Just decided to check the last page, I like how this thread bears no relationship to the opening post in any way, shape, or form.
Oh, but it does
Did you miss where the So Long actually turned up in the thread as a fish? Post #382. You can't get much more relevant than that.
And as for the disagreements, well, this entire thread has been one long crazy but ineffably polite disagreement on so many levels, not least about about where the thread itself was going. Everybody has their own unique take on things and we are all constantly pulling in different directions.
But we are illustrating how to take that in good humour and keep things light-hearted, which is what the OP evidently found difficult to achieve. You just have to make posts that people
want to respond to in a positive way (yours is an excellent example of that) and we've conspired to present a few hundred examples of this - some more successful than others, admittedly, but with good will all round, things have kept going somehow.
What we
haven't done, and I think this is important, is to block or negate each other's ideas because that sort of thing isn't fun. It leads to a downward spiral that sadly happens in so many threads (as you yourself have pointed out). If a post takes a delightfully unexpected turn, we don't stop and argue about it, we run with it and build on it. I think the OP was expecting to see more in the way of head-butting in the forum and was disappointed not to find like-minded head-butters to, well, head-butt with. It's hard to tell, though, just from the single post and it's tempting to read more into it than was perhaps intended. It's a shame he didn't elaborate.
We've had people walk out of this thread (as did the OP) even including some of our own fictional characters and that's a real slap in the face, believe me. We personified people who flounce out of forums as, well, flounce and as flounders (back to the fish, again) because that makes a painful subject easier to talk about without offending anyone.
Jump back in, and steer the thread the way
you think it should go. After all, that's what we are doing, and your ideas are just as valid as ours. Just make it funny, if you can. We appreciate "funny" and will respond to it with more enthusiasm
