personal rant about forums (and canreef)

[BC564]

My name is Blaine....and yes....I'm addicted to Canreef...I also work on a computer all day....unfortunately or fortunately its a laptop...so as soon as I get home.....I can be on canreef from any room in my house....(except the bathroom, thats just weird).....I usually dont post very often...but sometimes I do....have you noticed the contradiction to my own post as your reading it....ok...thats it......

oh...and its been 20 hours since my last post.


BS

[Jason McK]

Originally Posted by kwirky

I was triggered to write about my personal thoughts on forums when the thread about "empty comments" on pictures caught my attention. I myself feel that I post a lot more than other people on the forums and I'm a little self concious about it. I worry whether it appears that I'm posting too much and especially if I'm posting useful information/advice.

Just to clarify. Someone was not posting a comment but just rating a photo in the photo gallery. so they would give a 5 out of 5 and just leave the comment section blank. That added a post to their post count.
I wouldn't feel self conscious about posting. The more you post the more people get to know you.

[marie]

Originally Posted by kwirky

...I'm just curious if there's anyone out there who can raise their hand and say "my name's so and so. I'm also a forum-holic."...

My names Marie and I'm a forum-holic

[Psyire]

I share the love. (over multiple forums and multiple hobbies) It's hard to keep up and still have a life, lol.

[Todd]

I tend not to post very often, as I feel that usually their is someone with more experience and knowledge that is better suited to answer the question being asked; however I usually check Canreef and a local fish forum, at least once a day and click on what ever post I find interesting. I do like the fact that canreef is a smaller community, and you can 'Know' people who are regulars on it.

[kwirky]

ok I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one who craved posting on canreef . We talk a lot about forums in my new media seminar class (group class discussions). Some of us in the class are forum addicts, some are blog addicts and some are youtube addicts. Participatory social networking media is very "hot" right now.

[G1GY]

I lurk a whole lot, but don't post that often. As a matter of fact, I only log in to post and just remain one of the visitors the rest of the time. I love the forum, but don't have allot of free time anymore.

[Chin_Lee]

Kwirky all the good things that you've written about Canreef is true. I love it and I can't get away from it. Some person's response compared this forum to other 30 forums where there are infinite number of restricting rules. I feel that Canreef is so well functioning because of its moderators. All the credit to them for sticking to their guns about editting, warning, restricting, and locking posts when they get out of hand. In essence, they put out the fire before it gets out of control. Despite all the critisms they receive for doing their voluntary work, it is the reason why we are all so fond of being addicted to Canreef.

[Aquattro]

Chin, you've brought a tear to my eye Seriously though, it's comments like this that keep us going year after year. To all the addicts that have stuck with us all this time, thank you.

[trilinearmipmap]

OK here's my theory about the addictiveness of the reef hobby and the addictiveness of the Canreef forum. Which is quite similar to the addictiveness of watching hockey on TV.

But before that I have to say this forum has been extremely helpful and useful, as well as being friendly and easygoing unlike a large un-named American forum. I have only had one person on this forum try to flame me and he shut up when I invited him to meet me in person.

My theory is that addictive time-wasting pastimes (like reefing, or going on internet forums, or watching hockey on TV) are a form of displacement in order to deal with stress and anxiety.

In university at exam time life was stressful and no one including me could keep their eyes off the hockey on TV. However once exams were done I absolutely couldn't care about the hockey or who won the playoffs, I couldn't sit through a game it was so boring.

With reefing I found I got really into the hobby when I felt a lot of stress in life including work stresses. Lately I have less and less interest in the hobby and this coincides with a time when life is pretty well stress free.

At least for me the addictive type behaviours correlate well with stress so it seems they are a coping mechanism perhaps for displacing attention away from work and other issues and focusing on things that don't really matter like a reef tank.