fine work, and you should be proud. RS, may you fade into obscurity and be forgotten completely.
