I am finding I need CC more at the moment than ever. It is an escape from the drumbeat of bad news. Only website I let myself look at in the hour before bed now. 
I had no idea “ignore” existed. Huh. If I want to ignore someone, I just…ignore them.
I love that you refer to us as bloggers - I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a blogger!! 
I think I’m reaching the point where I’m ready to let go of CC. Things change, posters change, the dynamics change, - maybe it’s time. I really don’t participate on a lot of threads, and I’ve tried the ignore function in the past but when everyone else is responding to the people you’re trying to ignore you start to think the problem is you, not them. There are people that I really miss and unfortunately, they’re not going to be back. There are threads I would participate on, but I see how unpleasant some of them turn very quickly - I want to talk, not argue. Something for me to think about. I’ve been here since 2004 - when I was one of those annoying parents looking for info on my special snowflake and CTY programs.
@sabaray - we really need you in a certain thread!
^^^^^
Ditto
So here’s a dumb/naive/clueless question. A lot of you say you have become friends IRL with people from this board or a similar site.
How does this happen? Do you mean you email someone outside CC? Actually get together for coffee? (Don’t we all live scattered across the globe?). I feel like a middle schooler here in a way LOL. I think I’m pretty savvy socially but I can’t figure out how you make the leap from large message board to friendship!
@surfcity: I’ve made IRL friends via PMs where we are not anonymous. One of my PM threads includes multiple people and has been an active, private conversation for several years. I’ve met CC friends who have either traveled through my city, or who lived close enough to our son’s boarding school that we could meet up over fall drop-off, Parents Weekend, etc. I’m hoping to meet another PM friend whose son was recently accepted to my son’s college. It’s on my bucket list to meet all of my PM friends.
If there are CC folks who you frequently post with you can PM them and see if
they care to share more personal information and then arrange a meeting.
I have only met two CCer’s over the years. One at a college function and one
when she was in my city for business.
I contacted one other poster off site who has been a tremendous help and now a friend. I also arranged a get together after I moved and met six more local posters. I know in the past people have set up such meets in different locations - I think I remember Florida and New Jersey(?) were a couple of the locations.
On the dvc owners website a bunch of us all met up at WDW for coffee one year, it was about 20 people. December is a popular time to visit, and it turned out we’d all be there, so we all met up and hung out for about an hour. It was fun.
On this board I know some people now who live in the same city, I’m sure at one point we’ll get together, even if it’s to do a college dorm shopping trip for our kids
I think it’s just that extroverts and social people like the added layer of contact that actually meeting people gives you, and the introverts are happy with the internet bond, so it’s all good.
The parents of xx class for my younger son gets together pretty regularly and some of them started a facebook group as well. (I’ve met at least a dozen of them.) I’ve actually helped two people out architecturally - one I had figured out that she was visiting my town and that her father lived here. When he passed away I helped get the C of O for some work he’d done on the house without permits. I’ve had dinner with her in her home town. I’m not particularly extroverted, but I do like putting faces to the usernames.
A lot of us are facebook friends and know more about our “comings and goings”. We’ve even arranged meet ups for groups of us.
My DD spent a month in a town where another frequent poster lived, that poster ended up hosting DD for dinner, and then I visited DD and we did breakfast and continue to email and FB
I’ve emailed or Facebooked with other posters over the last 10+ years, one thing I noticed at first was that it was a great way to support each other when our kids did well or poorly and not feel like you were either gloating to people IRL or setting yourself up for neighborhood gossip, it became just a nice sincere wish for everyone’s kids/families to do as well as possible & we shared the joy in those successes and the pain in those failures, without the drama that sometimes happens in real life.
I am finding myself her even more as to avoid the news.
Does anyone know who has been on the longest and is still active, and when they joined? I have a kind of natural respect/admiration for the community elders.
Well, I have been here since 2008 and I am a junior citizen.
I think all of the “old timers” who were here when the forum migrated have their start date as sometime in 2004.
I joined in 2004- it says December but it was really August or so. I had to change my screen name because I mistakenly made myself too recognizable.
I joined in 2004 I think, but didn’t really start posting until my older kid started looking at colleges in early 2006.