Or they engage in the PM factory with hopes that they can find a sock puppet-ey GCer to express their viewpoints.

"Thanks for all the PMs of support" "A lot of people agree with me via PM" always cracks me up.

Yes, along with:

"I think that you're____ and others agree with me...."

Most of the time people can figure out if someone is having a momentary change in their usual posting style or pattern, or if they are truly a complete idiot.

Also most of us can have different opinions and ideas, agree and disagree on a variety of topics and not be nasty about it. I can't think of anyone I agree with (or who agrees with me) 100% of the time, but a majority of GC posters respect each other as we do our best to be intelligent and communicate in an effective manner, as that is how we operate on a whole.

ETA: I put my brain back in and now I get, and agree with, your post. :)

Sorry, I think I need some Emerald Nuts as Robert Goulet is messing with things in my office ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhLDwU5Row

Most of us don't need other posters to rush to our defense or secretly agree with us. We may have different ideas or opinions, but we present ourselves well we don't need PMs to protect our egos. No sock puppets or alleged PMs are needed because we can say what we think and still be respected. We're not wounded when people on a message board don't agree with us because we're adults and realize it is just the internet.

LOL. Great commercial.

My confusion was only mine. LOL. I think I was ETA'ing while you were posting. :)

I don't think it has to do with "guts," at least in large part becuase I don't think it takes "guts" to post dissenting opinions or criticisms on here. I think most of the people who don't "put themselves out there" just don't feel that it's worth their time to post their thoughts or critiques. That's not passing judgment on you for doing so, it's just that (like in real life), people have different ways of dealing with things that annoy them.

Sometimes I'll post if I disagree with an opinion or a general trend on the site, but a lot of times I'll just avoid the thread (or poster) and move on to other parts of the site. I don't chalk that up to a lack of guts on my part, just my own way of dealing with things.

Exactly, some of the time I feel the need to post or comment, other times I don't. My weekend started at 5pm so I have the time to post right now but I was too busy yesterday. Sometimes I'm just in a mood too, and feel punchy.

yes:)

I have a legitimate question. For us non NPCers, what are some of the ways you can tell a story is fake?

One of the easiest ways to tell if a story is fake is if the school is unidentifiable. The more chapters there are at a school, the fewer possibilities there are. One of the GC sleuths should recognize it given other clues (location, Greek culture, campus-specific language, time of year). I think any story with more than 8-10 chapters should be able to be recognized by the sleuths.

Another big red flag is if there is something that seems off about the recruitment process itself. For example, eaglesbaby or one of her alter egos wrote the story about Drexel, and how they were at the "loser" chapter and how her whole rush group just crowded in the back and ate their food instead of talking to the actives. I'd have a hard time believing a chapter would have an unstructured "just mingle and meet members as you please" when every other chapter during formal recruitment is doing organized "pick up" and rotation of PNMs.

The alcohol thing I knew. the purse thing is a bit of a surprise though. Thanks for the information though.

Yeppers.