It's been several weeks since anyone who wasn't a spammer posted anything to the Journals. If you came here to buck that trend, see if you can't accomplish the same thing with a forum post.

I've instituted a new spam-blocking procedure in the Forum, but before I go through the hassle of doing the same thing here, I thought I'd float the idea of retiring the Journals. The code is old, creaky, and badly in need of updating — and Rebecca & I feel that my time would be better spent elsewhere.

I'll be busy doing other stuff for the next month or two. During that time, please feel free to use the Forum to discuss the pros & cons of keeping the Journals.

thanks
-bg

The Journals just might be the difference in making this place a real community of real people, instead of just being another place on the net that comes and goes, but does not last. 

It is the other room here, the quiet room, where deep and personal thoughts are shared, removed from all the static and distortion and other ‘distractions’ that can come with the threads in the Forum.  It is where some deep differences that have started in the Forum between us (regulars) have been worked out and solved allowing us to all move on here together rather than everyone leave in a huff and never coming back.

Most importantly, it is a place where we have shared questions and sought advice from our fellow RPeeps that we could not ask anyone anywhere else both on the net and in real life.  And when what was asked for has been answered, it can be removed in its entirety from the net by making it either private or simply deleting the entire Journal.  This ability to share, advise, consent and thoroughly discuss anything with people who we have all grown to know and trust over the years and make go away forever if needed is priceless.  These things cannot be done in threads that last forever in public.  Having this, I have no doubt, has made us stronger as a real community rather than just a bunch of anonymous Internet ships passing each other in the night.  Most of us still here know each other, many have met each other and know who is behind the avatar.  This ability may have also helped to keep people employed or out of jail and some relationships intact just because a place existed to vent and share that could be removed with a simple mouse click.

The Journals have been part of the reason that this place has survived without formal moderators.  I can think of many times where we have gotten together and discussed some undesirable interlopers in the open, yet separately from the Forum and came up with a plan to deal with them.  How many places successfully exist on the net without moderators ?  Few, if any that I can think of.  Then again, I don’t do FB or anything else so I’m just guessing.

Then there is my personal take on what the Journals mean to me.  They allowed me a place to find support that was just as big a part of any, if not more so with my cancer.  I really believe that the unique support I received from those here via the Journals helped me get through it and survive as long as I have.  I think that was a purpose of the Journals when they were designed and made a part of this place.  A personal blog separate from the Forum, where anything and everything could be discussed in complete thoughts at length.  A place to compose thoughts that may or may not have been meant for sharing, because of the public / private choice.

I deeply value the Journals and would miss them if we lost them.  To see ‘mf’ing spammers be the reason to take it away would be tragic.  I don’t know what would be involved to be a spam moderator on behalf of keeping the Journals clean as Bill recently asked, but I would be willing to do it.

Ordinarily I would have composed something like this in the Journals as a private one and then copied and brought it over to the Forum and pasted it.  Instead, I used Word for this purpose.  Another value of the Journals.