Dear TNBers,
With unmitigated sincerity, Tiff, Beth, and I would like to extend our gratitude to AlienMotives and MrsMaryLou for their enormous contributions to TNB during the past 3+ years. It’s hard to believe that it’s now been over 3 years since we launched TNB, but not surprising that we would see contributors, big and small, come and go during that time.
AlienMotives was a consistent machine in providing top-quality and extremely varied and interesting content for TNB and that will definitely be missed, and unlikely to be replaced. Thank you, AM…TNB may not have made it this far without your constant efforts.
MrsMaryLou provided us with a window into how social media and propaganda was used by foreign entities that certainly did not have the best interests of our nation as their driving motivation, to say the least, to work in unravelling our democracy. And we know they are still at it. We also got introduced to a wide variety of interesting films by MrsMaryLou. These contributions will also be sorely missed. Thank you, MrsMaryLou!
We certainly wish AlienMotives and MrsMaryLou the very best and hope that they will at least return from time to time to check in and say “hi”, if not take part in discussions (which are also most welcome).
So what does all of this mean for TNB going forward? Will we be able to survive and still provide a quality platform for all of us to attempt to make some sort of sense out of this crazy political environment?
I sure hope so. Even though my writing contributions to TNB have waned, it has still been a haven for me, personally, to be able to discuss things and rant, and sometimes rave, and just relieve some pent-up stress that we have all experienced over the last 5 years or so.
I hope you all feel the same.
I wish I could say that I, or someone else, was ready to simply step in and fill the huge void that is left from AlienMotive’s and MrsMaryLou’s departure. Unfortunately, that is just not the case.
However, I will attempt to provide an editorial on things on at least a weekly basis. We are hoping that others might be willing to commit to a weekly article as well. If we can get 5-6 of us willing to do that, then I think we can keep this going. Please, please, please consider contributing towards that.
Beth and Tiff (God Bless them both) have agreed to continue with their daily pieces that provide us with the open threads, and that will be our main content. We think that most of us are mostly looking for a place that we can discuss things civilly, as well as share other news items that we find interesting. The open threads provide that for us, so that will remain the main part of TNB, and then we’ll try to fill in with other content (editorials & other news items) as needed or when available, but perhaps not in consistent, regular, daily time-slots.
Without getting into any discussion for or against the “meme rule” that pretty much triggered this development, we would like to just make a quick statement on that.
When we discussed the meme rule amongst us, we were not all in full agreement with implementing it. Beth and Tiff, in particular were very skeptical about it, noting that it was very confusing and would be difficult to enforce.
I was in agreement with Alien on this.
Memes, especially on Facebook, have been annoying me for many years. So, I too, wanted to prevent our comments area from resembling the rot that I see daily on Facebook.
That said, my definition of that was different than others, and I found it a lot more difficult to explain my view on it than I thought it would be. When I see a meme that “triggers” me, it’s obvious to me, but it’s hard to describe it as a hard and fast rule.
And it has become obvious that many are still confused about it.
Therefore, we have decided to rescind that “rule” and treat any memes that particularly upset us on a case by case basis, pretty much how we would handle any posts that need to be moderated. So, if we deem a meme, or any post really, as one that is presenting misinformation, or just highly misleading, out of context information, we will address that if/when it arises.
Lastly, thank you all for being here, and being a part of TNB for the past 3 years. We hope that you will continue with us going forward and help us do our little part in trying to “keep our Republic”.
With love and respect,
Steve, Tiff, and Beth
