Sometimes in life, I just have to sit down and really speak my mind and say ‘to hell with whether it pisses people off.’ Today is one of those days.

I’ll withhold the name to protect the guilty, but I’ve been watching a particular writing forum for years…and sometimes posting on it until the past 6 months to a year. I know what you’re going to ask: “Why?” The answer is simple: I wanted to put time into writing and being a professional writer and not being a professional forum poster.

Well, I’ve systematically watched this particular forum go downhill since I left and it’s not even sad. In fact, I find it humorous to say the least.

When moderators get into pissing matches with trolls, knowledgeable people are told they’re sanctimonious and talking down to people, you have the recipe for a failed forum. Oh, no doubt the owner and mods will say I’m incorrect but they’d be wrong. Said forum needs 250 USD to cover costs and we’re halfway through the month and they’ve gotten all of *fifty* dollars in. Houston, we have a problem.

The biggest fail of the entire forum was when a particular poster from Pennsylvania was allowed to run amuck on the boards for months, posting inane comments meant to seem intellectual but coming across as a pompous asshole with delusions of grandeur. This person was able to make life miserable for several posters, do nothing but plug his free books on Amazon.com, and then act like he was the self-prescribed expert of writing. Really? Talk about sad as hell.

Now let me speak on the subject of moderators. In forums, they’re supposed to be impartial and enforce the rules. The ones on this forum? They get into pissing matches with the above troll that degenerated into whipping their dicks out of measuring them to see who’s bigger. Then, and if that wasn’t inappropriate enough, the mods then harass other posters on here-myself included-because they find us threatening to their status quo.

Most people on that forum will never be published and are sitting in a ‘blind leads the blind’ situation. Writing is a solitary endeavor for a reason…and sitting on a forum making posts asking questions and then reading what the artistes have to say is a waste of time.

Personally I find the whole thing ridiculous to say the least and find that the place gives me more information I can use on my blog than anything else. As they would say at Kings Dominion: Ride on!