I haven't written a daylog since
September 7, 2006, and before that I really didn't do it often anyway. But I've been coming to E2 when I can, reading new nodes, interesting nodes, friends' nodes, and daylogs. The recent daylogs about people reflecting on E2 are pretty interesting.
oakling pointed out having been on E2 for five-something years and referred to that as a "ridiculously long time." I'm right there too--my homenode says 6.1 years. I've seen the changes and occasionally had an opinion on them. I've seen controversy over things like tits on a keyboard and Butterfinger McFlurry getting to stick around in the face of raising the bar, and I've tried to explain said things to people I dragged over here, along with earn your bullshit vs. um, try not to node bullshit at all.
I've done the neener-neener dance at people who claim that your first node always gets deleted when my first node is still around and got a C! for its trouble. (I actually listened to the Everything University and whatnot, intimidated by the promise of being eaten alive if I didn't, and nine of my first ten nodes--seventeen of my first twenty--now bear proud C!s.)
I was there during April Trolls Day, amused and confused, and had a piece of my own bullshit deleted by an editor whose wits were fried by dealing with the supposed hacker invasion. I own a shirt that displays the text of Butterfinger McFlurry. I've got an E2 poster emblazoned with nodes of real members. I have used the soy chant in real life. I've even taken a lesbian or two out of the shredder, and I've had both delightful discussions and idiotic arguments in the catbox and the E2 inbox. I understand the story behind the sumbit button. I've given 70 very selfish C!s and have mistakenly C!ed two people. I've made a couple friends. I've pissed off a few people. I've been pissed off by a few people.
I don't think I'm a well-known or popular noder, but I've got some longevity and I have some quality writeups. I'm in the Everything's Best Users top 10 by XP. I took on a mentee who became a successful noder in his own right and nodes more than I do now. (Points at artman2003 . . . sorry, everyone, he's my fault.) I've been to but one E2 gathering. I've noded very little besides books and recipes for years. And I owe E2 a lot more nodes in the future. I'm kind of a fringe member, but E2 is pretty important to me, and I'm willing to ride the wave no matter where it goes.
I think part of the reason there's so much weirdness going on what with E2 changing and some people fighting the change while others welcome it and still others point out exactly how much it HASN'T changed . . . is that there is both a purpose and a culture to this site. The core members of E2 at one time were a particular type of people who if they did not see eye-to-eye, they at least understood and tolerated each other. A lot of silliness erupted, and a lot of people got pissed about the silliness because they felt it gave the site a "feel" of nonsense when it was supposed to be an informative site.
I think it's kind of like the phenomenon where it's said geeks like science fiction. Not all geeks like science fiction, and not all science fiction readers are geeks. But a lot of the time, if you get a bunch of science fiction fans in a room and one of them is a typical popular frat boy type or something, chances are he's going to feel that the other fans are being cold to him and the other fans are going to feel uncomfortable in his presence, and neither of those reactions is caused by any of their attitudes toward science fiction. It's all about the supposed science fiction culture.
E2 is different things to different people, and to some it is the writing itself that is important to the soul of the group who writes it. To others it is the people doing the writing no matter what it is they write. As far as CRAP goes, I think that crap has a time and a place, and if it wasn't amusing and interesting to many folks on this site, a controversial node wouldn't be on an E2 tee shirt that I now own. And most of us can tell the difference between crap that's meant to be crap and crap that is nothing but a waste of space. That said, it's not as if E2 has turned into Wikipedia just because the bar was raised. We still node poetry, fiction, how-to guides, songs, opinion pieces, and philosophy. And silliness still sneaks in. We still put our tits on the keyboard every once in a while.
I love it all, from the perfect node to the occasional dick in the mashed potatoes.
I like to think I'm part of that soul of E2, and I'm staying.