Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Dear Gentle Readers and Scholars

We at These Gentlemen are enthused at the amount of growth we've made these past few months. A large part of that growth is because of readers like you who support us and check in day in and out for daily content and entertainment. We appreciate your loyalty and support. Because of you, a lot of changes are coming to These Gentlemen - including our own domain name, a new and original logo, our grand-spanking new Gentlemen in Residence program (and other programs coming soon), and the grand move to WordPress! We'll be making the leap soon and we want you to be there when we do. We, seriously, wouldn't be here without you.

"Oz, that's great. We're so glad things are going well for These Gentlemen. What else can we do?"
- Glad you asked, let me tell you. Comment. Please. We want to hear what you have to say. And the more you say, the better the experience is for readers and writers alike. Commenting is the best way you can provide your support and is the only way we can create lively discussions and debates. The more you comment, the better we look. And, the better we look, the more content we'll be able to bring you on a regular basis. Which leads to more commenting. It just makes everything better and better.

"But, Oz, I haven't agreed with a single thing posted today (or, if you'd rather, ever). I would comment, but I don't want to be read as attacking."
- Outside of blatant hate-speech, These Gentlemen is not going to be offended by anything you have to say or any viewpoint you may have. We're not better than you (nor do we think we are) and your perspectives are just as valid as ours. These Gentlemen have two goals: 1) to entertain and 2) to instigate discourse. We're not posting manifestos, nor do we believe that we are infallible. We're just opinionated and we want to share those opinions with the world. Part of that process is interacting with the people who disagree. There's nothing you could say that's going to discourage us from posting (in fact, we'll probably just post more). I can promise you that we won't back down easily.

"Actually, I want to be attacking."
- I have one word for you: Awesome. Seriously, if you have put enough emotional investment into our little site to warrant an all out, textual attack based on something we've posted - These Gentlemen say bring it on. We consent. We invite you to attack us. This fuels our fire. It feeds our beast. We live for this. Contradict us with what you know. Knock us down to the rest of the world. Call us out and crush us under your mighty heels. Trust me - we can handle whatever you can dish at us. Just keep it on the internet and don't do it anonymously. We'll listen to anything you have to say if you stand behind it.
That's all we ask.

"Eh, I actually don't really read your website.
I don't know why I'm here and have no clue why I've read this far."
- I'm sorry you feel that way. Click around and see if it works for you. If it doesn't, let us know what isn't working and we'll do our best to improve. We'd much rather have you as a reader than not. Leave a comment on our blog or e-mail me or Jason Heat (or any other Gentleman, if you have our contact information) at ozkirbas@gmail.com or jschlaf@gmail.com, respectively. That's the best thing you could possibly do for us.

Thanks everyone for reading and thank you again for your support. You can look forward to much more to follow from These Gentlemen in the near future.

Yours Truly,

Ozkirbas (and the rest of These Gentlemen)