I find myself unable to sleep and up at 4:30am contemplating what is best for me and what level of stress I feel is acceptable.

Despite my best efforts to change the quality of my engagement on this website over the last 6 months, it seems to me sometimes that some things will never truly change here. And because of that I believe that I should accept the inevitable and bow out. In the past there have been a number of factors that have prevented me from doing this: the temptation to take part has always exceeded my resolve to stay away, I've even asked the owner on several occasions to deactivate my account to remove the temptation (or at least the ability to post even if I could read). My resolve is much deeper now, and frankly I have become sick and tired of the whole thing.

I have always been brutally honest about my own shortcomings and quick to take ownership if I had erred. I've been contentious, but I have also provided a great deal of content. Much of my content generation has been around exploring creative expression with or without a fountain pen. Diversity is really important to me. My content has received glowing commendation even from members who otherwise view me as an adversary. I won't trawl posts to demonstrate that, I leave that to others.

The regular hostile flares are a symptom of something here. I have been involved in some of these, but I am by no means alone in this regard. In certain subforums it is brutal. The handful of us that regularly battle there have at it with a will. All participants there expect and give no quarter. Occasionally it dies down for a while, not for long. It's kind of intoxicating if one is into arguments I suppose. Any time this bleeds into the main part of the website - the pen part - I feel much like Christof, that we should be ashamed of what we are creating or perpetuating. I would go further than this and state that the subforum in question really has no legit reason for being on this website at all. It surprises me that it is here as it has nothing whatsoever to do with this hobby.

With regard to my contentiousness, all I can say is that it generally related to me truthfully reporting the experiences I've had and the impressions and perspectives that were born from those experiences. Beyond that I have had to defend myself time and time again from hostile members who have seen fit to dismiss my experiences as being untrue. That's not very fair, and it's never really going to change here. People actively seek out stuff to throw in my face, and then take no ownership of their part in the degradation of the environment here. [I will note at this point that I fully expect certain members to throw this in my face, thus making my point for me. They can't help it either, it is part of their nature.]

As for fountain pens, well, to me they are nothing more than a semi-interesting tool. Nothing special, nothing arcane, simple to understand and use. Fun at times but not significant in my life. Thinking on it, I haven't written anything with a fountain pen for some months now. Realising this lack of significance led me to wanting to jettison most of the pens I owned. I couldn't do that to my satisfaction here, and I wasn't going to go on eBay on principle. As a result the 16 vintage pens that I did own actually ended up in our local landfill. Money is not that important to me, and the loss of buying them had already been accounted for. What I will do with the bare handful of modern pens I still have I don't really know. It's likely they will end up as gifts to friends or giveaways on other sites. I've been extremely generous with giveaways on FPGeeks. That stops now.

I won't be responding to any posts directed at me, or about me, from this point forward. So if people want to get their jabs in, go ahead. You will not get the satisfaction of a reply. I am done here.

If anyone wants to contact me backchannel that's okay, though in light of the owner not deleting my account I will be changing all settings to 'not receive anything from anyone' at the end of the year. I have already exchanged private email addresses with those who have become friends over the last eight years.

Beyond that I wish you all well, despite the differences between some of us, and I can only hope that the dying embers of this place may be fanned to brightness in the future.


Lastly, I have a message for one particular member who I have been at loggerheads for quite a while. I have tried to smooth things over, and most of the time I have been very receptive to you approaching me with courteous requests. And yet it hasn't really helped and I am very sorry about that. Here's something you don't know. The reason I stopped attending the online meetings of (what is now) the Space City Pen Club is because I felt that you would stop if I continued. As your investment in this hobby is far greater than mine, I didn't think it fair that you may withdraw from those meetings on account of my presence. I never said anything about it because I though you knew. Well, now you do.