I wandered over to Ravelry a few moments ago to delete my account… only I found that there is no way to do such a thing.  Let’s see, I believe you can delete your profile on almost every other “social” network, so why not on Ravelry? 

I gave it over a year.  I’ve checked on my friends’ activity, read their blog posts when notified through the friends’ pages, and conducted fruitless searches for patterns that were exceptional.  In short:  I’ve wasted enough time.  And my feeling is, that if you can’t support a thing you shouldn’t be part of it.  I don’t want to be a part of it any more, but apparently all I can do is send an email and be patient until some unknown person deletes my account, but of course, that person is preoccupied with other things, and my account is their lowest priority.  Honestly, you can’t’ tell me that someone who can program an entire social site (good or bad) can’t figure out how to allow users to delete their own accounts.  It would be to their advantage, after all, to rid the database of extraneous data that consumes space and bogs down performance.  Perhaps it’s the bragging rights that are at stake here… it’s much more impressive to your geek friends if you “own” a few terabytes of data rather than just a few gigs.  But that doesn’t compute when you run a “free” website.  Maybe advertisers bank on x number of accounts being present, and therefore the accounts should persist even though they are inactive?

The thing is, things never change.  Knitters are still knitting essentially the same things, over and over and over and over.  Would I wait breathlessly for the reviews of the very same books over and over again, even though I’d already read the ones which sparked an interest?  I think not.

If you really want my opinion (too late!), Ravelry was a handy excuse for a cowboy programmer to create his own social site.  I could be wrong here:  this programmer could have had thousands of destitute knitters begging him to create the site.  And admittedly,  thousands of knitters, like sheep, came to graze in his grass.  Millions of forum posts attest to the fact that people just don’t have a rich enough life in the real world; they must augment it with forays into the imaginary worlds of other people. Not only that, but they must crown the King and Queen (unlike real social networking sites) and their little dog, too.  [yes, I detest Boston Terriers, even though I have a sister who breeds them].  I don’t know these people, and can truthfully state that I have no opinion as to their goodness or badness; I can only form opinions based on their output.

So, sounds like I have a mouth full of sour grapes, does it?  Actually, I haven’t been happier in my entire life.  It’s a situation that highlights things like Ravelry, for which I have no need and which stand in the way (if used frequently) of doing the things I really enjoy, like spending time with my husband and children.

So, if you find yourself sitting in front of the computer glancing with glazed eyes over all the Ravelry …. um… content, just ask yourself if there’s something that people you love might want to be doing with you right now.  Because if the answer is yes, even just once, you should turn off the computer and be with real people.