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What does Surly mean to you?


immamac

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We recently had a poster post a video on a certain thread about their experience with Surlyhorns. It got me genuinely curious what Surly means to different members of the community including lurkers.

What do you love about this place?

What do you hate about it?

What do you wish would change?

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Love the format/style/how the mods seem quick to change things that don't work. Love the people. Most of you are genuinely funny, caring, and compassionate,

Hate the vitriol that surrounds politics, but I guess that's how life is right now.

Not sure I'd change anything. Maybe take the neg function out of CR? I guess most of us really don't care about rep anyway.

 

 

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25 minutes ago, immamac said:

We recently had a poster post a video on a certain thread about their experience with Surlyhorns. It got me genuinely curious what Surly means to different members of the community including lurkers.

What do you love about this place?

What do you hate about it?

What do you wish would change?

Mind linking to it? 

I've felt that Surly is pretty great. From the food, and hobbies sections. They're pretty good at bringing information and being pretty relaxed.

 

It's kinda getting ugly on the politics side, and very one note for the most part. 

I've been wanting to bring in more people, but don't want to change the culture of this place.

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1 minute ago, immamac said:

by February the Politics will have died down or I'll split it off entirely as it's own board (shared usernames and all that)

Yeah, it's a tough one. I understand the implications of splitting it off because it will cause more "bleed" into NON-CR threads and that's worse. There's no right answer, so don't lose sleep over it. Hopefully you are right about February and we'll all be dead of COVID-23 by the next election, so it won't matter.

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I genuinely believe that Covid will stop being politicized in the very near future and treated as a global pandemic rather than something people have individual control over. When that messaging starts it will be much easier to moderate because the politics will become much more obvious and less intertwined. 

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22 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

Can we split off the football board while we’re at it?

Much like the political shitfest starting to dry up by February, and the covid shitfest starting to dry up when we treat a global pandemic like a global pandemic, the football shitfest will start drying up when Tom Herman finally understands what it means to "fuck around and find out!"

Unfortunately, Tom Herman will probably get another year or two to "fuck around and find out!", so the football forum will be painful until then.

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Love the bar talk feel without getting all smoky and shit.  Surly tends to be more open to fans of other fanbases, than my experience on other boards.

Have met a few Surlists in real life and know that generally speaking, there's some great motherfuckers in here.

I don't like socks.  Don't like bitchassmotherfuckers who don't post in threads, but they sure like using the rep.  Like in the past 24 hours all of the sudden the sandfleas have returned.  Fuck them and fuck the regulars who use them.

Also dislike people who never deviate from their platforms, yet claim to be critical thinkers.  No you aren't.  You just read more...and you never have anything critical to say towards "their side."  Whatever...

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i love the discussion we get on the basketball, baseball, varsity, and other sports/fútbol forums. i hate the toxic nature of the football forum, and the lack of substantive discussion that often comes with said toxicity. but, when you have that many people who are passionate about something all congregating in one place to discuss it, i'm not sure there's anything you can do about that aspect of the forum. i would assume the same goes for the CR. 

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12 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Much like the political shitfest starting to dry up by February, and the covid shitfest starting to dry up when we treat a global pandemic like a global pandemic, the football shitfest will start drying up when Tom Herman finally understands what it means to "fuck around and find out!"

Unfortunately, Tom Herman will probably get another year or two to "fuck around and find out!", so the football forum will be painful until then.

The football shitfest will dry up after Tom beats whatever shit bowl team we get and we re-focus our rage on Shaka. 

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lol, no he's not. the football board is and always will be a toxic cesspool, just like the CR. there's just way too many people whose emotions are tied up in football teams for it not to be a blood soaked, nightmarish hellscape the majority of the time. i mean, we think back to the '08 and '09 seasons as the final halcyon days of the Mack Brown era, but was the football board a fun, or happy place back then? hell no. what about in 2004? nope. people were fucking *pissed*, and super hateful towards Mack and GDGD (and each other) during the majority of our 13-1, Rose Bowl winning season. what about 2005? was the board friendly or fun back then? shit, maybe. but that was an anomaly from a long time ago. barring a transcendent team being led by a transcendent player being coached by a beloved coach, the football board will always be as toxic as the CR. all in the game, yo. 

Edited by shadow_operative
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I moved far away from Texas so this is my final, tenuous connection to Longhorns sports and all adjacent culture -- barbecue, tacos, guns, making fun of Dallas, etc.

 

So I participate in all those discussions and it's all roses and lillies.

 

What's bad?  There are a number of people whose *only* participation is in CR/politics.  By law of nature, politics has to be polarizing, so those discuss are only and always antagonistic.  It's a stink that seeps everywhere on the site. 

Solution?  Get rid of the CR.  Don't give those people safe harbor.  Once they're gone, the rest of us can occasionally discuss CR stuff in relative civility.

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6 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

I moved far away from Texas so this is my final, tenuous connection to Longhorns sports and all adjacent culture -- barbecue, tacos, guns, making fun of Dallas, etc.

 

So I participate in all those discussions and it's all roses and lillies.

 

What's bad?  There are a number of people whose *only* participation is in CR/politics.  By law of nature, politics has to be polarizing, so those discuss are only and always antagonistic.  It's a stink that seeps everywhere on the site. 

Solution?  Get rid of the CR.  Don't give those people safe harbor.  Once they're gone, the rest of us can occasionally discuss CR stuff in relative civility.

I think it's weird that people hate on CR so much in the last week. I get it before that, but the last weekish has really actually been pretty decent

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10 minutes ago, immamac said:

I think it's weird that people hate on CR so much in the last week. I get it before that, but the last weekish has really actually been pretty decent

It's not the CR itself that's bad.  It's that the CR inhabitants leak out of the cesspool.

Put another way, the quality of participants who post 90% everything and 10% CR, is better than that of people who post 90% CR and 10% everything else.

Maybe you should retain the CR as a sort of honey trap.  Every week, a bot runs a scan, and if 80% of a person's post is in the CR, they get an autoban.

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37 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

I moved far away from Texas so this is my final, tenuous connection to Longhorns sports and all adjacent culture -- barbecue, tacos, guns, making fun of Dallas, etc.

 

So I participate in all those discussions and it's all roses and lillies.

 

What's bad?  There are a number of people whose *only* participation is in CR/politics.  By law of nature, politics has to be polarizing, so those discuss are only and always antagonistic.  It's a stink that seeps everywhere on the site. 

Solution?  Get rid of the CR.  Don't give those people safe harbor.  Once they're gone, the rest of us can occasionally discuss CR stuff in relative civility.

I feel this. My girlfriend's uncle said some place in Salem makes "kolotches," and I asked what did they look like.

 

Screenshot_20201112-105920.png

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12 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

There is place, that's closed due to Covid that does make kolaches. They glaze the bread with honey, and they are kick ass. I asked if the owner was Texan, and they said no, but her husband is.

I've been finding lots and lots more TX-style barbecue joints open up everywhere.  Some of them proudly boast on their webpage and blogs about having visited the hill country, learning from the old dudes, meeting Aaron Franklin, etc.  Makes me almost well up inside

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26 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

I've been finding lots and lots more TX-style barbecue joints open up everywhere.  Some of them proudly boast on their webpage and blogs about having visited the hill country, learning from the old dudes, meeting Aaron Franklin, etc.  Makes me almost well up inside

Now, if they would do the same for chili. These huddled masses have no earthly idea.

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lol, no he's not. the football board is and always will be a toxic cesspool, just like the CR. there's just way too many people whose emotions are tied up in football teams for it not to be a blood soaked, nightmarish hellscape the majority of the time. i mean, we think back to the '08 and '09 seasons as the final halcyon days of the Mack Brown era, but was the football board a fun, or happy place back then? hell no. what about in 2004? nope. people were fucking *pissed*, and super hateful towards Mack and GDGD (and each other) during the majority of our 13-1, Rose Bowl winning season. what about 2005? was the board friendly or fun back then? shit, maybe. but that was an anomaly from a long time ago. barring a transcendent team being led by a transcendent player being coached by a beloved coach, the football board will always be as toxic as the CR. all in the game, yo. 
That's every college message board. Click around and you will see the examples.

This place is a fun 10 minute timeout from work between zooms and projects. Also as now chilling on the couch. Love the personalities on here as well. Pretty much every single person except the jackasses who bring politics to other boards, and those are the very few.
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Say what you will - but starting around 4:20 of the video in question on another thread, one hits the motherlode of shit talking. 

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

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On 11/12/2020 at 10:26 AM, immamac said:

I think it's weird that people hate on CR so much in the last week. I get it before that, but the last weekish has really actually been pretty decent

That was the most well behaved political discussion forum during an active election - probably ever. GOAT.  Repeat it in 2022 and 2024. Texas is in the political spotlight as a swing state now. More attention headed to "what do people really think" since political polling/data has some pretty big blind spots. 

And the basketball board during the NBA Covid playoffs was top-notch as well (thank you ladies and gentlemen). We had our differences, but the collective brought some damn good NBA insight and wisdom. And it was entertaining. No one had to be the King (we had our issues with Lebron the Usurper;  there is a very guillotine-ish over there that the sport deserves).

Edited by washparkhorn
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It's a pond on the internet where you can be a fish. This pond has a lot of my types of fish. Lot of good fish. My school. I can go swim around in the ocean and see what's going on, but this is my pond and it's a fairly good one.

There's a broader question about the whole nature of... doing a bunch of swimming on the internet, if that's good or bad, replacing something lost or supplementing something old, how healthy it is to spend whatever amount of time doing that thing. That's a bigger question. 

Politics shit would be better if people shared the same reality, but that's the nature of things right now. I am also optimistic that they will improve. I think neutered rep in CR would be an improvement (although it wouldn't surprise me if that is not a feature that is available). I also think it would be good if CR discussions happened in CR. It's hard for that to be enforced well now because of the reasons stated above, but if that is still difficult later maybe we should have a Parler Room.

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Good:

There’s too much internet to keep up with, and Surly is one-stop shopping. Longhorn sports, movies, travel, music, cooking, current events, health and fitness – a lot of great stories and a lot of great advice and recommendations, many from folks who, although anonymous, seem to share my values and interests.

You assholes make me laugh on a daily basis. Even if at the expense of my mom. I hope I can add to the chuckles.

And check out the divorce thread if you want to understand what Surly has meant to me personally over the past couple years. It’s pretty amazing how a group of people who don’t even know each other can offer kindness and support, not only through a divorce, but a host of turbulent situations (sickness, loss of loved ones, loss of jobs, parenting challenges, etc.). There are good people out there.

Bad:

The assholes. But they exist in every community, and I don’t let them affect my experience on Surly.

Improvement?

What the fuck do I know about running a website? I try to stay about of the administrators’ way and let the geeks offer meaningful suggestions. I’m just thankful for this site as a wonderful distraction in my life.

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