Sad to see FWD/Forward go

Title says it all really. It's only been open for a year and a couple of months, it was a lively and interesting site, and I didn't always agree with what they said (and particularly some of their opinions on gender politics) but I had some other interesting exchanges and saw many more. They were instrumental in encouraging me to get referred for my Asperger's diagnosis, and I was able to talk about the effect it's had on my life in a semi-public sphere which I didn't feel comfortable doing on my blog. It helped that they were mostly women; I've long found it more comfortable talking to them than other men, even though most Aspies are male. I also found their news round-ups really useful.

I find it puzzling that they just pulled down the shutters without telling anyone in advance. They had posted a few reviews of the year, and there had been lively threads (like the one on high-pressure selling) which still had life in them. I don't think there's anything around right now that fills the same gap.

Don't throw your secrets where men will steal them

The other day when I decided to join Dreamwidth, I was directed to one of the code-sharing communities (dw_codesharing) where people post invites they have received but presumably don't have friends to distribute them to. I went through one entry after the other and pasted every code I could find into the space. Not one of them worked! Even though the entries all said to leave a comment, clearly people had helped themselves without bothering to leave a thank-you (or even a "taken" message) to save anyone else the trouble of pasting a code that no longer works.

I then left a comment for campylobacter telling her to mail me one of her open invites through the contact page on my main blog. (Well, I presume it's a she, as her userpic has a woman on it ...) This she did. By that time I'd found an open invite on LiveJournal's DW invite board, and promptly emailed CB to say I no longer needed hers and thanks for sending it. Anyway, I don't know whether the moral is not to leave invite codes on an open website, or else they'll be taken up by who knows who, or not to bother going through lists of open invites as they'll probably be taken. Or both.