I joined Ravelry.com within a year of it’s launch and had to wait two weeks until I was accepted for membership due to the demand at the time in the Autumn of 2007. I enjoyed the groups and all the free patterns and everything that went along with membership.
As time went on the groups I enjoyed were less active and I had downloaded more patterns than I would ever use so I stopped using the site around five years ago. I discontinued my Ravelry shop and removed the patterns I had for download and deleted my account since I wasn’t using it. Little did I know what I would miss by leaving when I did.
Within a year the Great Purge began and knitting patterns and anything else to do with supporting Donald Trump disappeared from the site. Conservative groups were deleted without warning, and people began leaving.
Since then one of the creators, Casey aka Cassidy, who is now ‘trans’ seems to have lost what little mind he had. I put it down to the female hormones he is bound to be taking. The male of the species is not intended to deal with female hormone levels and changes. Nothing good can come of it and it’s a pity that such things are allowed in the medical community. I fear our society will pay a terrible price in the decades to come and the damage to family life is devastating.
Now the site has undergone an update that can only be described as even more juvenile than the original format. It was dated when it was launched and was past due for an upgrade a decade ago. Unfortunately the owners did not take the advice of professionals in making their changes and the result is a toxic mix of too much contrast in background, font and color choices that has led to people suffering from mild headaches and eye strain to full blown migraines and even seizures.
The login page has a cutesy affect with cartoon like characters floating around in hot air balloons that was activated as soon as the user would access the website homepage. It became clear early on that the choice of colors, background and moving graphics was making people ill and many people complained about it and had to stop using the site altogether.
As a result more changes were made in a last ditch effort to satisfy the complainers and much was made about how upsetting it was to ‘Cassidy’ who it seems is an emotional wreck as a result. The graphics are no longer activated as soon as you reach the website homepage and there are choices of background that give some relief to the stark contrast. There is even a night mode with a dark charcoal background and light font that gave me a headache when I saw it on a friends tablet at coffee one day.
She thought it was the greatest thing, was so excited at all the wonderful changes and modern look to the site and just had to share it all with me. Meh. Whatever. I let her give me the ‘tour’ of the new site and experience all the options including putting the comical cartoon characters aloft in their cutesy hot air balloons. We had a nice chat and enjoyed our coffee and I headed home. Within no time at all I had a full blown migraine and had no medication on hand to take so I just waited it out and made do with ibuprofen.
A week later I had another migraine out of nowhere and ended up having to wait an entire weekend, most of it spent in bed until I could contact our PCP for a prescription to keep on hand for migraines. Within a week of filling the prescription I had to take a dose of it and go to bed early. All of this started with the idiotic changes made to a website by people who are too arrogant, ignorant and foolish to ask advice of people who know better in the first place. So far, no more headaches and I am now the proud owner of a Relief Band Premier device for the treatment of nausea associated with migraines among other things all thanks to Dan Bongino whose podcasts, Bongino Report and website I have been enjoying for some time now.
So to sum up: I do not miss “The Site That Shall Not Be Named” one iota. I enjoyed it at a time that it was of use to me, outgrew it ages ago and moved on. The sad part, aside from the actual physical suffering that has been inflicted on many users lately, is that so many small business owners who relied on Ravelry for a good portion of their income have been hard hit even to the point of being attacked online and doxed by the rabid, left-wing liberal Rav crowd who refuse to allow any dissent without due punishment to the offender.
My life is much simpler than it was ten years ago or even five years ago. I have sources for patterns, fiber for spinning my own yarn as well as commercial yarn that I can order online and have delivered to me. I don’t need to be part of a toxic online community that is monitored by little liberal, would-be Nazis. Again, as in my last post, life is too short, too precious and too blessed to waste it on nonsense like that.
Eliminate the negative and what remains is positive. Life is for living and enjoying, not suffering along in misery because we feel we have no choice. We always have choices. Sometimes they are drastic choices that make huge impacts at the time until we discover that life is so much more enjoyable away from the BS and nonsense that goes on around us on a daily basis that we can’t believe we didn’t see it sooner!
Rural Texas Knitter 