If you (still) feel the need to discuss Moldies, please do it here so folks can hide this if they want to.

btw I was iowhatsoccurring.

• mumofbaby - you'll end up like me!

Now I know I'm hungover - just listening to music and 'unchained melody' came on and I thought - 'oooh what a nice song'

God I missed all this too. Has this just happened in the last few weeks?

Juju, excellent, a like minded soul.

We can be virtual friends!!! very briefly, till we name change again.

Damn you're changing already, it was so good while it lasted.

loved your posts throughout, Colbeck. I see your point. Who were you before, if you don't mind telling?

I see your point and know what you mean about not being here to make friends. It isn't a disparaging thing. I do appreciate that some people have invested a lot of emotion into the relationships they made with online friends and it is what has hurt them. I empathise with their hurt as I've worn those shoes before so I know the fit.

Before MN I learnt not to take online personae too seriously (mine included). i view MN as a place to pick up info on all sorts and challenge or expand my points of view as there are all sorts of intelligent people on here and a place to idly people watch.

all in all, MN has given me more than I have given her. I believe anyway.

Colbeck

I am with you completely.

I don't namechange once a month but force myself to do so fairly frequently. If you want to post personal stuff on here it seems crazy not to, it's a public forum absolutely anyone can read.

Of course it's harder to make "friends" that way. That's the compromise for maintaining anonymity. And these friendships are clearly hugely important to very many mnetters. Sometimes I feel sad at missing out on them but when I do, I call a rl friend and get my priorities straight.

I can see if you've never namechanged and become "famous" here, the prospect of becoming just one of the hoi polloi again would be unthinkable even if you were being stalked/hounded. So this whole hoo ha was inevitable, though why the oldies had to use a mn style board rather than msn/facebook/ email, where a blackballing system would have been less rigorous, is a bit odd. I guess memories of the mn format was just too strong to abandon. What is hilarious about all this is the sense of importance of the moldies. A handful were brilliant posters, but most were simply average, they'd just been here a long time and "knew" each other. There are loads of people posting right now who are just as witty/succinct/erudite/kind as they were and no doubt still are. Mn will continue just as Justine said and the majority of its users will never even know this spat took place.

Off to namechange now

Tim the hungry Christmas cake 'feeeed meeee'

hmmmm...clubs...haven't thought it through properly.

Maybe you could apply to join a 'club'(MNHQ would allow this if no reason not to, no blackballing) and that would be a 'closed forum' where you could maintain your identity, but on the genertal active convo board it's anonnimity all the way.

Convinced you???

I know many, even most, peopel like MN because they chat to eopel they feel they know and develop thier own persona, so it would never really work, but equally I like MN (sometimes) for the intersting discussion, helpfukl advise, amusing banter etc but intensly dislike any signs of clubiness, in group/out group stuff, which was always around before but seems to have strangeky disappeared just lately.

Oh well problem solved maybe.

Just wanted to say namechanging really works for me. I remember when I first joined someone (vvq I think) said to me 'you won't make friends like that on here' at the time I was quite puzzled and replied 'I'm not here to make friends' and I'm not. I like expressing my views then when I'm bored and it'dsrepetive I wander off. I have rl friends I don't need or want virtual ones. There are many women on her I get the impression I'd like alot in rl and if they lived next door we would be friends, but I don't have a need to be a thier Mn friend.

I'm sorry this is now sounding disparaging to those who do take alot from having friensd on here and it's not meant to, I was just saying MN works for differnt poele in difernt way, and for me name changing makes it work.

So don't ban it. Try it!!! Liberate yourself

sorry to hear that MumOfBaby, hope you are feeling better today

Lol - can someone come round and do the polishing, childminding etc anyway .

Yes - it was a 2 year absence . RL suddenly went in to overdrive!!!

Ok, if I put 'she who must not be named' into search box, will I get update on that [furiously rearranging all plans for next few days as I type]?

NL you lightweight

I'd like to apologise for being an utter bitch yesterday. I had some bad news, and that, mixed with PMT made me pretty much take it out on this thread, just because it'd caught my attention at that very second

I am sorry.

I genuinely don't care either way about the whole moldies thing.

Haven't read through, so hope it's all died down and become amicable again.

Don't try to get out of now - we all know your Grandma had a cake called Tim that all the family had to bring an bozze laden tribute to or it would rise out of it's lair (known locally as The Tin) and devour all in it's path. I'm just surprised you've managed to keep it quiet this long.

tim?.....tim? no it didn't have a name, I meant tin

lol ruty.....there used to be a roar from the tim everytime she opened it

sorry colbeck, that post sounded incredibly blunt.......rushing to post before picking up the crying baby!!!

colbeck, would there also be no club threads then in your MNEtopia? People join them so they can build relationships and make RL friends from virtual friends. I don't think there is anything inherently unhealthy in that. We're not all the same and your way wouldn't work for everyone.

POnders NL's real life name

Norla?
Nolu?
Nell?
Neil?
Nl?

[alarm at the thought of twelvedaisy's gran 'feeding' her christmas pudding, little shop of horrors style, in the middle of the night]

I knew no one would appreciate my genuis.

Northernlurker are you the same person as northerner or DrNortherner?

Oooh no Colbeck - I like my name - quite by accident it abbreviates to something not that far from my actual name and it makes me feel at home. I have namechanged occasionally if I wanted to ask something non-traceable iyswim but otherwise I don't feel the need. There's nothing NL says on here that I wouldn't say in real life - except I'm a bit less bracing and more cowardly empathetic in real life

Cna I just say I totally disgaree with the suggestion that name changing should be banned.

I think it should be compulsory.

Everyone should have to change their name on a weekly, (or maybe monthly I'm movable on this) basis, so that we take notice only of what poele say and not who is saying it and whther thay are in our gang or not.

I am a hibitual namechanger, specifcially becuase I dislike being 'known' see no need to have 'mates'(on here). It works well for me, others should try it.

I think it is a much helathier way forward for all.

depends how much brandy was in the cake NL
entirely possible to be drunk on my gran's Christmas cake....she used to "feed" it for months and use nearly a whole bottle of brandy.