Message Boards - Prelude to the Pet Peeves

I suppose I'm naturally a cynical and ill-tempered person in general, so I wanted to get that out of the way right up front. If I could be represented as a smiley I would most definitely be the
one with the rolling eyes.

That said, I have a list of pet peeves in the world that would rival in length Shakespeare's completed works. Over the years, I developed a lengthy list--perhaps just Macbeth-length--of peeves that pertain to just message boards.

For the sake of full disclosure, I frequent just two hockey card-related message boards. The first is Hobby Insider (referred to here on out as HI), where you have to be approved before being allowed to join. It is well organized, people are genuinely helpful, and it's filled with people who truly enjoy the hobby. The other is maintained by that bastion of the hobby, Beckett Media. Beckett lets any yahoo join it's message boards, and it unfortunately shows. Beckett is moderated in the sense that there are moderators, and they do an outstanding job with what they have. They are purely voluntary but act as if it is a paid job.

If HI and Beckett were siblings, HI would be the mature one, always eating his peas, minding his q's, always obeying; Beckett would be the one that tries and sets the neighbor's cat on fire and flicks boogers at the other kids.

So, I'll give you one guess where my pet peeves originate from. Yep, Beckett. Perhaps it's because I have been hardened by the years of repeated threads, useless posts, senseless members, and other such nonsense. According to my profile I have been a member since August 27, 2004. That means that by my math, I have roughly 10 gray hairs for each year, and I'm pretty sure that at least a few are due directly to Beckett.

Why do I let it bother me so much? I wish I had a good answer for that. My wife hears me chuckle or sigh on a regular basis as I'm sitting in front of my laptop. When I mention it to her, and she hears the words "Beckett boards" she immediately glazes over. It's all old hat to her, as is her response: "So what?!"

Obviously my wife doesn't get it. Or may she gets it just perfectly and I'm the one who doesn't.

Anyway, I figured I'd enumerate the pet peeves at some point, but I felt I had to get the intro out of the way first.

Stay tuned!