A little history.

[PhilosophicalPhil]

I joined the forum here in April 2006 after googling "Philosophy". It simply looked like a good place for discussion.
I wrote down a few thoughts and posted "Women’s Identity' the same day. Proved to be quite contentious and I remember being a bit taken aback by some of the emotive responses. Not the cool detached discussion I had expected! But then that has been the beauty of the forum - the perspective shift we can encounter.

After a while I decided that a 'friend' might be useful to put forward a different point of view than my own (or from my own 'stereotyped' view that others would read into my posts!)
And so Reverend YingTongPlong appeared. Mystical, obscure and deep the Reverend was someone of few words and often none of them made any sense.

Pretty soon I felt that that another side of my personality needed to be expressed. Tactless, forthright, one who calls a spade a spade. Someone happy to shun the bullshit of civilisation for the honesty of nature. Someone who'd wear their pants hitched high up under their armpits and not give a shit what it looked like.
Harry fitted the bill perfectly.

These characters expressed themselves uniquely and yet were still me. Interesting. When I wrote did I become them or was it just a side of my personality given freedom of expression?

Soon they were joined by B# and Prickly Pete, and Ping & Pong.
Dear Ping & Pong. By now I had decided that the best way to keep dialogue going in a topic was to create your own conversation, however I do think the idea for them exceeded their actual ability to keep a conversation going!

And then along came the Straw Dog Blog. While I kept away from it for a while I was fascinated by the unbridled aggression and the 'stuff you' attitude that kept people coming back . I thought a simple, innocent child character would be the ideal foil for the nasty, aggressive, pathetic bravado of Straw Dog .
I loved the Noddy books as a kid. Golly was it. Once again I was surprised how people would happily engage in conversation with a foul mouthed, nasty character like Straw Dog yet find Golly offensive.
How Golly did enjoy baiting the dog!

Then things really got entertaining. To this day I am not sure who was behind the multitude of other characters that sprang up - often overnight - but I will claim responsibility for Gordon F Ramsay, Boy GeorgeFan ClubPresident, Data1000, ParisHilton, BarryTheBlogAddict & LittleNoddy.

Recently I rolled out Chairman Mao. I don't think he had a future did he?

I've had some wonderful conversations and debates here and thank those that have persevered with me and my friends. It has always swung between enlightenment and chaos.

Phil

[duszek]

I have never tried such a thing and I probably never will.
It would be like playing chess with oneself, turning the board after each move.

However, it is true that you can develop different personalities on different forums, especially if you use different languages and your way of expressing yourself has to be different.
Your personality changes or adapts to the circumstances and the interlocutors.
So I am different people too, but not on one forum at the same time.

[bus2bondi]

thanks for RYTP, he was always my favorite on the forum, please tell him hello

[Psychonaut]

If people held Straw Dog to lower standards it is because they expected less of him.

Thanks for the entertainment Phil, and for clearing up a number of mysteries

[mhoraine]

PhilosophicalPhil

He say : ' I joined the forum here in April 2006....'

but who were you before that ? Hmm ?

Oh dear me, and all the time I thought HarryHighPants was NonSum.
Thanks, Phil, I adored P&P. So what now.....no more HHP, surely not !
And why the sudden need to confess..

I would love to hear how/why others joined, and if they enjoy playing with their selves.
I can't remember when I became part of this motley crew. Do we have access to the old forum ?

M.

[Psychonaut]

If I recall correctly the old forum was lost when the hosting site changed their software. They offered their clients the opportunity to purchase the records of old forums, and Rick decided to do this. Unfortunately the software required to open the file is proprietary, and so the file is useless.