Posted on 12/31/2004 5:03:47 PM PST by spodefly
Societies and cultures fall when conventions, traditions, and customs are subsumed to anarchistic breeches of those traditions and customs. The very essence of our Conservatism is tied to seeing that those traditions and customs are not replaced willy-nilly, but that we consider the weight of changes and use our reason to determine if a change is salutary or deleterious. Over the past several days I have seen what I believe to be very deleterious changes taking place at Free Republic, and being Conservative by nature, allied to tradition, and filled with the utmost respect for the customs that enabled Free Republic to attain the worldwide acclaim it so richly deserves, I cannot sit idly by and watch this once great institution reduced to a shell of it's once great self by those that would shun our traditions and customs to suit their own anarchic goals.
I feel that I must make a plea. This is not a vanity post. This is a Public Service announcement!
We all know that the acronym BTTT stands for "Bump To The Top". This has been a convention since the beginning, and it is a convention that I have taken seriously, In fact, I won an award one time for for a tagline wherein I proudly proclaimed that "I've posted nothing but BTTT over 1000 times!!!". We are all aware of the importance of Bumping To The Top a thread we have deemed to be worthy of the attention of the forum. This is the essence of our communications, to make noticeable those things that might otherwise have slipped from our views.
Despite the revered and important tradition of Bumping a thread To The Top, I have witnessed what I believe to be a serious breach of that tradition. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it possible, but this tradition is under attack. In just the past few days I have seen numerous instances where someone posted 'BTT', which I assume they are intending to mean 'Bump The Thread" or maybe 'Bump To Top'. But this is not our way, and this cryptic acronym is not even truly clear in its meaning.
I have seen this from people that have been here long enough to know better. And yet, they do this with impunity and a callous lack of regard for our institution. And what of the newbies? What will they think when they see 'BTT' posted on a thread. How will they know the horrible breach which has occurred right before their eyes? How will they know better than to follow this horrible course, and bring ruin to us all.
But that is how it starts ... the slide to anarchy, the crumbling of institutions -- one person at a time, perhaps innocently following the degraded path set for them by others. We must eschew the degraded path and set an example for all the world to see. There can be no way to justify this perilous descent into chaos. It is not a matter of "making improvements" or of being "progressive" and it is most certainly not a matter of bandwidth. We are not so constrained by bandwidth as to prevent our typing one additional character, when it is that character that gives accurate meaning to our post. In fact the bandwidth argument is absurd on it's face.
We are living in a wired world where movies and congressional hearings are sent streaming over the Internet, every page you see has graphics galore, and even we here at FR pepper our threads with images of cats and links to high bandwidth video of things blowing up. I often place images in my posts because I believe we are multisensory creatures and seeing an image with the message, while not really multisensory in itself, might trigger multisensory perceptual capacities that otherwise might not have been there, thereby precipitating increased recall and retention. But I am not a doctor, so I don't know for certain about that last part. Nonetheless, graphics are good. I am especially fond of these graphics and wonder why people don't use them more often:
But that is neither here nor there to the topic at hand.
My FRiends, our posts are our lives. Do not shirk your responsibilities. And do not allow our meanings to be made unclear by those that would thwart our conventions in the name of expediency. This cannot simply be a matter of expediency or efficiency. It is a matter of preserving that which makes us who we are.
BTTT matters.
Finally, I would like to wish everyone Happy New Year. Maybe 2005 will be the best year that all of us have ever had. That's what I want anyway. Good luck with those resolutions. If you are going to join a gym and quit smoking, then here is hoping that you manage to accomplish that goal. Resolutions are important, and so are you.
I have resolved that I will not drink anymore at all for the rest of this year. OK, maybe just one more, but that's it ...
bttt
another bookmark.
bttt
Necro-thread! I had almost forgotten about this. Thanks for the BTTT!!!
The tradition lives!
BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.