Sure, Ill bite.

"There was an epic failure on the crews and my part alike to inspire any kind of competition outside of click click click. "

Ill clarify that "crews" should be "crewleaders".

The first mail that I sent out, there was 0 interest.  I am not sure if I didn't inspire the CLs enough to get them to bother asking their crews.  Or if the CLs were not inspiring enough to encourage participation among their members.

Somewhere between myself and the crewleaders, we inspired 0 signups.

The second mail that I sent out, there was 1 person who got back to me and said that they could get a few people together and do a team, but they had to throw some names in there as placeholders to meet the minimum.

So, with this attempt, somewhere between myself and the crewleaders, we inspired like 5 members to sign up.

Going on assumptions here since I at 3am I don't want to spend any more time researching this, but there would have been about 60 CLs, RHM, LHMs.  Of these 60 men and women, only 1 of them was able to inspire a few people to say "yes, im in".

I call that an epic failure on the crew(leaders) and my part alike to inspire any kind of competition outside of click click click.

I encourage you to not view the two times you sent out mails and didn't get interest, which should require (I assume, perhaps incorrectly) minimal investment of admin time/energy, with the two times the competition actually ran. Why not measure this by the two times that things actually ran? That just seems to make more sense to me.

I am sorry that, on two other occasions, you/others asked to do this and there was little interest- but I don't see how that has much bearing on a competition that, after a month of being told results would be out soon, and getting a post 11 days ago that mentioned difficulties with a judge and things almost being wrapped up, that all of us sudden apparently the whole thing was a failure and no one won.

So much of your most recent response has nothing to do with what happened on February 11th and 12th. Isn't the actual competition what matters? Why are we talking about the CLs/RHMs/LHMs who didn't respond to your mails months ago and not the CLs/RHMs/LHMs who wrote during the actual competition?

From what I am seeing above, people loved writing.   Thats great.  But out of everyone,  there were 5 people curious enough to check out the other competition. 

I call that an epic failure on the crew(leaders) and my part alike to inspire any kind of competition outside of click click click.

The first PTB, there were four (longer)  threads. In this one, there were 12. Reading them all took me about 2-3 hours total. Judging the success of this competition by "how many people clicked on every thread, including the one with two responses, before any results were posted" seems like a very flawed measurement of success. I would encourage you to reconsider the tools you're using to evaluate this event.

The first PTB I considered a great success because I had (and probably falsely) assumed there was a lot more interest in the event than what I thought.  With the first PTB I saw instant excitement coming from the top down, and also from the bottom up.  With this PTB, I saw 0 excitement coming from the top down and bottom up.  I saw 60 some upper structure that couldn't stir a peep. 

I call that an epic failure on the crew(leaders) and my part alike to inspire any kind of competition outside of click click click.

I saw 60 some upper structure that couldn't stir a peep. 

This is so frustrating to me, Squishy. I just cannot fathom your logic. And I don't know if this means anything to you, but I don't recall ever having a discussion like this, ever, with any admin. I'm not just bitching here for the sake of bitching.

Why are we talking about the ignored mails from months ago? Why are we not talking about the actual upper structure writers in the actual event?

Everything you're saying suggests that this was a bitch and a half to get going. I can sympathize with that. But when this event launched and in every subsequent update we've received thusfar, there has been no indication the user enthusiasm or participation was an issue. It's been "soon", "soon", "soon", "I have given up on the last judge... I can wrap up results tonight" almost two weeks ago. And for the record, I'm not bitching about the time it took to announce this. I know you've got a lot to deal with between RL and the game. You can announce it whenever you damn well please. But do you understand how it can be thoroughly demoralizing to have a competition announced, to have 80 people enthusiastically participate, and then a month later be told, by what many might assume is a flawed rationale, that everyone failed and no one won?

I think if members are only really going to look at their own districts, then this kind of removes the competition part of it.

But this was a writing competition, and several districts put their writing out there. If you'd said that a condition of this competition was enough people reading every entry, then sure. But this whole thing just came out of left field and whacked a lot of people who had previously been very, very excited- myself included, obviously.

Ideally, I would love to persuade you that PTB was a win. I would love to persuade you that you're measuring the purpose of writing with the wrong metric. I would love to persuade you to make this a yearly event, held far, far away from Christmas and V-day. If I can't do any of that, I'd like to persuade you to at least release results/prizes for this PTB, so that people can at least have the competition they were told about before it goes away forever. 

Because if you're adamant that this isn't happening again, then why not at least release the results for this one and award winners based on that? 11 days ago you said results were in and there was a tie? Why not just award the tied cities the same prizes, averaged out between the spots they're in?

Look, it's 3:45 AM. I'm waking up for work in 2 hours, so I'm going to go to sleep. I'm sure sleep sounds good to you as well. As of right now, I've said almost everything I can think of to try to get you to re-examine your viewpoint and admit that you might be wrong, as opposed to digging in your heels. 

Obviously, I've failed to persuade you with my arguments. My only hope is that a large number of people either comment publicly here or reach out to you privately to get you to reconsider.

I'll have to pass that particular baton to other people, whose opinions- whether due to their wisdom or sheer numerical strength- you may value more than my own.

Kathryn, dear, he is going to give out prizes. Hes just not going to run it again. And prizes are only going to be given out to those who wrote. 

CAN WE JUST HUG IT OUT AND GIVE ME MY PRIZES NOW? GOSH. 

(No one yell at me, Im trying to lighten the mood cuz you two arguing makes me sad face) 

Ok.

Kathryn has obviously covered all the points anyone could ever make. Squishy has responded. I do not think I can add anything to that side of things.

What I can say is that I worked with people I had not worked with for a long time. I worked with new people. It integrated users. Now, if the issue is click click click then surely that comes from how this game operates now at a core level?

Yes it was built upon RP and player interaction. But it is now built upon what you can build with your actions and not so much your words. Such is life. Maybe that is as much the fault of the leaders as it is the fault of the features within the game. But it is just the way this world has been forced to operate to thrive?

I did my very best to read what I could. Genuinely. But I have never been into RP. It's not my bag as it is to others. I'd rather debate, argue and deal with people one-to-one

I know you said that you won't be running it again, which is a shame, but it's your party. If you did, and you should in my opinion, and you want a higher user read rate. Why not leave the judging in the users hands? Have a vote page, disable them voting for anyone within their own city, and see what the users think. I am sure you are a far better coder than me but you can add safeguards to stop people just voting, making sure they read and form a balanced opinion.

It's a shame you feel the way you do. The effort of the users was substantial in writing it. Maybe the viewing figures were poor but the participation was good and surely thats the aim of it after all?

QUICK QUESTION OF SERIOUSNESS: Squishy if we were to run it ourselves, would you be willing to pop the code in for the word generator? 

Just curious. 

If not Gracie, I imagine you'd have no problem running it using other users (I'd happily volunteer as one and I'd imagine you wouldn't be short of others) to help do the generation (I'm sure we could find some random word tools to help). Might need a smaller window of time or a selection of people to cover the full 24 hours, but don't let code or the lack of it be what stops you if it's something you guys are thinking about doing.

I have to admit, the figure of 5 viewers (I'm one of them and happy to admit I didn't read all 5... I sampled the intro of each post and read the ones that made a solid first impression and skipped over the ones that looked average or poor - being fair, the majority of posts fell into the solid category) is pretty disconcerting.

Having said that, I wonder if the format of the event itself may play a part here?

I can only speak for the team I was on for the day, but those of us taking a role in leading it were left utterly exhausted following the event. From WA chats from others in a similar position, I think it was about a week later before we were back to normal after it. 

It's tough enough writing a team based story in a short timeframe, though amazing fun, but toss in the real life chaos on top... Chris struggling to get a post up prior to jumping on his plane, Harry checking in from the hospital to see if he had to start writing yet, guys willing to get up at 4am local time to write their section to keep other time slots open for others... and it really left the competitors spent the week after. I imagine we'd see a massive drop off on street activity from the guys involved that clearly reflects it. That's not to say it's "too hard" or anything, simply that after putting in the effort that they did I imagine most of the district leaders and guys that took the event seriously were literally too feckin' tired to read all of their competition.

I've participated in older events (I think 2, but maybe just 1 in '13 or so) and have to admit I thought the reaction this time was far more positive. I'm not sure if it didn't filter up, if guys only provided it in private/family rooms rather than #dl, if other years a few choose to send in mails and they failed this year or if it was a filter bubble among those I choose to chat with (e.g. a lot of guys who take RPing a lot more seriously than I ever have) but the reaction was overwhelmingly positive from what I saw right across the board. The event was pretty well loved by competitors and there was tremendous excitement for the results in the aftermath.

None of us can comment on what background work is needed to pull a competition of this nature together behind the scenes, we just don't know. If you feel it's a poor use of your time and that needs to be invested elsewhere, it's a shame but that's a decision you're free to make, you need to make and one everyone simply has to accept. It would be a shame to see a relatively unique and incredibly challenging competition disappear, but should that happen I'd like to say thanks for the times it has been run and the incredible fun so many of us have had from being involved in it.

Sat.

I'm not looking to engage in the debate about whether these should be admin sponsored or not anymore because as TsuDhoNimh has stated above, that is something only you can determine. However, I think it may benefit you to understand what went into it from my side, which is a similar tale of tremendous effort by those involved. 

Things started well with 3 of our pre-registered entrants have things come up so they couldn't make it.

This left me with having 30ish sponsored members at the time and I would guess about 20-23ish of those were technically active during the competition; others had commitments.

Of those 23 who were active, I would guess about 10-12 weren't busy and had enough time logged on so they *could* feasibly have entered.

Of those 10-12 who had the time available, at least 3 are English as a second language and at least 1 was an incog who had no intention of helping do anything helpful.

That left me with 6-8 people other than myself who spoke English as their first language and had the time available to physically write something. Through a combination of their commitment and my hounding them, I got 6 great entries from my crew. One of those entries was actually made by someone who didn't speak English as their first language, another was written at work with a member of another district going to his work station to remind him when he got close to the bell and we actually had a member who was writing something when the buzzer went off too.

Of my entrants, 4 of them have never posted before or since; they stepped up specifically for this task, another has 7 other posts. Only 2 of my posters, including myself, would I consider to be "writers" who post because they genuinely enjoy/want to do it.

Sure, on the face of it only 5 people clicked our link, but does that change any of the above? We got 7 original posts for a story thread from people who don't know each other all that well, didn't know where the person before was taking it and one of whom did it in their second tongue? I count as a huge win and a great fucking effort by my family. 

Was this an easy "pick up and play" competition like Vday? Absolutely not. This took original thinking and a commitment to do something which a lot of people do not ordinarily do. Given what went into this, I honestly couldn't give a fuck if nobody read our entry. I read it and I'm immensely proud that we managed to get together what we did. 

First off I would like to say that I hadn't thought I would participate in the PTB event, and honestly it had Zero to do with my CL or you lacking the initiative, it had to do with my own lack of confidence in my writing, writing within a time limit, and to be "graded/judged" on my work.

With very little efforts and talks persuading me to join (more so boosting my confidence)...well I was in.  I wasn't forced to participate, and hell I even was out trying to get more people to join within our district lol...  Had a fucking blast writing, and being a part of it all!!!!!

One of the most amazing writers and role players to ever grace MR told me one time that when you write something...write it for yourself.  If You as the writer are satisfied, then it is already accomplished with what you wanted to do, and that was to Enjoy the experience of writing.  Doesn't matter if anyone else reads it, or comments on it... and if they do then that is purely icing on the cake, lovely commentary but not necessary for You as the writer in order to have enjoyed the experience.  Words flow, the creativity is unleashed and we enjoy ourselves as writers.  

Now I respect you a lot Izzy and also respect your decision on not wanting to host another PTB event after feeling disappointed in the results of the community to read all of the threads.  I am not here to try and persuade or coerce you to change your mind.

I freely admit I have not Yet read them all, but plan to even still.  Now TsuDhoNimh said it perfectly as far as the exhaustion plus RL priorities. Being up almost the entire 24 hours or more, and editing...I was contentedly exhausted because our team created a masterpiece.  Hell I was tired still for a couple days after the VDay event, but that doesn't mean I don't wanna have another one, or am complaining about the exhaustion.  I am easily distracted and simply let the wars/takedowns & game drama as well as RL stress distract me from reading the threads as of yet. 

Now I honestly don't care about the prizes, even now...most if not all other events we have ever done, and that I've participated in ...any prizes I've received generally gets shared or given away at some point, or donated up to the family in some way.  I didn't do this for the prizes even though I was told how amazing they were in the past...I did it for myself, for my writing, and for my district.  

You are disappointed in the fact that the majority of the community didn't read all the threads, 3/4 or 1/2 or however much they read or didn't read.... but I am disappointed to have my enjoyment nullified or diminished in any way just because others didn't read our work, or others' work.  I didn't write it for the judges, I didn't write it for the other cities...I participated to simply write and have fun as a team.  

Our story was the bomb, and regardless of what the judges would have said and decided on....lol...I Still would have said ours was the best. Why? Because we had a blast writing it together.  That's what I thought it was about to be honest....having fun and getting writers out there and have fun with their creativity....?
 

Those threads were lengthy, why would you expect someone to sit down and read through all of them? I'm not entirely sure how many of them there were but it's a tall order to expect the entire user base, or even a fraction of it to read through every single one of them. To my understanding, it took the judges time to do the same hence the huge delay on the prizes? Correct me if I'm wrong there though.

I'm not sure how this is an epic fail by the crew leaders since the competition did run and the crew leaders organised their members to do so, it may have taken some time but the world was going through a transition of regimes so I am sure a lot of attention was focused elsewhere. You reap what you sew though tbh, this site has been a click fest for a long long time, there is no massive incentives to post and the onus of crew leaders to post regularly has vanished and has been replaced with the importance of having a gun and being IWP.

You've set up a writing competition on a role playing game where very few people actually play a role and very few people write. I think the comparison between the Vday participation and the PTB participation makes it clear that the majority of people only like to click click click, as you put it. That is the game now. So sure, you may have a few writers such as the old skool players who lived and breathed the streets day to day and then a few newer guys who enjoy playing a role or may just enjoy a good debate/discussion but it's very minimal in the grand scale of things, sadly.

The activity within the street and OOC within the past week is probably what? 10% of the active userbase maybe? Possibly more since we keep killing everyone and they keep coming out and having a shit fit about it, but asides from the moaning, it's next to nothing.

I don't see this as an epic fail by the crew leaders, I just don't think the game has many people interested in writing role play's or reading them anymore. We see plenty of them in the streets, many stop after the original post and the viewing of them is minimal also. There are 2 by Rax, both in the 100's in terms of viewing numbers, both with low numbers in replies. Another by Kenzi, 200 views, 2 replies. One by Gooch, 63 views, 3 replies. Seems like the pattern is obvious.

I understand your frustrations, I'm aware you put a lot of effort into these things but I think they are the result of what the game has become and how writing and even reading has become a secondary part of the game.

It's a shame that those who like to take part in these types of events will suffer and I hope that if we see a shift in active role players in future that you may reconsider this announcement.

That's one way to take it, I guess.

Looking forward to the next clickathon contest.

I just want to say this contest brought me out of my comfort zone, it put my writing on display, and was a blast all at the same time.  I also feel a bit defeated, as if this announcement is minimizing the hard work that many did put into the weekend. I'm sure that's not your intention at all, but that is kind of how it came across to me. 

In any case, I do appreciate all the fun things you try to accomplish. 

Look, Izzy, I understand why you're doing all of this, you're trying to spare my feelings because I didn't win the competition and you're not sure how to break it to me. It's okay, I knew all along that I couldn't have won, my story was before its time and while one day it will reach the heights of New York Times Best Seller, for now, it must just be a footnote in the annals of Mafia Returns.

This event was fun and I admittedly read very little of the actual competition, but in my defense, it was mostly because I was not aware that it would be used as a measure of the event's total success, but more power to you if you don't want to do it again. Things like writing competitions will always get less buzz than something more hands-on like vday or the Christmas events and if the next one must be run on a user level then I'm sure it will be figured out.

I would like to say that I don't believe it will ever be AS successful without an admin's touch and prizes that only an admin can give, because the fact of the matter is that no game would ever be able to get more than 25% of its total userbase to take part in something like this. Not only is it time-consuming but the user has to do most of the work which will obviously scare a lot of busy (or lazy depending on how you look at it) people away.

It was a niche event for a rather niche game and I think it held up admirably, but that's only my opinion. 

Kathryn did an amazing job running The Strip's effort. I believe 18 or so hours online organizing people to make sure our effort was on point and we didnt make any minor mistakes. I believe we didn't. It was inspiring to experience, and yet this is the only game run event catered to writing, and on top of that the main guy that runs this game (amazing game in its potential, yet imo misses the bar on the role play and writing aspect given the potential, and i believe it's now showing why) has decided no more game run writing events like it will take place from an admin level based on a negative perspective that covers something so minute it's crazy. Correct me if im wrong and it's not the only one pushed to encourage and promote writing, though.

So as many of us that really enjoy this side of the game, K is peeved. And many are, and have the right to be.

This may also just be a reflection of the times. Newer generations dont really give an ass about the written aspect of gameplay. The games developers certainly don't seem to compared to other aspects. So, why should they. Yes this is a poke. Yes this isn't fluffing words. But let's be honest here, given the type of game this is suppose to be and at one point or other kind of was, this rant thread is bullshit.

Like Fitz said, you reap what you sow Squishy. And you're planting seeds of boredom instead of tickling true creative imagination. Don't give up based on a minor issue that you've imo blown way out of proportion. Cause if you give up, the fuck should others care to create that environment for you at a local level?

Give power to some writers to do these things game wide if you can't be assed, yet from a top level. That's the only way you will turn this game into a more writer based environment, and encourage reading as well as writing. Things only truly change from that level. Local shit is just a flash in the pan.

Squishy I hope the "Last" on title to be translated as recent and not that there will be no more.

Tbh from my first PTB I don't remember much besides  the fact that practically i had till 2 years ago still perks that i won!

But i will tell you my experience from the recent one

In the crew I was, we couldn't find 8 people that was needed, so we made a team within the district (probably was district sorry for my weak memory-could be entire city too). There was at first some misunderstanding on the requirements for the entrance in the event, perhaps that discouraged some. 

We gathered 8 people, and we communicated in irc room, we had editors, people who helped with ideas and corrections. We put tons of effort to look nice, appropriate, to eliminate many mistakes because I am not sure how many actually know the English language 100% (me personally no, I aint good at it)

in the end of the day, and even without knowing if we won, if we did well or bad, it was nice. it  was exactly the felling of the whole participation that gave me a satisfaction. We received the joy of playing as exactly you have planned at first. 

If someone else don't find the event nice, or useful, i don't care. How others play in game it is not my  business, because If i tell you that some people are wrong in game, in the end I will be banned from the game. But you seem disappointed  and  maybe it is time to ask yourself about the quality, and about the type of gameplay you/we wish to see. 

I am not good in roleplay, and i have an average like 3 posts per account. But, I see some "roleplay" in the streets... Man 7 years ago,  you would have moved 80% of it to OOC. You let posts in the streets who look like messages in Facebook. 

I don't wish to diss people, it is nice to put effort and even write something in the streets, but the streets are dead not because of the lack of speeches, but of the lack of the quality of the speakers. So, since roleplay is gone, when do you expect to see from a roleplay contest? What are the motives now for someone  to roleplay? 

Roleplay is not even something that the  players themselves request, anymore. I hope we have another PTB event soon. i am really looking forward to it. I actually believe I didn't go well in the last one, so I want to see myself to do something better in a next one. 

Comparing to VDay event, PTB is much easier. You don't have to be online so many hours. you don't have to be on the edge all the time. You need to use your mind only without the risk of damaging your good hand or getting tendonitis  (we all need our good hands for other uses besides MR clicking :P)

Unless someone directly calls out something I said or asks me to clarify a point, this will be my final word on this subject. I apologize in advance for any typos or errors.

Kathryn, dear, he is going to give out prizes. Hes just not going to run it again. And prizes are only going to be given out to those who wrote. 

To begin, I may have been mistaken on one aspect. I like to think that when I make a mistake, I own hit, and this seems like it's one of them. My understanding based on the original post's statement of " There will be no crew prizes.  There will only be prizes sent to those that entered." was that a crew winner would not be announced. I'm be quite glad to hear that I was wrong on this detail, but it doesn't change the larger points of my overall argument.

 I'm wrong about.... what?  Do I need to run this competition daily?  Is that what you are going after?  Would hourly be better suited for you?

 I believe that you are wrong with your assessment that this was "an epic failure on the crews and my part alike", as I said earlier. I believe that you're wrong to abandon  "any kind of competition outside of click click click". You don't have to agree with me, obviously. But I wanted to encourage you to take another look at an event where you have dozens of users participating, enjoying themselves, and trying something new and maybe not see it as the failure you initially labeled it as.

 What is your goal? 

My goals were to try to to persuade you that this event was not a failure but a success, that measuring a writing competition by readers is a flawed metric, that this post is extremely demoralizing to a perhaps not insignificant number of people, and to at least consider not abandoning this type of thing moving forward. 

There is a chance that we are on two different wavelengths and that your goal isn't to force me to keep doing this competition.

Please stop trying to force me to run the competition for you.

You are correct; we are on two different wavelengths. It should be obvious that I can't force you to do anything. My goals were already stated above, so I won't repeat them here.

Why was the whole thing a falure

"There was an epic failure on the crews and my part alike to inspire any kind of competition outside of click click click."

Also, I know we're in the middle of this big disagreement right now, but that was a fantastic use of "falure", for the record- whether it was intentional or not.

and no one won?

As I said above, I was apparently incorrect about one of my assumptions about the prizes, which I'm quite happy to hear.

You've spent the last 4 hours engaging me in this debate when that time was supposed to be used to declare winners and give out the prizes.

I don't think I could have known this; I apologize if you tried to convey this sentiment to me somehow and I missed it. I know it has been difficult to sit down and hammer these out, and if I had known that you'd set aside this evening to get that accomplished I would have held my response until you were finished. You mentioned this a few other times later on. I don't feel particularly guilty, because, again, I don't believe that I had any way of knowing this, and I believe my points are valid and worth sharing.

The CLs/RHMs/LHMs before the event, leading up to the event, and during the event, did not demonstrate enough interest for me to host this event again on an admin level. 

Obviously, your opinion is the only one that matters when it comes to deciding which competitions you'd like to do- and I've already done my best to throw my perspective out there in the hopes of potentially persuading you- then even if I disagree I don't see the benefit of discussing this particular point further. In fact, there are a few other minor points of yours that I disagree with, but I don't see those discussions having any positive impact, so I'll just let them go in the interest of not occupying any more of your time without a reason.

When you run it you can pick whatever reason you want to do it daily, weekly, hourly, monthly, bicentennialy. For those who get in your face and tell you you are wrong and try to force you to run it more often, you can debate with them as passionately as you are with me.

I don't think I ever demanded that competitions like this ever happen daily, weekly, hourly, or monthly. I suspect by the next bicentennial I wouldn't be around anymore. But when you said  "There will no longer be any more PTB events, or events of that nature." I took that to mean that there would be no future writing/RP competitions, based on the inference from the "click click click" line. Regardless of frequency, I was making a plea to reconsider abandoning all RP/writing comps, which I think is vastly different from demanding them at anything close to the frequency you mentioned. If this movement away from all RP/writing comps isn't the case, then I'm happy to be mistaken once again. 

This will further delay things, and decrease the time/energy I am willing to dedicate to other events.  If every event will end with users demanding that they be done again, then I have to seriously reconsider doing any events.

I don't think every event would end like this, just the ones that people enjoyed that are seemingly cancelled forever. In that case, I think it's fair for people to speak their mind in the forums and perhaps try to get you to reconsider.

Final Thoughts

This series of comments turned out to be much more than I intended. As I said at the start of this post, unless someone directly calls out something I said or asks me to clarify a point, this will be my final word on this subject.

I love this game. I love writing on this game. That may put me in the minority, but I believe it's still a worthwhile pursuit. I spoke to many people who were thrilled to have a writing competition, as opposed to the "click click click", as you phrased it. I imagine that those people are bothered by this announcement, as I was, and thought it was fair for me to share my opinions in this space.

I believe that 81 people is a success. If you believe that the amount of work you put into this was not worth the time and energy required, then it is obviously your sole right to determine that. I said that from the very start, as the phrase I used in my first post was "encourage you to reconsider". Even my other posts are largely a plea for understanding what I considered a flawed process, rather than stringent demands.

Reading back over what I wrote, it's obviously that I got a little heated. I really enjoyed this competition, and dozens of other people did as well. To call the collective efforts of the 81 people competing in this event "an epic failure" really rubbed me the wrong way, and I thought it was both unfair and demoralizing. To have the leader of this game seemingly officially ringing the death knell of writing/RP and the dominance of "click click click" is extremely disheartening (as it seemed to be for you), and I wanted to present an alternative perspective  of this event that may cheer you up and get you thinking about things in a different way. (Note to all: an alternative perspective is not the same as alternative facts.)

If you had posted "Guys, here's the results- but I've got to be honest, the time and energy I put into this thing wasn't worth the end of result for me"... I sure as hell wouldn't have cranked out thousands of words debating you. I most likely would have just thanked you and maybe tried to brainstorm ways to make it more efficient and worthwhile the next time it was attempted- which, considering the last full attempt was 4 years ago, would absolutely not have been daily/weekly/monthly.

At the end of the day, no matter how much I agree with the content, analysis, and tone present in your post, I thoroughly enjoyed myself on February 11th and 12th. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this, specifically with it falling in between the large scale events at Christmas and V-day. I've said all that I can say.

Well, that's never true. If I'm forced/compelled to say something else I'll do my best to be succinct and laconic. But I've said everything that I intend to say and I am content that I at least tried to share my perspective, regardless of the response of any specific individual or the community as a whole.

For the record, Squishy, and I'll tag you here so you hopefully see this first, please don't feel like you have to spend time responding extensively to this most recent post. You can say anything you'd like, of course, but you'll notice that I did not ask you any questions. Instead, I merely tried to clarify my previous statements as best I could.

Throughout all of this, I made my points and did my best to persuade you. The decision, obviously, is yours; I never challenged your right to decide this, but rather appealed to you as The Decider to consider another way of thinking. I believe that people have the right to share their opinion with you and ask clarifying questions in these forums- and you have the right to respond however you see fit. That's what I've done here, and I see no need to add anything more to what I've already said.