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WikedUncle -> RE: Retirement from Collarme (7/8/2006 6:52:26 PM)
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People do say rather too much about announced departures (including the departees), but such announcements are a barometer. For each one who announces his/her departure, there are probably ten experienced people who leave silently, or just stop participating.
Every announced departure is followed by the declamations of people who mistake loudness and rudeness for intelligence. The thoughtful have been avoiding these people for centuries, and the loudmouths always bray triumphantly when thoughtful people avoid them. Somehow, they think they’ve won.
I doubt that people with more experience leave such places because they feel threatened by people new to what we do, who have a genuine interest in learning. That’s a thought that gratifies the egos of those who remain, and no more. They leave because they have become bored to death with people who have no interest in learning, or in anything but shouting at one another, or displaying what they think is their wisdom. With each such cycle of departures, the level of discourse gets a little lower. You see, the people with the experience and skills haven’t really gone anywhere, in the sense of walking away from what we do. They have just stopped trying to talk to you, and leave you in much the same ignorance and isolation as when you started. The result is that the new people who have the most to learn, because they know very little, learn only from each other. Ignorance plus ignorance equals more ignorance. The chatroom pests don't lose from that equation. The people who really do want and need to learn lose a lot.
“Elvis isn’t dead: he just went home.”
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