I've always been more of a deviantart browser than a doer. I'm not an artist, you see, and I've just always felt strange about posting writing on a site with so many gorgeous visuals. So up in my profile, it says hack, and it says it for a reason. I'm here to appreciate, more than anything, and I'm here to enjoy the talent of others that I otherwise might not have the oppertunity to experience.

So to be flat out honest, I don't know jack about the history of the site, the founders, the grand scheme, what it started out as and where it's going now. Hell, I didn't know who °jark was until about half an hour ago. In such situations, I usually reserve my words for a time when I have all the facts, but I know from Intro to Anthropology that there's really no such thing as a fact in a situation like this. Every statement that comes from an interested party's mouth contains, invariably, inevitably, spin.

But here's the thing, and in my opinion, it's the important thing: if one makes a drastic change in an arena that is, by nature, a community, one owes that community some sort of explaination, if the community is to remain whole. There's conflict, and then there's war, there's smoke, and then there's a volcano. Hell, even in volcanos- you've got your Mt. St. Helens, which tend to behave themselves, you've got your Vesuvius, which takes out a whole city and freezes it in time, just as it was, and you've got Krakatoa. Put enough pressure on enough opposing force, and it's just going to explode, taking the community with it.

So to sum up my ill-phrased and geological metaphor-mixed little schpeil, some honesty would go rather a long way here. The people know who, what, when. They need and want why and how. Do the higher ups have to give it to them? No, but hell, no one has to do anything but take up space.

It's decision time for a lot of people, and how they want to handle an unusual, some might say absolutely extraordinary, situation. The decisions made will shape the whole future of the community, whether those in a position to make them realize this or not. It's the difference between solidity and swamp, between something clear and real and valuable, and something cheap, that could be had just about anywhere, and for nothing. So will it be something sought out by the gifted and sharp, or will it be a haven for the mediocre and dull? Is it going to be one of those things of which people remember the good old days, but unhappily, because the way in which the days turned bad has left the bitterest possible taste? Or will it be something real?

Like I said. Talking out of my ass. It's after 4 am here, and I'm far, far from informed, but my principles, right down to the bones of me, maintain that knowledge can never, ever be bad for the person who posesses it. It may not be what we all want to hear, but everything will be better for having heard the truth. Truth over silence, forever, even if the truth makes us unhappy.

So yeah. I apologize to anyone who read my sleep addled ramblings and was revolted, if it makes sense, ginchy. Either way. The ants go marching one by one, but remember that Achilles' warriors were myrmiddons, if you catch my meaning. Color me yellow.