up with pod people wrote:

FABIO wrote:

What new faces? I haven't seen anyone besides the OMM crowd.

I guess it's flattering to think I could be mistaken for an old face, though it's much more likely I just don't post enough to be noticed. At any rate, speaking as an "outsider," even though the atmosphere here is slightly less pointy than it was on OMM, there's the same whiff of clannishness. It's just not a welcoming environment.

What I don't get is why this is a problem. Nobody ever intended to lay out a "come one, come all" welcome mat, to act the part of the gracious host, to break newbies in slowly, to use lube before reaming, etc. So, things are working out exactly as you (the royal "you," the veterans, etc.) wanted. The core group is settling in to a new home, restocking the shark tank, building a foundation of violence and acrimony. The lurker population is growing slowly. The atmosphere encourages a long spell of watchfulness before diving in. Where's the problem?

Again, I'm an outsider looking in, and as far as I can see the only problem Caltrops has is overindulgent navel-gazing. If you spent half the time writing for the site that you do bitching about the lack of content, there'd be an update every second day. Stressing and hair-pulling about The Future of Caltrops is just sound and fury. Let it evolve organically -- the forums are the core of the site as they should be, and everything else is gravy.

As a supplemental note, I think the reason why there aren't as many submissions is because everyone is unsurprisingly wary of opening themselves to ridicule. Defensiveness was a big part of the culture of OMM, and suddenly turning it around to say "actually now we're all very interested in hearing about your ideas and reading your writing" is going to take some getting used to. Especially for us statusless noobs.