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[Angel Of Death]

Wait, channel 10 is saying that there are hidden messages in the Bible and the worlds suddenly going to end?

Well, isn't that great. The people who believe everything said on the news are going to be flipping the fuck out.

[Taricus]

Nope, channel ten.

Ah. _{Stupid private television corporations...}

[Max White]

Really? Not any of the other religions?

They mentioned the 2012 Mayan calender thing already, but so far the focus has been on the first five book of the bible and there many 'Hidden messages!'

Let's just ignore that these 'Proven mathematical equations' only work for the bible printed in English, while the original books would have been Latin.

[Ochita]

Pfffffhahahahaha....

I am so going to laugh when the world doesnt end at 2012.

[Deviled]

I plan on carying a stereo playing still alive.

[Max White]

Pfffffhahahahaha....

I am so going to laugh when the world doesnt end at 2012.

You can practice on the 22nd of March. A lot of crazy Americans are running about saying that 21st is the end.

I plan on carying a stereo playing still alive.

Aww hell yea!

[Angel Of Death]

Ahh... 2012.

I can't wait to laugh and survive.

[GamerKnight]

I'm looking forward to the orgies. Oh the impending-doom fuelled orgies. I will be 18 by then. 

[Max White]

Totally been planning my battle song for 2013.

[Angel Of Death]

I'm looking forward to the orgies. Oh the impending-doom fuelled orgies. I will be 18 by then. 

I will have a fake license by then.

What? I'm already 6.0 and have a light mustache. I could fake it.

[Retro]

So I suppose making personal attacks against other forumites is fine then.
And I really think you need to come up with a new simile, the twitter one's been done to death.

"An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.[1] They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user and/or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible."

Oh, now... conversations, that sounds awfully like forums are made for *gasp* conversing!! I wasn't aware that that was restricted solely to "let us talk about this one topic and not discuss anything that may be mildly unrelated to the forum"

Well, that's not really what my post was about, but sure, let me bring up the same argument I've presented over and over before.

While he could easily have been a lot more polite and civil, Dasleah was effectively saying the same things I've said (and continue to say) about the forums. Despite what Wikipedia says I maintain that stuff like "I'm feeling lurkingly today" or "I am on fire!" "Burn, baby, burn!" doesn't count as discussion (in a subforum marked General Discussion, no less) and frankly doesn't count as conversation either in my book. Not that it doesn't have a place - but it's not on a forum. When you make a post you're expected to put a bit of thought into it. That's what differentiates it from IRC, which is much more transient, and a lot better suited (read: suited at all) for the kind of 'conversations' you guys are always having. Do I babble and go on random dead end tangents unrelated to anything sometimes? Sure. Do I do it on the forums? No. I do it on IRC, because it goes with the communication form. The reason I keep bringing up the Twitter analogy is because it's an apt comparison: Most of the posts in the Things threads are contentless and don't provoke any discussion. It's just posting for the sake of posting, really. Which is dumb.

In terms of what Dasleah was saying, I still think it's ridiculous how Janet lords over her thread effectively just because she can. Due to what honestly wasn't even an out of line conversation in the first place she got a panic attack or something and decided to lock the Happy thread... just because. When Dasleah called her out on it a whole crowd of you jumped in with NO SHE'S RIGHT even though the 'inciting incident' was entirely unrelated to the 'punishment,' and when she admitted that she didn't really have a reason to do so the same people patted her on the back and told her not to worry about it. And none of you who were initially saying Janet was completely and totally in the right to randomly lock a thread on impulse were willing to actually say "huh, well if she thinks she might have been wrong, maybe we were just jumping in to her defense for the sake of it." Mindmaker ended up being the only one who thought "DISCUSSION FUCKING OVER, STOP TALKING ABOUT IT" was a damned rude way of getting people to shut up about a topic just because you don't like it, and he got ignored because nobody was willing to actually have a real debate on the matter.

Honestly, I'd have been much happier to get in on the Oh No Forum Drama while it was still hot and back Mindmaker up myself, but Toady gets mad any time too many IRC b12ers are posting in any one topic at a given time, and as Nagash was already responding I figured I'd stay out or we'd both get banned for 'dogpiling' (this isn't an exaggeration, either). So I guess I'll chime in now: I don't think arbitrarily locking a thread due to a knee-jerk panic response is at all a responsible thing to do, I think it's absurd that so many people ignore how often it happens or the lack of rationale for doing (in some cases even giving her positive support for it?), and I think it's sadly hilarious that people like Something Evil can say things like "You locked a thread just to see what kind of influence you wield over the forums. All in all a pretty good outcome!" with a straight face and not see what's wrong with that sentence. But who knows? Between you and her I feel like I'm the only person not locking threads due to personal whims or sudden emotional fits.

And for the record, since this tends to come up among the clutter of people who use this as a response to any debate or argument, having a different opinion than your own does not make somebody a troll, and "THE DISCUSSION IS FUCKING OVER" is effectively a crude way of saying that you'd prefer to exist in a happy state of denial instead of form a counterpoint.

But let's get on topic! It's 9:40 am, I'm exhausted and out of coffee, and I'm gonna scurry off for a schnooze before working on an essay later. I'll respond to anything then.

[Deviled]

Conversation is interactive, more-or-less spontaneous, communication between two or more conversants.

But I must say I agree with you.

[Brotipodes]

D: I realized Dasleah was banned a while ago, and he was cool guy.

I dunno why, but for some reason I had a bit of respect for _____.

Even though he may have been a troll.

Yeah. Using my patented Empathometer, I can tell that our resident repeat-troll is a good guy. Regardless of whether or not he doesn't afraid of anything, I do wish he would make a real account, and curb the inflammatory stuff and offensive behavior. Pokethulu was friggin' cool, and he was interesting to chat with on the off occasions that I got to. Seems relatively bright, and like he has some cool things to say, and I can see the reasoning behind the outbursts... but he always had RAEGY and tactless moments that get him kicked.

I wish he'd just chill out and be a bro for a change. :/

Thanks for the words of support, I guess.

I'm honestly not doing this from any position of personal malice or outright hate on my part. I was once a perfectly functional part of the Bay12 community, and I was happy with the culture that built up around me and grew as the forums did. I'll always look back on a few of the things I've done here with a certain pride and happiness - I did some cool shit, I was part of some cool shit, and people on the whole were cool (just not in the 'I would happily let you fuck my sister kind of way')

But something happened. The culture of the forums reached a point where I couldn't just be a chill bro and let things happen. I had been part of a community that had taken so many steps in the wrong direction that I suddenly found myself alone in a field while everyone circlejerked a paddock or two over. And it was strange. I felt I had to do something - something was broken, something was wrong, and I felt I owed to a community that I loved to point it out. But as time went on and my arguments, no matter how civil or articulate I made them, simply fell on ears that were all-too willingly deaf. People were happy with the new culture. People were content.

My (most recent) banning has really just highlighted how far things I feel have fallen. The culture of the forums has perhaps irrecoverably broken. I found myself, incredulously, being the only person against the side of someone who willingly admitted to locking a thread - not even the thread they were participating in - in nothing more than an attempt to prove to themselves how popular they were. Just let that sink in for a moment. Remove yourself from the context of this forum, these people. Just let that scenario play out in your head.

How is that not insane? How could I be the only one who seems something so fundamentally broken about a culture that not only allows such behaviour, but outright enables it? In this lawless wasteland with no active moderation, we give power to those who we deem fit. And the person that you all so choose is so petty and shallow as to literally hold ransom an avenue of expression for no more reason than simple ego? The person who you rely upon to be your 'moral compass' as so many of you so exposit literally just held hostage something you all love for no justifiable reason and you leap to her defence? Someone who you simultaneously fear and dread exactly because of these over-emotional outbursts?

And please don't think that I'm just shitting on Janet. She's just going to have to take the blows as the seeming figurehead in this all. There are others - Merchant, who is literally using the Sad and Fort Mew Mew RP threads as her own personal wish fulfilment in some futile attempt to close that hole inside her that her shitty (and all-too oft repeated) life has made. Her gaggle of enablers who have admitted to various powers that they simply play along for literal fear of her committing suicide should her roleplay ever falter or stall. That is not only a horrible position to be in, it's also simply doing more harm than good. There comes a time where a person has to stand on their own feet. All you are doing is teaching Merchant that should she fall, she never needs to rely on her own strength to pick herself up. That she can manipulate and goad a gaggle of impressionable followers into helping her into a fantasy life where she'll never have to accept the reality that her life sucks and the only person that could ever help her is herself. Whether it's conscious or not, she is emotionally blackmailing a lot of you into caring. And caring, and caring, and caring.

Toady himself. I'll always respect him as a developer, and admire the dream he's living. But the man simply does not wish to acknowledge that he is failing his community in every way. As a developer, he is fine - as a community manager, he is falling flat, and his forums are faltering for it. The social community has simply outgrown him, and there is no-one here who believes for a second that he can realistically ever hope to manage it himself. Even his attempts to maintain a moderation log at the insistence of others has been implemented poorly and half-heartedly. The man is a victim of the reactive moderation of the forums - there is no proactive stance, there is no proactive defence. It is this that has perhaps helped enable the culture of power invested in various forum members like Janet and MeoM. We cannot possibly ever hope to successfully self-moderate. We are broken to the point where we cannot remove ourselves from the cliques and traditions we have formed to ever honestly or accurately police them. If everyone is part of the problem, then there is no problem. And that's precisely the problem in the first place.

I'll always feel like a bro to the forums. But true bros don't let bros put their own heads so far up their own arses that they become blind to the fact that their head is up their arses. Or something like that.

It's a complicated metaphor.

(for the slow amongst you yes this is Dasleah)

[GamerKnight]

Whoa. Just one question. Why are you still here? Why haven't you left and gone to another forum?

[Mindmaker]

Thank you, Retro. I appreciate it.
And I too thought that Dasleah, while a bit blunt at times, was a good and interesting person, who didn't get the respect he deserved.