Just sitting here working on the IRC project (well trying to, socket programming is going slower than I had hoped) and started thinking about how everything has played out this year on A.cc for me. I left IRC because I felt, due to my whining and complaining, that I was no longer wanted there and haven't been back. On A.cc several have flat out admitted they blocked my posts, been capped for a few months now due to an incident. 11 years of being harmless to get capped for one minor incident has made me start wondering if I'm no longer welcome here. Because of my grating personality, do I need to move on and leave A.cc?

Wouldn't be the first time.

You're living in the past. He's asking a question about now. Let it go. Are you bitter?

To the OP, I don't have any problems with your posts at all. There are other people here I'd like to see leave. You're not one of them.

What would I be bitter about? Are you projecting your own bitterness on me?

I just think he shouldn't spend too much time thinking about it and should just do it. Specter has left the community so many times already, it just doesn't feel remarkable anymore.

So yeah... get out, come back in a few months/years and let the Specter Phoenix get reborn from the ashes again, eh?

The times I left before were due to me being depressed and feeling lost in regards to programming. This time I'm neither as I'm currently working on the aspects to make an IRC client.

I'm not talking about months/years, I mean permanently. No reborn from ashes this time. I just figure, if my assumption is right and I'm no longer welcome here, I might as well leave, but I just wanted to make sure it isn't just my imagination.

I'm positive I'm not wanted on IRC (that was made plainly obvious) and I left. Just occurred to me, that the same people are in the A.cc community too, so I'm probably not wanted here either. If this is the case, I'll bow out.

Bear in mind you do not have permission from King Piccolo to depart.
In the in the event you do leave with out a signed waver from the King , you will be severely punished to the extent no amount of phoenix-downs would rebirth you.

It's about time Matthew reset the ban.

SP: I like your posts because you are a regular guy like me compared to all these programming wizards and gurus on here who are omniscient. Don't leave or I will be even more shadowed by their wisdom.

@Specter, I don't know you but personally I don't think you can worry about what the other people think of you. It's important to have opinions and conviction so as long as it's done in a somewhat polite way. If you feel you want to change how you handle certain situations then focus on that and stick around. People can change, and those who don't believe that and view you in only a certain way can be left behind. Haters going to hate as they say. Don't event worry about it, and just code.

As I'm sure you're aware, a large aspect of depression is poor self-image and the associated misguided thoughts about oneself that this causes.

These thought patterns seem to be prevalent here. I recall when you left the IRC channel, as at the time I had my IRC client going 24/7. I even distinctly remember reading back through some of the logs to see at the time what you perceived as definitely not being wanted. While your behaviour certainly was annoying some people, I never found any comments that justified such claims.

There's certainly even less animosity here on the forums. If you perceive there to be, then I think it's mostly in your own head, and it's something you may want to work on in your own time.

I'm sure you've noticed our member #'s by now, Specter...

When I first came here in 2001 I was a bit of a hotshot rookie, always thinking I knew the right answer to everything and arguing with people who were probably more right than I was.

Since then, I leave without warning when I stop programming in Allegro and come back without warning when I get back into it... though with A5 being as useful as it is I probably won't be going anywhere again anytime soon.

Granted, I do still get into non-heated arguements from time to time but they never get personal or anything.

I'm not saying my situation is similar to yours, (heck, I have no idea what went on with you and why you're making this decision), but what I'm saying is that I look at you and see another Allegro programmer, sticking around to give advice and ramble about whatever as every other Allegro programmer tends to do. So long as you continue to use Allegro, you're gonna want to stick around and screw anyone who wants to hold a grudge against you; that's their problem.

Hah, I'm sure you weren't talking about temporary leaves of absence the past 4 times either .

People who actually leave -- just leave without posting about it. One day it occurs to you that you haven't seen so-and-so for a few weeks or months. This is a solicitation for comfort or something.

Hey, if you're feeling down, don't let it get to you. No reason to leave here. If you're asking to e comforted then here's a big pat on the shouler from me. PAT!

I hope that helped a bit!

There will always be people who you're not welcome to, and people who welcome you (as this thread shows). Personally, I'd just pay more attention to the ones who welcome you and ignore the other ones

You're not that bad. If you need to, take a(nother) temporary leave for a while and come back. I think the people who want to see you gone may be gone themselves if this thread is anything to go by. Or they just ignore your posts and don't care what you do.

Don't listen to the people who think their big brains are more important than their black little hearts.

Oohhh I remember when I saw this forum for the first time... I was using a black and white monitor, and my CPU consumed a lot of oil... Thomas was a baby, and Arthur didn't know how to spell his own last name. Matthew was all the time but with smaller glasses and more innocent and Peter was just dreaming about Allegro 5.2 and Neil about creating its own version of Pacman... Pacman Deluxe. And Edgar was saying all the time, "when I grow up I want to design the GUI for Windows 8" and everyone was like "Windows 8? What the fuck is that?" and Edgar "It's going to be a new operating system which will support touch screen monitors and you won't need the mouse" I remember that when he get out of the mental hospital for saying such stupid things, he just started to work in a GUI for Allegro 0.1...

What memories...

Do you enjoy being around here? Have you been banned?

If you answered yes to the first, and no to the second, then stick around.

The true douchebags on a forum never ask "Should I stick around?" They simply move on once they realize everyone has learned to ignore their particular flavor of BS.

My suggestion is to increase the length of your ignore list.
Don't leave Allegro, leave the people who treat you badly.

Yes.

No, but might as well be, have a 5 post cap which limits any help I can offer (even in it limits).

That is something I have actually started doing.

Then you must not have been on the night I left for good as I recall a few telling me to "shut the fuck up and leave" because they were tired of my whining and complaining. I'd call that not wanting me around as I don't normally use that language when I want someone around. Which is why I asked, if the sentiment was the same at A.cc then I would just do what everyone wanted and leave. I don't want to, but I don't want to be part of a forum where my personality is so grating that everyone would rather have me gone.

All that said, the few times I've found myself completely unwelcome on a forum happened within the first three posts.

You've been here how many years now? I think you're OK.

People change a lot. I feel that myself, I have lost a lot of idealism and many times what once was perfectly clear to me turned out not to be as easy as I thought. Sometimes life can be really depressing and the more you understand the more you are overwhelmed. For now, I am convinced: You can't judge and do the objectively right thing for a specific case, to some extent there is always a risk you're fatally wrong. Just pick yourself a few goals that harmonize with your conscience for orientation and go after them.

So if you ask me, if you enjoy that community and find yourself coming back here often and reading posts, then stay here. At worst, you're wrong. So?

"shut the fuck up and leave" is one thing that comes to mind to say to a person whining about leaving.

Yeah, I seem to remember the sentiments being more along the line of "If you don't like it, shut up and leave."

You need to recheck your logs because the last time I left wasn't because I wanted to leave. I pissed off half the channel because I was going on about how I want to improve my skills, but my confidence makes me war with myself and ultimately back out of my project ideas. By the time I was done I was basically told off by several members on IRC and Thomas may remember this better because he was torn when I ultimately left as he was trying to help me, but frustrated with my confidence issue. It was bad enough that I think it was Thomas that started considering banning me because by the time I was done I was pissed too and kept acting like I didn't give a shit due to how some of the guys were responding.

van_houtte's not here, so I'll have to take his place

Informal poll - What would van_houtte say? :

1)OMG man the fuck up

2)cool story bro

3)panties in a bunch?

Seriously though, why does it bother you so much? I find your lack of ability to finish something personally disappointing, but we all have that disease to some degree, or we're just infected with wanderlust when it comes to coding projects. Some of us like TrentG have some discipline, but not all... Do you need me to beat somebody up for you or what? Just man up, and code, and work on one project until you're satisfied or you've come to a reasonable level of completion. That in itself will earn you more respect than asking if you should leave or not.

And for the record, I don't find you unwelcome. So I will take this opportunity to welcome you to the forum of zealots of english and coding gurus extraordinaire, allegro.cc.

I don't care about all those silly bablings.

If Specter want to leave, he leaves, else he stay. He could also round horse-ride his arse with his keyboard, I don't care too ^^

Specter, IMHO you're just a lazy and bored guys. Perhaps if you start by finishing a few projects you would feel better.

This is internet man. Come, leave, nobody really care.

I'm not sure of your ability to take a joke and I hope you can take the following image with a smile instead of a frown. Introspection is okay too, though I imagine it comes easy to you and you are hard on yourself, as you also seem depressed to me (it's not always overall sadness). Later edit: Really, you're an alright guy but you should stop questioning yourself. For your sake more than that of others.

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I've never had a problem with you Specter and have enjoyed a good many of your posts.

That being said I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, I certainly wouldn't hold it against you one way or the other.

Don't know who you are don't care what you do