Why do you love the Downs?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

we are into something bigger than politics, bigger than national conflicts and grudges. We're here for TOLKIEN!

Funny, but no one has yet mentioned the Werewolf games, a stupendous source of post counts and friendships here on the Downs. I would have thought that Tol in Gaurhoth would have been first on everyone's list.

Except for Lush's. I don't think she's ever played in a Werewolf game. :merisu:

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Funny, but no one has yet mentioned the Werewolf games, a stupendous source of post counts and friendships here on the Downs. I would have thought that Tol in Gaurhoth would have been first on everyone's list.

Funny you should mention that...

Yeah, Lommy first convinced me to join this forum because of the werewolf game - girl was she excited! Now I think I lead the played games tally... or am at least a honoured second.


But I have loved Tolkien and his works from something like from the early years of the 70's or something when my dad first read the LotR as a bedtimestory to me... (well, he never got to finish but I read it myself from that on)

But this site has been a lot more than just werewolfing (even if there has been a lot of that to me).


I'd like to make three... well four points why I love this community.

1. The discussions are intelligent indeed most of the time. Even if I'm no net-forum know-it-all I've seen only worse sites. Many times it seems that the only options are being "fan-girls" or then walking "Encyclopedias" just reciting the prof's words like holy Scripture, but it's different on the 'Downs. And I also really love the sometimes wry, sometimes absurd humour people have around here.

2. Also the warm athmosphere and the respect of others has caught my eye in here. Indeed I've had quite a learning curve as this is the first forum I have really attached myself into - and being a bit older than many others around here it has taken some fumbles for me to learn the power of this one. So I'm kind of feeling a gratitude to this site (more specifically to the people around here) as well. You've thought me a lesson or two how to be in a forum. Sad that doesn't seem to happen in most other fora.

3. Even if it stalls at times and then bursts again I think that the 'Downs RPGing has been just super! It's great to get oneself into an RPG where people are not just calling when's the next fight but they actualy write about the characters and their relations. I don't think 'Downs RPG's are great literature as such but they are so much fun to write and read and many writers here have lots of talent as writers, and the feeling of a writing-community is quite overwhelming at times.

4. I have already gotten myself a few RL friends because of this site... and I do consider - unlike many other adults I know in RL - also those I feel good and well with if I had only discussed with them via this forum (or the LJ because of this site) as my friends as well. And that means quite a many people. So this site has extremely enriched my life - even if it's mostly virtual (not counting Brinn, Legate, Rune, & Spawn whom I have also met, some of them for a considerable period) that is.

But then again, what is mind if not a virtual thing?

[Morthoron]

Okay, okay...I'll be serious. And as we Yanks are heading towards our Thanksgiving Holiday, I thought I'd express my thankfulness:

WHY I AM THANKFUL FOR THE BARROW DOWNS
By Morthoron

1) I am thankful that the signature space is limited to 3 lines. I swear to Eru there's a poster over on the TORn site whose signature is 10 stanzas long.

2) There is none of the overt Legolust here that is evident on other sites.

3) Peter Jackson's films can be discussed here with a critical eye, rather than jostling with a herd of cattle seeking canonization for the entire population of New Zealand.

4) Posters are rarely monosyllabic and actually use proper punctuation; in fact, I will go as far as saying the English-as-second-language users here are more erudite than most native-born posters on other sites.

5) The moderation is fair, and I don't get into trouble...much.

6) Gandalf eats Hobbits, or at least, that's what Alatar has surmised. I found the revelation stunning, to say the least. One doesn't find scholarly work of such magnitude elsewhere.

7) There is a creative flair and a skewed sense of humor here that accords with my left-handedness.

8) I took a survey and found out I was Saruman incarnate. Now, if I could only grow a decent beard.

9) People here are funny. They'll ressurrect a thread from four years ago and post like the conversation was from this morning.

10) I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

I agree with a lot of what's already been said (even though I don't participate in the RPGs, I find them very entertaining to observe, when I have a chance). Finding a LotR forum in which both intelligent discussion and intelligent humor were common and Peter Jackson is not worshiped as God was, I thought, impossible. I have dearly loved LotR for most of my life, and while it had a profound influence on me, I also enjoy poking fun at it (having a firm belief that a certain amount of irreverent humor is necessary for one's sanity; God invented humor, after all ). I love the fact that in a serious discussion here, people can suddenly find humor in it, discuss that for a bit, and then go back to the main discussion without being chided for haring "off-topic" (which, on other forums, usually results in a long off-topic argument about what constitutes OT). I never get a sense of "class structure" here, the feeling that people who have been around longer or have a bazillion posts somehow feel themselves superior to those who don't post as much or haven't been members as long. There's no hazing of the newbies, and no cliques that I can perceive. The cliques are a major part of what drove me away from sites like tORn (and Morth, as a former tORn admin, I couldn't agree more about the signature limits ). There is a sense of easy acceptance here, that all are equal as fans of what we all love, in our own ways -- a diversity that is accepted, not broken into little splinter groups. Something to be thankful for, to me.

[Lalwendë]

Well, people do make a site and one thing that is great is that most of us are decent to newbies, whereas on most other forums they get made mincemeat out of.

There might not be Legolust, but:
1. There is plenty of lust for LEGO amongst several members.
and
2. There are many crushes, just not on the obvious characters

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Well, people do make a site and one thing that is great is that most of us are decent to newbies, whereas on most other forums they get made mincemeat out of.

That I second... I'll never forget how encouraging Dave, Heren and Fordim were back in the day when it took ages for me to venture into Books (Canonicity was raging). How different to another forum I used to frequent where there are a couple of posters who remind me of Statler and Waldorf on the muppets and who if you say something they agree with you are repeating them and if you disagree you are a wrong and being inherently disrespectful to the memory of the great man, his family, possibly his non-existant cat, garden gnome etc. Blah di blah.

What do you mean it isn't obvious to have a crush on Elrond?

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

2. There are many crushes, just not on the obvious characters

And not just on the characters, but also on fellow members, eh?

Btw, this thread reminds me of an earlier thread of TM's: Thanks Downers!.

[Lalwendë]

Given that this is not some monster sized forum, it's got to be one of the best dating agencies in the world?