[Rory]

I simply could not have said it better myself, WalrusofPlastic. You have succeeded where others have failed. For that, I owe you a debt of gratitude. And yes, it WAS a joke, until Chefelf out and admitted that he was somehow (dont ask me how) using us all in a money making scheme. But I know nothing about that. I was just taking a wild guess.

[Jordan]

After not understanding and or misinterpretting almost everything on this board- I starting listening to NIRVANA's "dumb" unplugged and live in NewYork. I'm dumb, but happy.

[Laura]

I don't know how we would go about "stepping out of this half state we are in."

Yes, this message board is a part of the Chefelf forums now. Yes, the old message board was not. So what?

[Heccubus]

Yes, this message board is a part of the Chefelf forums now. Yes, the old message board was not. So what?

Indeed.

[Rory]

It would be surprisingly easy to step out of the half state we are in now. We could either admit that there is no lanceandeskimo message board, and that this is just a subsection of the chelf elf forums, no different than, say, the Star Wars section of the chelf elf forums, or we could hold that this is simply a new version of the lanceandeskimo message boards. If it is simply a new version, I say we should count the old posts, since they were also made on the lanceandeskimo message board, albeit an older version with a slightly different face.

If it is simply a section of the chelf elf forums, we shouldn't be calling it its own message board. It should simply be referred to as "the lanceandeskimo section" or some mundane, uninspiring name like that. So which is it?

[Chyld]

Rory, you're mad, and from me that's a horrendous insult.

Yes, Rory, that is my ultimate goal. There is nothing I would like more than to hurt the fans of chefelf.com and LNE. For what purpose? Well obviously for a HUGE monetary gain. I thought that much was obvious.

Can you not actually see the sarcasm there? Let's be honest, it doesn't so much smack you in the face as pulverise your skull with a ridiculously large and heavy hammer of obviousness.

I had assumed that ChefElf had his site and board up for the pleasure and delight of the Chefelf/LNE masses. After all, it is a HUMOUR site.

There is no monetary advantage to Chefelf hosting the LNE boards. Neither is there any real loss, either. Its just an extra section on his boards.

As to its own identity, take the FR boards (where I hail from), who had the same treatment. Yes, they are hosted on Chefelf.com, but the members regard it as a part of Yahtee's domain. While we have me and Icey roaming around Chefelf Night Life spreading our (lack of) wisdom, we have Jane and other folks happy to treat it as a board unto itself. And nobody asked for their old posts from the old FR board, mainly because it didn't mean anything.

Mirror this onto the LNE boards as a whole, and voila.

As a closing note; while it would be nice, does it universally matter if you long timers don't have your old post count? Will it result in riducule/pain/death if you can't have them?

[Ninja Duck]

So, explain to me how "starting over from scratch" is the same as exisiting in a "half state"? I think I must have missed that part.

[Rory]

Oh, it certainly won't be the end of the world either way. What it boils down to, however, is a matter of fairness. Chefelf said he didn't think it was fair that our old posts would be credited. I dont see why that is true. In fact, it would be unfair not to count them. If that (the old board) was the lanceandeskimo message board, and if this is too, then they should count. Case closed.

As to arguing that it is completely meaningless, why have the stats there in the first place? Why not just get rid of them? I would argue that they set you apart as a message board vetern, someone who has consistently posted on the lanceandeskimo message board. Why should I not deserve such an honor? Why should all the lanceandeskimo veterans not deserve such an honor? I posted over 800 times on the lanceandeskimo message board. Others have posted more than that. If this is the lanceandeskimo message board, why shouldnt my (and their) posts count?

Look at me now. I don't have one little box thing to my name; can you really say that's right?

The thing that makes it even worse is that I, and the rest of the veterans of the lanceandeskimo boards, never really got a chance to shine. We had the stat numbers taken away from us! And now here they are on the new board, taunting us.

Except our numbers dont count.

[Heccubus]

This is inane. Everybody settle down and just enjoy the variety of discussion areas and features you have to take advantage of. No one on my old forum complained when I moved here, and I like to think that it had something to do with the fact that they were open to more topics and more forum users than they were when I operated independently.
Who cares whether we refer to this particular forum as a section of another message board or not, Rory? It seems so petty to focus on whether or not the new LnE board is its own entity. It's still a place where people can discuss the content of Lance And Eskimo, and all the other random, entertaining things that we've always discussed on LnE, so what is the problem? Stop focusing on the inisgnificant, and try to enjoy this place as much as others already do.

[Rory]

Well, you see, Ninja Duck, thats the really sticker. We aren't starting over from scratch. This isn't just some newly created forum, where everyone starts at zero. This is a hastily thrown together subset of a larger forum, one in which people have been posting for monthes. By moving the lanceandeskimo forum to a new place, you rob people of their credit, while unfairly giving credit to people who have been posting on a completely different forum. These stats dont represent peoples posts on the lanceandeskimo forum (at least not entirely); they represent their posts on the chelf elf forum. Now im not saying we should rob everyone of their chef elf stats; im just saying an appropriate compromise would be to add the stats from the lanceandeskimo forum. It just seems good form to add the stats.

Think of it as an ideal company merger. In an ideal merge, the people who have been working for a long time from each company still get credit for their work and dedication to their respective companies. So, Joe, the computer software designer, gets to keep his pay and his benefits from his ten years working with CogTech, even though he is now working with CogBoltTech.

Now compare that to a typical merger. In a typical merger, one company, the dominant company, essentially buys out the other company, fires half the staff, and keeps the other half on at lower pay, as if, say, they were just hired. The people get little or no respect for the time they deticated to their company, because that company doesnt really exist. Its been bought out. Sure it might be called BoltCogTech, but they spell it BOLTcogTECH. CogTech is dead; BoltTech lives on. Its a feeble lie to say otherwise. Is that fair? No. Its business.

Now I ask, what do we want our little website merger to be? Do we want it to be as fair and ideal as possible, or do we want it to be like BOLTcogTECH fiasco. As I've said before, I'm okay with either. Let's just not pretend the lanceandeskimo forum lives on if it turns out to be the latter.

Sincerely,
Rory Madden,
devoted member of the CHEFELFlanceandeskimoFORUMS

[Rory]

Thats easy for you to say, Heccubus. You've been posting at the dominant website for monthes. You have a full stat bar!

That would be like Harry Harmful telling Hugh Manatee to "lighten up," even though he was demoted to janitor because of the merge.

[Chyld]

BUT if you're a long standing LNE vet, your name will be renowned across the boards, and there will be no need to resort to such things as post count. You can be very insightful and post very little, or have a massive postcount but talk crap. While there are other versions, there are those versions too.

It's like the debate with penises. Is it how big it is, or what you can do with it? Do you need to resort to how many posts you've made to stake your place, or is it what you've said and done that earns you a place in the elite.

By all means, there would be nothing wrong if Chefelf did add all the veteran's posts to their accounts. But, my crew in the FR boards are quite fine without the posts from the old boards, and it's not really so different. Just that the LNE boards covered all of LNE, rather than FRs boards which covered just one Brother Redcloud.

[Rory]

Hey, I'm not exactly losing sleep over this, Chyld. Im mainly arguing on ideological grounds.

However, the point remains that, even if you are unofficially renowned on the boards for making good points, being a "veteran", etc., its still nice to have some official recognition.

Think of it this way: if you were a war veteran, and everyone in your platoon knew you were a real bad ass, and hey, even the government unofficially recognizes your service to your country, wouldn't it still be nice to have a metal? Especially if everyone else did? Wouldnt you think it the least bit unfair that you dont?

[Heccubus]

And yet I'm one of the ones who DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE POSTING COUNT. It doesn't matter, no one is judging somebody's status by the number of posts they've made. I just find myself in situations where I almost always have something to say, so I have a lot of posts. It has nothing to do with me as a person, I just have a lot of time on my hands, so I hang around the forum a lot. And you know what? If you move the posts from the LnE board over, I'll still have a big, huge, stupid number of posts, so who cares? It's just a number. That's my point. Comparing unnofficial, just-for-fun (at least, that's what they're supposed to be, despite the thoughts of some) rankings to military service is a pretty far-fetched metaphor.

[Rory]

I don't see why its such a far fetched analogy at all. It hits on the essential point that people deserve public credit for their work.

And if we truly believe that this post count system doesn't matter, then why not abolish it? At least, that would be somewhat fair. In the same respect that if you belonged to a military that didn't give anyone metals, you wouldn't feel so bad about not getting one yourself, I wouldn't feel so bad about not having any posts listed if no one else did either.