In the last 12 years of being on internet forums, I've learned that threads such as this are usually either for attention (like someone threatening suicide for attention and then not following through), or someone trying to make everyone else realize how "terrible" they are that they chased someone away in the hopes things will change (and they don't ever change - a forum is what it is, and one person throwing a fit is not going to hange it). I was once on a forum that delete threads like this as soon as they were made - the policy was go or stay, but announcing you're leaving is kind of pointless unless it's just a long-term absence and you would like people to know when you will return.
The bottom line is Chaz isn't for everyone. If you want to learn and grow and are willing to do so, it's a great place. If you want to hash it out with someone over something that doesn't truly have an answer, it's a great place. If you want to posts a crap ton of pictures, it's a great place. If you want honest advice, it's a great place. If you want everyone to agree with you and aren't willing to consider the other side of the argument...it's not such a great place.
Not everyone can thrive in an environment with as little moderation as there is here. Some people do great with it. Some people want everyone who says something they don't agree with to be banned (which I thoroughly hope NEVER happens on Chaz). I am a moderator for another forum and it is HEAVILY moderated. If an argument breaks out over there it is stopped almost instantly (provided a mod is online...they have continued for a few hours when no mod is online, but NEVER for days at a time). That is a good environment for some people. For others, it's not.
Nearly every forum I join, I want to leave sometime in the first year. If I make it past a year, I'm stuck there until the forum explodes or something (and I have been involved in one forum explosion, it was NOT pretty, it ended up with several fragment forums and the community never recovered...which is a shame because it was a nice forum for a long time and I learned a lot while I was active there). If I had ran away every time I felt like I wanted to, I wouldn't be here anymore either. And I wouldn't have Logan, because I found him 100% because of Chaz. There's no way I'd ever have looked for a collie, let alone one halfway across the country, without Chaz. My dogs (actually dog, because I wouldn't have my second dog) would also be eating Purina ONE still, and Gavroche would still have undiagnosed thyroid disease.
If this is a place you truly want to be, use the ignore function, have an open mind, and live with what you don't like. I currently have 6 people set to ignore. One I have no idea why they're there but they haven't posted in a long time, and they never made many posts, so they may have just been a troll or something anyway. Some people I've had on ignore temporarily just to get over something, and then take them off my ignore list. I'm actually going to add someone to my list in just a minute here. You aren't missing much with the ignore fucntion - it still tells you that said person made a post, and you're welcome to click on the little button to see what they said. You control exactly how much ignoring you want to do. If you have terrible willpower and HAVE to look, the ignore function will not do a bit of good. But if you just DON'T want to hear it anymore, or the person irritates the crap out of you continually, and you're okay with not seeing everything, it's pretty nice to have.
