Fametracker forums, noooo...

The forums on Fametracker are closing. Closing! In half a week! I had no idea they were in such tight financial straits...I would have gladly bought an OODT or three, as I also gladly supported TWOP when it was in danger of shutting down. And now it looks like there won't be a last-minute reprieve. Dammit!

I love FT for its forums. There's, at times, a touch too much vitriol on it in regards to certain celebrities, but I haven't found a site out there (with the exception of sister site TWOP) that's such a sheer pleasure to participate or just plain lurk in. Partly it's due to the site being so well-organized and run on such an intuitive-to-use board as Invision (threads being bumped to the top when they're posted to, etc.), and partly because they're so well-moderated. I don't know how the mods found time to watch over everything, but they did a bang-up job of it, stating the rules clearly and coming down hard and fast and anyone who violated them. This led to forums with proper grammar and punctuation (I don't have to explain what an absolute pleasure that is), a complete lack of superfluous threads (so that you knew exactly where to look for a topic and weren't scrambling to read 67 scattershot threads for every subject), trolls with a very very short life expectancy, and wonderfully-civilized disagreements. Not to mention the posters are some of the most intelligent and hands-down funny people I've seen gathered in one place on-line. Yes, it's not perfect; some of the topics are too mean-spirited for me to read, but the good points far outweigh the bad, IMHO. (And now I'm hearing that the forums are quickly descending into chaos because the mods have stepped back pending the shutdown...I don't even want to go look. OTOH, it just goes to show how badly good mods are needed.)

I still can't believe I discovered FT so late. I've been on TWOP for years, back when it was still MBTV, but I didn't find FT until last July. And I'm on either of those two sites nearly every single day; you can't believe how completely refreshing it is to just pop in and get my daily dose of witty, well-written snark. Gosh, I'm going to miss it. I sure hope the proposed "replacement" site(s) take off, although if they're not managed with the same sensibility towards keeping things well-ordered and intuitive, they just won't be the same.

Here's to you Glark, Wing, and the other mods. I am so going to miss this.

Fametracker forums, noooo...

The forums on Fametracker are closing. Closing! In half a week! I had no idea they were in such tight financial straits...I would have gladly bought an OODT or three, as I also gladly supported TWOP when it was in danger of shutting down. And now it looks like there won't be a last-minute reprieve. Dammit!

I love FT for its forums. There's, at times, a touch too much vitriol on it in regards to certain celebrities, but I haven't found a site out there (with the exception of sister site TWOP) that's such a sheer pleasure to participate or just plain lurk in. Partly it's due to the site being so well-organized and run on such an intuitive-to-use board as Invision (threads being bumped to the top when they're posted to, etc.), and partly because they're so well-moderated. I don't know how the mods found time to watch over everything, but they did a bang-up job of it, stating the rules clearly and coming down hard and fast and anyone who violated them. This led to forums with proper grammar and punctuation (I don't have to explain what an absolute pleasure that is), a complete lack of superfluous threads (so that you knew exactly where to look for a topic and weren't scrambling to read 67 scattershot threads for every subject), trolls with a very very short life expectancy, and wonderfully-civilized disagreements. Not to mention the posters are some of the most intelligent and hands-down funny people I've seen gathered in one place on-line. Yes, it's not perfect; some of the topics are too mean-spirited for me to read, but the good points far outweigh the bad, IMHO. (And now I'm hearing that the forums are quickly descending into chaos because the mods have stepped back pending the shutdown...I don't even want to go look. OTOH, it just goes to show how badly good mods are needed.)

I still can't believe I discovered FT so late. I've been on TWOP for years, back when it was still MBTV, but I didn't find FT until last July. And I'm on either of those two sites nearly every single day; you can't believe how completely refreshing it is to just pop in and get my daily dose of witty, well-written snark. Gosh, I'm going to miss it. I sure hope the proposed "replacement" site(s) take off, although if they're not managed with the same sensibility towards keeping things well-ordered and intuitive, they just won't be the same.

Here's to you Glark, Wing, and the other mods. I am so going to miss this.