Just a reminder (been here since Jan. 2000 myself). There is a cycle at Mudcat just as there is everywhere, that brings us back to Silly Season (an ugly and painful time) EVERY YEAR WITHOUT FAIL. It's usually in February, tho there are other brief episodes of it at other times, too.

It ends when enough of us decide to turn our own attention from it.

Nothing going on now in the threads is new. GOOD NEWS-- None of it is life-threatening, although it may seem terribly urgent and serious.

Believe it or not, there is actually the luxury of TIME to take a breath before responding to anything you may see going on here right about now. Time to get your BEST thoughts in order, before posting-- or deciding NOT to post.

You can choose to view Mudcat without the BS threads.

You can choose to vent your feelings in a PM to a good listener (or in person! to a live being!) instead of aiming them directly at the oject of your preoccupation in a thread or PM.

You can take your urgency to the Chat room, here (if it's working) or elsewhere (if you let people know where to meet you.

But just rest assured-- it's all been done before. The upset, the effort to raise the tone, the "votes" on administrative actions, the outing of people for wrongs committed, the outrage that the outing has occurred-- ALL of it!

:~) And NEXT year-- you'll see it all again!

~Susan