Good grief!!!! I'll hold my tongue and not reply to certain comments made on this thread.
However, why does anyone care whether there are too many (or alternatively too few) cat photos? I personally don't like cats (apologies to cat lovers and cats), I'm allergic to cats (apologies to cats), and I don't find much interest in cat photos (apologies to folks who take photos of cats). However, if I don't want to see photos of cats, I simply avoid clicking on any threads that say anything about a cat. If I open a thread, and alas, there's a cat photo there, I gloss over the cat photo and move on. Occasionally, I will see a cat photo that may peek my interest, and I'll click on "thanks" and/or write a comment regarding the photo. Ultimately, I can filter out material that I am not interested in with my eyes and fingers. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure these things out. I would love to see more naked bunny photos, but I am not complaining that there aren't any in this forum!!
If anyone has any particular subject matter that they like to see more, then they should start a thread, and encourage people to post more photos on that particular subject matter. Obviously, if I am the only one that likes photos of European swallows while everyone else in the forum likes African swallows, then I get a little disappointed. But can or should I say, "you African swallow lovers should start posting European swallow photos"? Heck no. What gives me the right to say that this forum has too many African swallow photos? What gives me the right to say that African swallow lovers can only post one African swallow photo per month? Next thing we get would be African swallow lovers complaining that there aren't enough African swallow photos in the forum.
Onto the next item of discussion regarding cliques and ignoring others. People ignore threads or comments that they don't find interesting or to their liking (i.e. cat photos for me). BUT, more often than not, some threads/comments get missed (NOT ignored) simply because they get bumped down the "ALL" link by the time the bulk of folks log onto the forum. I'm sure I've written this before in the past, but if someone in India (my apologies to the folks in India) starts a new thread, there's a very good chance that by the time I am awake, the person's thread may have already been bumped down the list to the point that I may miss it. I could go around searching for every new thread and comment posted since I was last on the forum, but it takes LOTS of time. Unfortunately, most people in this forum have to work for a living and many aren't as lucky as me to be able to surf the internet while I'm at work. So invariably, human beings will use their time in a manner that would be most pleasing and productive to themselves. Cat lovers will post more photos of cats and dog lovers will post photos of dogs (apologies to cats and dogs and their lovers). Personally, I gravitate towards street photos and candids. Consequently, I like posts from folks like Ray, Don (aka Streetshooter), Sparth and some others (my apologies to Ray, Don, Sparth). Another example is my most recent gear facination with the Nikon V1. So I try to get Retow to post more photos and I search out his posts/comments, because he's the only one that I know in this forum with the V1 (or J1). Would that make Retow and I a clique? I think not (apologies to Retow).
Last item (for now) before I go do some work. I extend my sincere appreciation to the admins and mods in this forum - past and present (and future). Y'all have done a great job encouraging people's participations and welcoming them to the forum. BB has nearly 9000 posts since July 2010. No one has gone more out of her way than BB to respond to not only every thread but also to almost every post that I come across!! And I'll say that again, "every post"!! The 9000 posts are non-inclusive of the number of "thanks" that she has also given. In my eyes, it's an anomaly whenever BB is not a participant in a thread.
Peace out and Happy New Year to everyone!
ps: By naked bunnies, I meant the Playboy kind, not rabbits. My apologies to rabbits.