No.
Not a "fangirl" at all, I'm afraid, closet or otherwise, just someone who has liked some of the products Apple have made.
Anyway, in the interests of full disclosure, I can state that I have two MBAs, and three iPods.
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Top 50 Posters Extrapolated, January 2017
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No.
Not a "fangirl" at all, I'm afraid, closet or otherwise, just someone who has liked some of the products Apple have made.
Anyway, in the interests of full disclosure, I can state that I have two MBAs, and three iPods.
Funny.....I have always had the impression she was a guy! Never know with forum names
I offer at least one more reason as to why some past prolific posters may not be active anymore and that is usage. I came to MacRumors because it offered a forum on PowerPC Macs. I use them, I engaged in the community. That may perhaps be why some here were active posters in the past. But if their usage of devices that are covered by the forums/subforums of this site has diminished it stands to reason (to me anyway) that their activity here might decline.
I use myself as a case in point. In 2001 I joined the forums at quark.com. I am a Graphic Designer by profession and at that time QuarkXPress was the dominant layout application. I've been an active member of that forum since about 2013 and have seen no less than four forum software changes. Even when Quark closed the forums for a year and a half and made everyone start all over I became and remain the top poster on that forum (by post count).
I'm not active there now. I'm a member of their new Facebook page as well but I'm not active in there either. The difference is that in 2013 we switched from QuarkXPress to InDesign. All of my experience in QuarkXPress is from versions 3 to 8. I offer nothing of significant value to those using later releases of QXP. And anyone asking legacy questions are usually speaking of versions 9/10, neither of which I used.
Other than to pop in from time to time I really have no ties to the forum anymore. And most of the people that I knew and engaged with then I am Facebook friends with or I have their email/phone number. Those people moved on to InDesign years before me. I was the last holdout.
There are other forums I was also a part of but because I no longer use those things those forums exist for there's not been any desire to return.
So, my thought is that perhaps lack of use of those things that brought these posters to this forum to begin with is what has caused some of them to drift away.
I use myself as a case in point. In 2001 I joined the forums at quark.com. I am a Graphic Designer by profession and at that time QuarkXPress was the dominant layout application. I've been an active member of that forum since about 2013 and have seen no less than four forum software changes. Even when Quark closed the forums for a year and a half and made everyone start all over I became and remain the top poster on that forum (by post count).
I'm not active there now. I'm a member of their new Facebook page as well but I'm not active in there either. The difference is that in 2013 we switched from QuarkXPress to InDesign. All of my experience in QuarkXPress is from versions 3 to 8. I offer nothing of significant value to those using later releases of QXP. And anyone asking legacy questions are usually speaking of versions 9/10, neither of which I used.
Other than to pop in from time to time I really have no ties to the forum anymore. And most of the people that I knew and engaged with then I am Facebook friends with or I have their email/phone number. Those people moved on to InDesign years before me. I was the last holdout.
There are other forums I was also a part of but because I no longer use those things those forums exist for there's not been any desire to return.
So, my thought is that perhaps lack of use of those things that brought these posters to this forum to begin with is what has caused some of them to drift away.
I joined the forum in 2008 simply because I had bought an Apple computer - and, as someone who was in those days described as "a switcher", and, as most of the people I knew still worked on, and with, Windows, - I had many questions, and this seemed a good place to try to find some answers.
It was the first ever online community I had joined, and some of the others - such as FB - will never play host to me.
Anyway, nearly a decade later, much to my surprise, I am still here, but during that time, - as with many others - there have been periods when I was prolific, and periods when I was a lot less visible or active.
It was the first ever online community I had joined, and some of the others - such as FB - will never play host to me.
Anyway, nearly a decade later, much to my surprise, I am still here, but during that time, - as with many others - there have been periods when I was prolific, and periods when I was a lot less visible or active.
You had something else to hold you here and that may be relationships and/or the infrequent question (or answer), perhaps?
As I said, most of the people I knew on the other forum at some point I engaged with outside of that forum. Whether through Facebook, SMS, iMessage or Skype I am still active with them - not the forum. They also left the forum as they don't use that program anymore.
There is just really nothing holding me there.
Just speculating is all.
I remember those days… the painful transition of QuarkXPress to OSX…
And within a few years? Gone. I genuinely believe they thought they were too big to fail.
All credit to Adobe there, they saw the future and (mostly) nailed it.
A link for those who were too young to remember.
RIP QXP, I have some fond memories… though stuck in my mind with forever fiddling with SCSI daisy chains at 03:00am. The good ol' days.
There are a number of reasons I stayed.
The first was that this was the first online community I had ever joined, and I was curious about what this universe was like.
Secondly, as you have surmised, and also much to my surprise, I have made some good friends here, people whom I have never met in real life, but still enjoy a relationship of the sort that certainly approximates to friendship, and certainly compensates for the fact that many of the people with whom I was friendly at school or college, are no longer around - simply different life journeys, different countries, relationships, jobs, - and professional perspectives - and so on.
And thirdly, I have lingered because this forum has opened windows (all puns intended) for me to different perspectives and views on life - and indeed, views on life articulated by young people - which I would otherwise not encounter.
I used to be an academic, and teaching eager and questioning youngsters did help keep your own mind active and alert. Since I have moved on to other things, it is interesting (if not always agreeable) to have a forum where you encounter some whose views, mindset, and outlook differ radically from yours.
Besides, you can learn a lot here - at times.
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Quark made three mistakes.
1. Ebrahami. Rudely insulting your client base and then demanding they pay a premium for less than they asked for.
2. Complacency and greed. Adobe was able to capture much of the market because they offered InDesign to design/technical schools for a reduced cost or free, often just bundled with the other Adobe apps. They also offered reduced price/free to students. Quark refused to discount the program but created a crippled student version that you couldn't use commercially. Quark was complacent in it's assumption that it had the industry cornered. Their licensing was also draconian.
3. QuarkXPress 5 and the forums. Not offering XPress 5 as OS X native and then berating their customers didn't help at all. Then the forums filled up with criticism and bogus accounts created solely to malign the software. So, Quark killed the forums for a year and a half.
Version 6.0 was rushed to market as being OS X native but by then Quark had lost the market share it enjoyed. I say 'rushed' because only later did I find out that at least in regards to the text rendering engine, Quark had wrapped the OS9 engine into the program. They never recoded it from OS9. They didn't fix it until QXP 9.0 either!
And now here we are in 2017 and they still do not offer the ability to stroke text without first converting it to a box!
Ah well. My motivation for converting to ID was to gain experience in using the app while being paid. It was the only way I was going to learn it.
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I think that may be the difference here. MR offers much more than just Macs, or Apple. The forums which I were part of did not. They were focused on one subject and things that were ancillary to it.
Needs must…Ah well. My motivation for converting to ID was to gain experience in using the app while being paid. It was the only way I was going to learn it.
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I'll second your secondly.
I lurked since MR's birth — then out of the blue I felt compelled to post something (and it was in the PRSI section. Where much to my chagrin I found I couldn't post anything until my post count had reached a certain number.)
I definitely also made some good acquaintances — most have vanished away from here though. But luckily there are other ways of keeping in touch…
True.
Mostly I have learned about human nature; not all of it a happy experience.
Well, @arkitect - human nature is human nature. You find it in all of its messy glory - the good, bad, indifferent, sublime, and sheer bloody awful - everywhere.
Here, I do meet (or encounter, or trip over) people and perspectives I might not meet anywhere else - for both good and bad. And it is something of a learning curve, even if not all I that learn here is - shall we say - a cause for rejoicing.
I have dealt with internet forums in some form or other since my BBS days in 1985 (I turned 15 that year) and have been rewarded with good relationships with good people more than I have encountered toxic people.
It's that spirit of community that will always drive me to internet forums. Engagement, collaboration, new viewpoints, etc. My own time on these forums has been beneficial to me physically as well as I have been gifted with several Macs, free parts, etc over time. But I always try to give back when and where I can. It's great that MR offers that while giving me the outlet to engage in one of my pasttimes, using older Macs.
Over the years I've forged some great relationships. I know designers, engineers and compositors all over the world because of a common interest.
So, I agree with your assessment. As long as the good outwieghs the bad I will keep returning to these places online.
It's that spirit of community that will always drive me to internet forums. Engagement, collaboration, new viewpoints, etc. My own time on these forums has been beneficial to me physically as well as I have been gifted with several Macs, free parts, etc over time. But I always try to give back when and where I can. It's great that MR offers that while giving me the outlet to engage in one of my pasttimes, using older Macs.
Over the years I've forged some great relationships. I know designers, engineers and compositors all over the world because of a common interest.
So, I agree with your assessment. As long as the good outwieghs the bad I will keep returning to these places online.
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We joined for one reason and no doubt stayed for many different reasons.
I too have found friends on these forums. People I talk to everyday.
Some I've met in the real world. Others not.
But it's certainly a great community to be part of.
Thanks for making it what it is.
I too have found friends on these forums. People I talk to everyday.
Some I've met in the real world. Others not.
But it's certainly a great community to be part of.
Thanks for making it what it is.
Yes, agreed, it is an interesting community, - and, at times, a welcoming one - and besides, I have made some friends here - people I have never met in real life, and whose names I don't know - that I could never had encountered had I not joined the forum.