Well, we are....

Here's Another Idle Thought (AIT):

	Have you noticed that Always Man has perhaps stirred
up more notice of certain fics which might otherwise have passed
by with little comment? 
	Have you noticed that when Always does the "no tact, no
explanation" thing, that there are many posts which refute his
comments, pointing to instances and situations within the story
to back-up their points?
	Have you noticed that Always Man generated/inspired threads
tend to have a lot to do about the quality of C&C?

	Perhaps, just perhaps mind you, there is a plan. An Agenda,
which is not "let's piss 'em off royal-like." Perhaps the posts
are designed to a) draw greater attention to some of the fics,
b) to draw more C&C to said fics, and to generally improve the
quality of comments posted to the list, beyond a general "liked
it" type of post (which, incidentally, is also a "no explanation"
type of post, really).

	I'm not saying this is truth, I'm not even saying it is my 
belief, but it does have a certain internal logic to it, does it not?
Moreso than some conspiracy theories I've seen in my time (only some).
What I am doing is basically asking if you have thought that there
might be another motivation beyond the one that immediately pops into
mind.
	(I can just see Always Man now, shouting "Dance pupputs! Dance!")
^_^



I also wonder, along with Mr. Leifker, how much of a chance we will
give Always should he in fact post a fic. How objective will we be?
If it were written by another, perhaps a friend on the list, or just
Joe Blow, how would the comments differ?

	On the other hand, I do care about tact, it is important. The lack
of the simple, what-used-to-be-common-but-are-getting-less-so courtesies
are, to me, what really keep civilisation together, or at least worth it.
One can be blunt, or informal, even extremely so, without necessarily
being tactless or rude. Tact, in a public post is even more important, as
more people are seeing it and perhaps don't quite know the history of
the two (or more) people in question (i.e. friends, particular ways of
speaking/writing, et cetera). 
	One doesn't need to be polite, or extremely well-mannered to 
possess tact-- I have witnessed messages that were polite and yet were
still rather tactless and combustable, just as I have seen others that
did not fit the definition of polite, yet they were extremely helpful and
nice.
	There is a kind of truth in the saying, "it's not what you say, 
it's how you say it," wouldn't you say?

Hmmmm... all this way being jocular only once... it's killing
me, it really is. :)

	You do know that when I used the word "we," I really meant you all
and not me. I mean, I'm the model of objectivity and tact. I'm so 
objective I levitate... er, rise above it all....

Oh yeah, that's the stuff....
(And then I wonder why some of my posts aren't taken seriously :/ )
	Humour is serious stuff!

Matthew "Maybeso" Lewis is:
That guy with "Maybe" and/or "Definitely" in his name on IRC
See him on FFIRC! [bachman.newberry.edu fanfic]
Sojiro_Seta on Kawaiimuck
	maybeso@ican.net
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"The world, however, is not for Fun," Khattam-Shud replied. "The
world is for Controlling."
	"Which world?" Haroun made himself ask.
	"Your world, my world, all worlds," came the reply. "They
are meant to be Ruled. And inside every single story, inside 
every Stream of the Ocean, there lies a world, a storyworld, that
I cannot Rule at all. And that is the reason why."
		--from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman
		  Rushdie (p.161)
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