BornAgainBrony

So, wow. I'm amazed to see, from what some folks are saying here, how much trouble there is that not all of us are noticing. Kinda funny so many are saying, "thank goodness it's gone," without realizing this is only temporary. I wasn't going to say anything about it, since I had already made the decision to get myself removed, but since I also care about how this may or may not impact the community, here goes. There are many levels of "troll." Some just don't even care if another troll fires back at them. The first era of trolling typically involved taking a political position you don't even have, just for the sake of causing chaos. Indeed, it is. The floodgates were failing though. Prior to the previous shutdown of DS, political fights leaking out into other sections of the forum were becoming MORE common. This is the reason I remember being given for why it was shut down the previous time. The highest percentage of moderation activity was needed for the section that had the smallest population. That doesn't make any logistical sense. There was definitely a middle-ground where things were running better. I think it was around the beginning of the year. Some of the threads were looking downright professional, like college/university theses. Around the time Jeric backed away though, I was seeing the usual vitriol slowly seeping back in. There's a reason that moderators intervene in real-time during live debates; even the professionals have trouble keeping themselves in-check. I can easily understand why the rules were reaching the point of being "suffocating" though. The civil conversations were at the one extreme of what goes on in there. The other extreme still exists. It's rather pointless when someone can just copy/paste a Tweet without even first bothering to click one layer deeper into the conversation to discover the context; then someone else writes a lengthy reply to it, and either get shrugged off, if not completely ignored. It's just a waste of time at that point. There are far better places for that kind of "debate." And if anyone really needs to have that kind of rapidfire rage-culture but with a Pony slant, there's always 4chan. I'll say one other thing about the fact that things were better than the previous incarnation though. Maybe the new policies were working to keep things from degrading back to where they were. But it might also just be timing. The political landscape is definitely not what it was a year or so ago. The old Debate Pit died while the world was knee deep in the COVID lock-downs, and stress & paranoia were at an all-time high. But the chaos was already reaching a crescendo the previous year. Would even the current form of the Debate Pit be able to survive the next U.S. Presidential election? Considering how the playing field is shaping up right now, I very much doubt it. That does not sound at all like contributing a reason to bring back the Debate Pit. If you're saying all of your emoji use is sincere, then you are actually laughing (even if just internally) 99% of the time you read any post that disagrees with you, and then laughing again while replying. That suggests you are actually not interested in debate at all, and are just there 'for the lulz.' If you really need a place where you can get all your chuckles at the expense of anyone you don't agree with, there are far, FAR better options to consider.

Not sure what generation you are, but there are those of us who were practically raised on this kind of entertainment. What I'll just refer to as "fursuit shows" was a staple of kids entertainment for a long time because it was cheaper than animation. Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo's Circus, the Elephant Show, Barney the Purple Dinosaur, Teletubbies, etc. In some cases, shows featuring these suit "puppets" supplemented an animated series, such as the aforementioned Winnie the Pooh. Rainbow Brite had an animated series but also a couple of TV specials with live children acting alongside adult-height costumes of the main protagonists. Pretty sure Care Bears did this at some point as well. And of course, Disney took full advantage of the fact that some of the character suits featured in these shows, were the same costumes that can be found running around the themeparks, waving from parade floats, and performing at live stage shows. This kind of entertainment of course bled into the animatronic theater, the most infamous being Chuck E. Cheese. So terrifying was this concept to some, that it inspired one of the most beloved horror videogame IP's of all time. I was one of the kids who was never scared of the Chuck E. Cheese band characters, and the same went for a lot of this kind of entertainment. Just like with clowns or furry costumes, it seems like it's something that either inspires people to run in for a hug, or run for the hills. I will say though that the "floating hind legs" is something that kind of bothers me. It's also odd that this is even a thing anymore, because Jim Henson's Creature Shop figured out a pretty simple solution to it long ago.

Somehow these look much better than the G4 quadruped suits that I saw at Hascon, even though there's what... 30 years of technology between them?

Yep, it worked. Thanks!

Just wanting to make sure. I don't see any visual indication that the threads are locked, which leads me to believe it's an issue with my account specifically. A year or so ago, I remember getting locked out of the MCM section through some glitch a couple different times.

Well, kind of. Emotes/emoticons/smileys were originally created to allow people to communicate emotions across the pre-internet multi-user networks. But as time went on and trolls became a thing, and people used sensationalism on social media to grab more likes, emoticons are now seldom used to reflect a person's real emotions. LOL was actually among the first emoticons, but how often is a person actually "laughing out loud" when they use it? Almost never.