Just for fun, I shall wax eloquent upon the great sport of ice hockey. Hockey is an interesting sport in that fighting between opponents on the different teams -- within prescribed limits -- is tolerated. But go over the limits and you get a penalty, during which your team has to play without you. Get two (or three, depending on circumstances and the league in question) such penalties, and you're out of the game.
I remember, back when I lived in Toronto, an interesting TV broadcast in which one of the players was interviewed after a championship game, the final game of the season. The player had been involved in something like seven fights during the game, losing every one of them, getting seemingly *pounded* by the players on the other team who had attacked him. The announcer started, rather agres- sively, with: "So...you didn't do so well tonight. You got your butt whupped." The player responded with, "What are you talking about? I won the game for the Maple Leafs." The announcer looked stunned, uncomprehending, so the "loser" being interviewed, who had scored no goals himself, continued, "I knew that we were up against a tough team tonight. I also knew that there were a few key players on the other team who had a history of being easily lured into fights. So I did some research and watched some old footage of them playing, and found out what provoked the fights. For one of them it was any remark an opposing player made about his sloppy skating. For another it was any remark made about his wife cheating on him, which she was. For another it was any remark that an opposing player made about his...uh...sexuality, any inference that he was gay. So I just did all these things during tonight's game, and the guys jumped me. All three of them fouled out, and the other team had to spend three five-minute penalty periods playing one man down. We scored one goal during each of those three penalty periods. I won the game for the Maple Leafs." The problem in hockey with being easily taunted into a fight is that it makes you an "easy mark." Anyone who has figured out your weaknesses -- the things that you just *have* to respond to by fighting back -- can lure you into a fight, and thus into fouling yourself out. T'would seem that now that the 35-post-per-week rule is in effect here on Fairfield Life, the same scenario applies here. Those who have no self control "foul out," and have to sit on the bench for part of the week, watching everyone else play. Those who have more self control get to play out the entire game. Fairfield Life *used* to be like a hockey game with no rules. The compulsive posters, those who were either easily drawn into fights or who actually enjoyed starting them, could do so as long as they wanted. There was no "down side" for them to having zero self control. But now there are rules. Lose your self control, get compulsive about some silly issue and shoot your wad of posts within one or two days, and you've fouled out. You're on the bench for the rest of the game, watching the others play. Interestingly enough, at least one of the players who has spent some time on the gone-over-the-35-post-limit bench (and who it seems will spend more in the near future) struts around proudly, as if she "won" the fights that put her there. She claims to *never* have been manipulated by other posters, to have always been the one who "decided" whether to reply to each post or not. Yet there she is on the bench, unable to say a word, while the other posters who *put* her on the bench are still playing, and still having fun. It's just a metaphor. FFL is not a hockey game. There is no scoring system here, and no one "wins" or "loses" each week's game. But my bet is that there are a couple of folks here who will spend a great *deal* of time during each week's game on the bench. They'll claim up one side and down the other that they "won" all the fights that put them there, but there they are on the bench, aren't they, while the people they were arguing with are not. Let's hear a round of applause for the "winners."
