Pretty much everything Kazbah said. What I take from her post (and I apologise if this is totally NOT where you were going with yours, Kaz!) is that places like BB are my 'safe places', my support network, where I have friends and know the 'system' and feel like I can come here whenever I need help, advice, a friendly ear or to share what's going on in my IRL life, as well as be a part of a community that is full of women (and men) I hold in very high regard - it makes me feel good to be 'one of them' and to help others the way they've helped me.
Then, when I see 'the system' changing or an influx of new people arrive and find that my 'safe place' is becoming something different to what I have known it to be, yeah, I get angsty about it. I'm a creature of comfort and habit and I prefer things to just stay the way they always were in that sort of sense. It bugs me that the whole attitude and direction of a familiar place (or people) can seem to slowly do a 180 and suddenly I'm like, 'Where am I?'

The past week or so has been, to use Kazbah's word, 'scandalous' - I've missed some of the goings-on but what I *have* seen happen, I feel sad about. This isn't what I joined BB for, this isn't who I want us as a community to be. And yet here we are. Is that a problem with me making assumptions or projecting something about myself onto a 'faceless' website, or is it that it *is* the 'fault' of the community somehow? I don't know, I'm still sorting through the events of the past week or two and coming to a conclusion on that.

I guess for me, the urge to blame the 'community' rather than individual members is there just because it's easier to take issue with a group rather than an individual - of course there are members of this board that I have butted heads with in the past and surely I will continue to find people I just don't gel with purely because it's human nature and we can't get along with all the people, all of the time. Some usernames, they pop up and I cringe... 'Ugh, *this* person again?' but there's no point in me 'taking it up' with these people as the disputes I have had with them are either long past (and we're 'over it') or I just don't count them as being worthy of my effort, so I don't bother.
In that sense, it's easier for me to lay the blame at the foot of 'the system' or the community itself because my petty issues with individuals are so insignificant in the big scheme of things - why bother them by telling them what I think of them or what they have said that has put me offside when really, it's just going to make them feel bad? They have the right to an opinion same as I do, I'm not going to punish them for feeling or saying whatever they like.

Ummm... this is just turning into a big ramble. But it is how I feel about things I just don't like it when my 'happy place' is being 'threatened', whether it be by a general shift in attitudes (which I know is natural) or certain people coming in and stirring things up, itms.