I'm going to post something here that may upset a few people. ...
.... I can't believe how obsessed people are with "milestones." It makes it VERY hard for anyone that is a newbie to this board to try and find "REAL" information.
century milestones come only every hundred postings - this alone is not cluttering the entire thread? Thousand marks only come one in a THOUSAND... that's not excessive clutter is it?
I jumped in and posted a few around one of the big milestones the other day - making a joke of it - but I don't think anyone even looked at it like a joke...
That's funny - because I look at every century sprint and see several congratulatory posts who clearly are good natured every time. I do not recall seeing complaints at every century mark?
I have a few questions I'd love to ask, but I'm afraid I'll never find the answers.
(post your questions) Some days I just can't check this board, or have to skim through quickly to try and catch up. It is actually very annoying for anyone trying to find real information to use this board. Unfortunately, when it comes to Disney crusing, there isn't much info on Cruise Critic, like you can find for most other cruises.
{I agree completely - I can't catch up some days too -plus cruise critic has NO DCL following of significance - nor does the Carnival cruise meet area. The DCL enthusiasts here crush the scale of cruise meet activity at cruise critic and DCL on average. <MATH ALERT> 
Consider Cruise Critic has 26,373 threads and 1,925,047 posts on it's roll call area <includes CC member cruises>... and the DIS cruise meet area has 2,651 threads and 448,377 posts... that means that the average roll call at CC has only 73 postings while at the DIS the average cruise meet thread has 169... and our sailing has 15,000+ postings with 231,241 viewings... that in itself tells you this is an unusual sailing. Shoot... compared to the average Cruise critic roll call posting total of 73 ... by myself I posted 72 to our thread friday nite! So I say again - the cruise critic roll call area is on average anemic at best - and little community or added value is achieved with only 73 postings on average for the entire thread over there - of course 15,000 is unusual compared to 73 as a total... and we still have 2 weeks + to go!}
I know of one board that split into a Q&A, and a "Chatter" board to fix this problem.
<problem?> That would sure have made things easier with this sailing. On a "chatter" board you could post away to your heart's content with rambling nonsense that has nothing to do with cruising.
[I disagree- if you want to make friends or just get to know folks you have to talk a bit - and this rambling chatter is part of it and probably looks like gibberish to some but is music to others - this is no average cruise by ANY leap of the imagination - try to enjoy it as a special voyage.., there is only 1 eleven day southern sailing this year!]
Isn't the reason they provide an opportunity to use these boards, to assist people with questions about a cruise? And to give opportunity for people on the same cruise to set up group events, etc.? I really don't think it is to use as much bandwidth as possible, with filler posts, just to try to reach some landmark number of postings.
[there are no set rules as to what this forum is for - except for folks on the same sailing to meet and exhange thoughts of all sorts - including whimsy. Bandwidth is not really threatened here - even with my recent gifs - now if I had posted full length movies that would have been a bandwidth threat. And for general cruise info there is the regular DCL DIS forum - this is the cruise meet thread]
I've seen mention of the "DIS" people on other boards now - not all in "good light."
<Would it be "envy" then? Passonate activity like this is generally a "success problem" as opposed to an inactivity issue> I'm afraid you might scare off people with the "secret society" that seems to go on within threads for a sailing. I haven't seen anything quite like this with any other cruiseline. I'm hoping the stories I've just read about some sailings did not include any of the people here.
<What are the stories? I am curious?>If so, I'm a little scared to even go on this cruise now.
[Certainly, this secret society suggestion is mysterious sounding ... and I'd say we have no terrorist societies here except from what I can see - a lot of happy Disney cruise enthuisiasts... you should have no fear of anything on a DISNEY cruise - alarmist talk like this is unjustified]
My hope is that things just started to get a little out of hand here among friends that have been posting together for a year in anticipation. Obviously there will be postings about what is going on in real life - especially between people that have made a connection - that is not at issue. But posting just to obtain
numbers...ramblings...dribblings...that is a mess to sort through for someone just looking for info.
[Out of hand for some is the just the beginning for others. You're taking this too seriously if you actually are that concerned, there is nothing to fear except fear itself - I on the other hand would agree that accumulating 1/3rd of 15,000 postings in the last 17 days versus the 10,000 that came in the 23+ months preceeding is a little unusual ~ and I was on vacation in Hawaii when other folks were pumping that record along hotly!]
Two weeks to go - not sure if I'm as excited as I was or not...at least I know we have some great ports!
[the gathered DIS group is exactly what makes this sailing different from any other DCL voyage... I for one look at the established group that was here BEFORE I joined a couple months ago as an amazing gathering of kind souls. Playful and good natured and a rare asset to our community... and not as rif-raff sequestered as a secret society. You should consider youself lucky to have a chance to meet them all. I consider myself quite fortunate to have the chance and the folks here deserve better then to be thought of as a fiendish secret group with an alterior or damaging agenda]
(On another note- I can honestly say that I am not one of the people you would have read about on another sailing- this is the 1st time I've really tried to get to know some people before we cruise)
I signed up for this cruise not even one month ago and when I returned home from my "MAGICal" cruise I found it's very difficult to catch up or even really figure out where to begin. I did start on page 1, post 5. 
)...!!
