Congratulations, RG!

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twistor
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Congratulations, RG!

Post by twistor » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:37 pm

Your absence has killed this board. Way to go!

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butsurigakusha
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by butsurigakusha » Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:49 pm

I am not so sure. I wonder if this wasn't an inevitable result. Preparing for the GRE, applying to graduate school, waiting, then getting acceptance letters and rejection letters, and visiting the schools and making the decisions were what kept this board alive. Now that it is all done, there isn't much left to support this board. RG leaving doesn't help, but I don't think this board would have remained lively even with him. I, for one, am not going to be checking back nearly as often, although I will not leave completely.

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will
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by will » Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:23 am

I will.

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twistor
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by twistor » Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:10 am

This would function much better if everyone would just agree to use RG as a scapegoat.

LucasWillis
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by LucasWillis » Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:22 am

Yeah, *** Richard Gere. ***.

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quizivex
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by quizivex » Sun May 04, 2008 4:32 am

Yeah I concede with butsu that the dwindling in activity on the forum is inevitable. Undergrad advice, the GRE and the graduate admission process kept people coming to the forum and all the fun grew out of that, but now that these formalities are over, there just isn't much incentive to stick around. I really enjoyed the November-February era on here. We were by far the most active class in the history of physicsgre.com. The "big 5" posters really gave life to the forum. Even little things we did made a difference... One of us (grae?) put up an avatar and everyone followed... and I noticed once I started putting citing usernames within quotes, that quickly became the trend. While some users weren't so "fond" of a few of us, the fact that we made so many posts kept all the other users checking the threads and making responses of their own. No wonder that even outside of the top 5, there are 6 users from this year that made more posts than everyone in past years. I think it's clear that this board is growing exponentially and pretty soon (if not already), most of the undergrads in the country will know about it. At times I regret some of the posts I made... I definitely don't want to give people a bad impression of the field, or of "state schools" or whatever, but as most of us agree, there are a handful of downsides in physics that we really don't deserve. I'm glad I started the profile thread, so at least I've made my mark, around 80 complete profiles that will be very helpful to future classes.

I look forward to checking back on the forum this fall, and hopefully seeing another enthusiastic, down to earth, good humored group of future grad students discussing anything and everything. Perhaps there will be another big 5, another class prick/troll, and a few classic (but civil) arguments.

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grae313
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by grae313 » Mon May 05, 2008 2:21 pm

I think both you and butsu had avatars before I did... just giving credit where it is due :wink:

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quizivex
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by quizivex » Mon May 05, 2008 7:38 pm

Yes, I was probably the first of the regular users (except perhaps for Gant, or maybe butsu), and I sarcastically took responsibility for the trend at one point:
twistor on 2/2 wrote:Who started this avatar nonsense? Now these forums take even longer to load...
quizivex on 2/2 wrote:I believe I was the first of the regular users to upload an image... I take full credit for starting this trend... I am the sole author for something at last!
However, if you investigate the threads closely, it was in fact grae313 who made it a hip, "in", cool, da sh*t thang to upload an avatar. Because so many of the forum members were startled by grae's giant eye staring at them, it was she who really brought attention to the idea of avatars.

Much of this played out on the Shalacked Again thread that grae started.
RG wrote:One think really scares me, GRAE's eyes! I just cannot read any of the posts cuz she keeps staring at me!! Idon know why
anthonyk wrote:haha you guys are ridiculous, cool eye color though!
fermiboy wrote:grae313 you should take it as a compliment. You have eyes like Charlize!
doom wrote:Besides your Huge Internet Tears from your Huge Internet Eye will surely drown us all. Then we wouldn't have to worry about getting shellacked.


And then the dominos started falling:
fermiboy wrote:That eye is freaking me out! I decided to get an avatar too.
and
will wrote:Avatars? I want to play!
And right around then things spiraled out of control, and pretty much everyone got an avatar. From that day on, new users that came to the forum typically started out with an avatar from the beginning!

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dlenmn
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by dlenmn » Mon May 05, 2008 7:58 pm

quiz, that's some top notch historical research right there... I feel that you have a promising future as an archaeologist!

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quizivex
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by quizivex » Mon May 05, 2008 8:03 pm

Thanks! I was quite proud of my ability to peruse the ancient scrolls (threads) and come up with a conclusive answer regarding the avatar mystery.

With my ability to decipher the past, and your ability to integrate outside sources into any discussion, we would make a great team.

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butsurigakusha
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by butsurigakusha » Mon May 05, 2008 8:16 pm

I just want to clear something up. I was definitely not the first one to have an avatar. If I remember correctly, back then, the avatars only showed up when you were logged in. At the time, I didn't have it set up to automatically log in, and I would often browse the threads without logging in. I remember being quite confused about the eye comments, because I wasn't seeing the eye.

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dlenmn
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Re: Congratulations, RG!

Post by dlenmn » Mon May 05, 2008 8:31 pm

quizivex wrote:With my ability to decipher the past, and your ability to integrate outside sources into any discussion, we would make a great team.
Indeed. If only there were some way we could use our skills to achieve world domination...



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