A Moment of Silence

I've come to realize, despite all the promises and mildly-competent attempts to follow through on them, that things in the iQ Commons are never going to achieve their former organizational glory. We have homepages that no one knows about, we have forums that no one cares about, and the commons announcements are messed up nearly to the point of illegibility. Even our faithful macs are being phased out now, in favor of PC's. Things are changing, and certainly not for the better...

When I first joined iQ, there were at least 3-4 intelligent students who were consistently involved in serious discussions in Commons. While I was just a freshmen, I saw something there that I wanted to be involved in, and did so. Several major flame wars and a bunch of other stuff later, I was a full fledged member of the discussion board group. If something came up that I was interested in, and back in the day things did, I joined in and had my say. My Sophomore year was similar, though slightly more students were more interested in chatting than discussion. (And that year, last year, was the year they shut down the chat rooms.) Back then, we had real, heartfelt discussions where we furiously disassembled the other side's arguments, until we grew tired of that subject and started another. It was a community, like any other community, and it was a great enjoyment to participate.

Now, this year, after the whole blackboard system seems to have been renovated, everything is, to put it bluntly, a mess. The announcements in commons should be in the announcements section of the Discussion Board "Course" and they shouldn't be in obnoxious colors, and they shouldn't stretch the screen so you have to scroll sideways to read them. The Homepages should be right there too, where people can see them. The discussion boards should have all the functions set up, so people can edit the errors in their posts, etc. They should be able to mark posts as read or unread too, like we used to be able to do.

Unfortunately, the thing that really matters, the people, seem to have disappeared. The veterans of the first several years of iQ Academies have gone now, and in their absence, no one has showed up. There might be 10 participants in the discussion boards at the moment, but none of them care to start an serious discussion, and sadly enough, they all seem to agree completely on everything. Not to mention, no Philosophy and Religion board, AND they actually removed the Politics board! So the primary composition of topics is literally "How's the buddy program going?" "How's school going?" and "Homework help".

I should've seen this coming. Similar situations have played out in other organizations, especially online, that I've been involved in. Things fall from their glory as time drags on. People get worn down and lose ambition. Ever since Stacy McKnight left, things truly haven't been the same for iQ's student-to-student relations. (For those of you who don't know, she was our Go-To person for all the commons stuff, and Proms/Dances/Basketball tournaments etc.) I thought someone else would pick up the baton, but it's apparent that there isn't anyone else with the talents Stacy had to organize things for our sake, and make things more interesting for *us*.

Maybe someone else will come along eventually, but who knows. Maybe the iQ Administration is no longer interested in hip younger (pre-30's) people to work for them. If things continue down the road as they are, however, I fear for iQ's success as a whole. You simply cannot maintain a school without giving the students a significant, well thought-out and appropriately-managed commons (Not to mention the need for someone who can relate to students, and the organization of fun events.)


All that said, I'd like to take a moment of silence in memory of the past.