Home ›
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
The introduction thread is the only thread I feel comfortable to post in
Because everyone here is pretty much knows everyone else and you guys know a lot of things about things in general and have opinions and smart people debates and basically I'm just saying I'm too stupid to contribute anything worthwhile
I'm also shy
Comments
Don't worry, that never stopped me
That didn't stop me either.
If you're implying that the more verbose people here can't be very silly and very stupid, you're very mistaken.
Before Juan/Malk/Nova makes the joke, I'm a pretty good example to begin with. Just post your posts and stuff.
>have opinions
That's about the only box that ticks off for me. But let's not start a self-deprecating contest, because we could pretty much start a support group for people with posting anxiety by this point.
If you ever feel intimidated by a debate, just lurk or do some reading up. Don't use it as a crutch to not participate, see at as an opportunity to learn.
dammit.
double dammit.
Okay, lessee how well I do at posting at midnight.
Many people here feel pretty much the same way. In fact, I do pretty much the same thing in real life, too. :V
It's okay to participate, regardless. After all, one of the best ways to learn is to talk about stuff, right?
And if you feel that you're not smart enough- well, join the club; but at the same time, participating in those discussions can only lead to you learning more, right?
Short version:
Okay, I'll do my best! >w<
Long version:
I don't know, I think find it a little hard to integrate myself in a small community like this. I made this account a few weeks? months? ago and I got kind of intimidated by the discussions because I'm not the type of person who has an opinion on anything. I mostly just go with whatever someone else is going with at the time.
I don't like to offend people, or say something wrong, and when I do, I just shrink back and hit myself for doing something stupid. I figure I'm not really the type who belongs in places like these, but my guidance counselor tells me I should be more forward instead of being shy all the time. So here I am. Sorry for the drama. IJBM's supposed to be fun.
No, it's supposed to be about bitching. Fun is a side-effect.
But welcome, anyway! May you experience many side-effects whilst operating this device and taking this drug!
If this is drama, then we should count ourselves lucky. In any case, we do our best to be accepting and accommodating here. You can expect honest critique of your posts, but certainly we avoid being malicious and aim to be constructive. So far, I think we've succeeded at that, and I've seen a lot of posters here grow significantly through discussion. This place certainly isn't flawless, but I think every regular here is good-natured and means well even when they're frustrated, so there's no reason to be anxious about posting.
Nova is one of the more anxious sorts, for instance, but she still provides her thoughts on a variety of topics. Sometimes at length, too, which is good to see. Most of us are late teens or twenty-somethings (or all of us), so no-one here is fully developed in wisdom or experience or anything, and we're all prone to error. I know that in the time I've been here, I've developed significantly as an individual. Not just because of this forum, of course, but it helps that I've been part of a community so willing to criticise itself and then actively seek improvement as both a whole and a series of individuals.
Whatever happened to captainbrass anyway?He left for SA, basically. He came back for a brief time when he was banned over there.
Honestly, I feel like a lot of what goes on here isn't anything you need to be particularly experienced to appreciate; there are occasionally "smart people debates", but they're usually over matters that, to me, at least, seem inconsequential and not worth debating, hence why I usually stay out of them. Most of my posts at this point are in IJBMer Updates, where I might give the appearance of being off in my own little world, or necroing threads (which reminds me, I listened to a bunch of sweet metal over the last few days and I want to share it with my friends
), and aside from that, there's the images threads, which you can just enter and laugh at, and threads on political happenings usually come with articles you can read in the OP.
And even if most, or all, of my opinions on things haven't changed since I've joined, I've learned to not cling to my views quite so hard and wait until the other side has exhausted its arguments before deciding. Hell, sometimes I keep posting in support of an opinion for the sake of learning. I mean, you still can't convince me that characters are objectively always more important than plot, for instance, but those debates make you think.
We really don't take ourselves as seriously as you seem to think we do. Just talk. That's about all we do.
Yeah, most definetly. Personally, the only things I can complain about is when your attitude is dismissive of discussion, but you don't seem to be thinking like that so I don't mind.
Don't worry, we have someone else who's like that too. However small your opinions, feel free to share them.
^ Wait, who?
We shall call him Batman
LouieW, presumably.
I'm one of those. I enjoy lurking in this forum, yet I don't feel like having anything worthwhile to contribute.
^^No, Louie definitely has opinions. He just tries to express them in the most inoffensive way possible.
LouieW posts plenty and expresses their opinions.
Ah, right. Yeah.
I'm another one in the "never posts in serious discussions" category. I mean, I have opinions, I just suck at expressing them in an intelligent manner.
Mostly I just make silly comments on the various media and joke threads. :P
nikiten,
I think I can understand how IJBM might seem a little intimidating, especially when it comes to in-jokey stuff like "malk no malking/alex no alexing." Some people are pretty close here I guess, but I figure they should be nice enough to tone in-jokes and such down a notch if they bug you.
Anywho, if you dislike debates and choose not to join them, I doubt anyone will think any less of you. As long as you follow the rules and are reasonably chill (two things that do not seem to be problems for you so far), I think you should be okay.
I lurk sometimes but I rarely post. Too lazy to change that >>;;
@nikiten:
I think this might be a thread worth stickying and recommending to any new people; it sort of gives an intro as to what we're like while working to assuage anxieties. Thoughts, comp-mod-res?
I have no objections to that.
Hmmm...
I did kinda want to limit the number of stickied threads. It got kinda ridiculous at one point, and we still have four of them now...
ARGH! How would you not object? He destroyed my language in such an offensive manner!