1. Considering the impact of losing one’s community, there is not a nasty flame to be found in the comments; even the negative ones are written civil manner. -Is this a reflection of the Favrd community — if so, that is a great accomplishment in itself.

2. The discussion on this blog could not have taken place if Favrd was still in operation. Or to put it another way:: “you may can speculate how you ‘might’ feel to have one of your legs whacked off — but you can not ‘really-know’ — until you have one of your legs whacked off for real.”

3. I think both sides of the “close-Favrd” / “don’t-close-Favrd” issue have equal value; the arguments presented here reflect that. Sometimes it is hard to see the the value both sides of an issue; -it is difficult to ignore our emotional center — and it is impossible — if all of our beliefs are an end product of emotional filtering.

4. This comment posed by ‘navanax’ on 23 December 2009 at 6:03 pm earns my utmost respect. It is brief, concise, and sincere:

>>>
“Thank you Z for providing a place for this wonderful discussion.

I would like to take advantage of this space to thank Dean Allen for creating and providing such a great site, for as long as he did.

I admire someone who uses their creative talents to provide such a wonderful entertainment that people were brought together and community(s) were formed around it.

May your future endeavors be so successful.

Cheers.”
<<<

Isn't that wonderful… doesn't that make all of us feel good inside.

"But doesn't the poster have personal feelings about the 'decision' to close Favrd?" -Of course.
"Why were they not posted here?" -Perhaps the poster's positive feelings far outweighed the negative ones; maybe the poster is just a polite person; perhaps the poster believes a person should not be criticized for their possible failures at the same time they are being patted on the back of their accomplishments.
"Do we have to figure out the motives of considerate people?" -No we do not — but we can ask ourselves, "How do we measure up to their example".

Well, as Dean said, "Gosh this got long."

Regards,
DCStrain
(…oh…and yes, I have had my leg whacked off ;-)

dennis_strain (at) hotmail (dot) com

“The whole leaderboard dynamic was clearly a false-starter. As soon as you start to quantify the value of something as inherently subjective as written language it was always going to get silly buggers running around trying to game it; that’s human nature (i.e. lots of people are asshats). But I would argue focusing on the number of favourites any given tweet may accrue isn’t and should never have been a visible part of the workings of the site.”

How would a daily leaderboard NOT create a competition and provide the conditions for the very same creatures Cameron now denigrates? C’mon. Seriously. Can anyone say myopic?

Now the whole “community” clusters around Favstar and whatever the next site is. Systems may change, but people remain unspectacularly the same.

That’s the only sad part of this fiasco — not the loss Favrd, not the angst and silent suffering of St. Dean Cameron Allen, kind and generous genius, the Jesus who had to sacrifice himself for the sins of the unwashed masses.

I would like to take advantage of this space to thank Dean Allen for creating and providing such a great site, for as long as he did.

I admire someone who uses their creative talents to provide such a wonderful entertainment that people were brought together and community(s) were formed around it.

May your future endeavors be so successful.

Cheers.

I still get to see my friends, I still get to give them props for their post, I still get to contribute to a community… but it feels like a forced family reunion trying to replicate what once was.

Just wanted to say I miss it, and thank everyone for making it brilliant.

any social media – blogs, forums, communities, twitter, facebook – they are all ego fueled. always have been. there’s a pay off or people wouldn’t participate. twitter is so telling. one person i follow is very insecure and constantly uses twitter to portray herself as desirable to men because she knows her ex reads her stream. i had to unfollow one person because while his tweets were very funny, there was an air of desperation to them. he really needs people to like his jokes, to the point of offering prizes if he received more stars than one of his friends. then there are the travelers – always complaining about flights and airports and weather – but the subtext is “someone thinks i’m important enough to fly me around the country”. it’s a fascinating study.

dean is just maintaining his personal integrity. he’s listening to his internal voice which is the only one that matters.