QUOTE (Samfrench25 @ Jan 25 2009, 07:08 PM)

Thanx Gia getting a bit nervous coming on here and posting at the moment as the newbies dont seem very welcome, might I suggest a sticky thread for spoilers as it's hard to know what people have already seen.
Frenchy
Frenchy, in all honesty, I have sincerely tried as best as I could to welcome new members to the Burn Notice community. I have left multiple messages on the "welcome new members" thread (as this is where I would hope that new members would drop in and say hello, as you yourself did recently). I have done the very best I can to reach out to as many people as I've run into on the forum as well, but I confess to being a bit overwhelmed by the number of new threads (and I am certain that I have missed threads along the way). Many of the threads that have been posted recently, I don't have anything to contribute or add to the discussion. It isn't a matter of ignoring new members, but rather I have only a certain amount of time to devote to this forum and I prefer to focus on things where I feel I have something of value to contribute to a given discussion, that's all. Some things I don't know anything about, so I don't post to those threads. (i.e., I haven't entered any of the BN contests and I don't know about how to play the BN games, so I don't have anything to contribute to those discussions, you know?) I honestly feel I have done the best I can -- and so has Gia, by the way (who indeed did bump the "welcome new members" thread today). I was grateful for that, Gia, as I'd wanted to bump it myself this morning but I was beginning to feel like a pest for bumping the thread repeatedly. But you know what? If that's what it takes to keep the thread perpetually on page 1, for me to be the only person posting in that thread, then I'm willing to do it.
I want to say one last thing about this, should there be any members who have recently joined and are interested in my story. I lurked on this forum for four weeks before I decided to become a member. Once I became a member I made a decision not to create any new topics at first, as I wanted to become familiar with the Burn Notice forum by easing into it. I wanted to get to know the people who were members of this community and likewise give them an opportunity to get to know me -- so I posted in a variety of threads that were of interest to me (I found a lot of topics to be of interest, so this wasn't difficult by any stretch). What I found was that the members who post here have interests that are multiple and varied. Some members I only see in certain areas of the forum; other members I see in many places on the forum. I guess what I'm saying is that as a new member, I found it useful to "mingle" with as many different people as my time and interests allowed. I'm not saying my approach is the only approach; that people should only post after they've been lurking for a certain amount of time. I just wanted to share my own story to illustrate a point: that it takes time and effort to get to know people in a community (be it online or "in real life"). Not everyone within a community shares the same interests. Not everyone is as extroverted -- some prefer to be a bit more reserved. And that's absolutely *fine*. All I'm saying is that when you're first starting out in a community such as this, it's helpful to drop in on discussions and shares thoughts on the show and get to know the members in the community. People are friendly but there needs to be reaching out from both newer members and veterans.
And thank you for your succinctness and your kindness, Gia. I appreciate everything you bring to this forum, especially your peace mentality. It is muchly appreciated. As for the "pinned" topic/sticky post -- I actually drew up a list of topics that I would like to see pinned to the top of the page. I think one of us would have to contact Admin, as none of us has the ability to post a sticky. Bubba might have been able to do that, but as we have heard he is going to be offline for an undetermined period of time. I can try to PM admin and see what they say, however. I will let you know what I find out.
Welcome to the BN community, one and all.
ETA: and Frenchy? I personally feel that if a topic says "new promo" or "preview clip" that it should be clear to those who click on the topic that there *will* be spoilers involved. However, that isn't always the case -- this is why I either will warn about spoilers in threads such as these, or I will use the spoiler function if others have used it. So even though I personally do not feel spoilers are necessary in this instance, I do it as a courtesy and out of respect to those who see things differently than I in this regard. I know this probably only makes things seem more confusing...sorry about that. Just wanted to add my own take on the spoilers thing. 'kay, end of tome-a-palooza, I promise!