Atramentis- 06-15-2008
Lemme preface this with something. You guys know me pretty well. Or, at least, I hope you guys do. And I don't want you to mistake what follows as anything but passion for the subject-at-hand. I respect you guys and respect what everyone here is about, but for the past four or five days, I've been biting my tongue over this, and Obby's been fighting the good fight alone, and I just can't stay silent on this topic. To be completely honest, it's been tearing me the balls up to stay silent. And here's the thing, after talking to tktktk over PMs and Broghan over IRC the other night, I realize that no one else understands why we even had a 4chan rule. My first response to this was, "Wait, what? Are you kidding me?" I don't get why I'm the only one to see why this is an issue, and why it needs to be dealt with. So I hope that what follows gives some insight into that. In either case Tim, I apologize, I told you I'd stay out of this, but some things need to be clarified here. What I said in the PM to you that first night stands - I won't let this get in the way of our friendship, because you're too good of a friend for me to bring this into it. But I feel like you, in particular, are horridly misinformed as to what this is all about. With that in mind, please don't take anything within personally. Please, please don't. It's not an attack on any of you, but what follows is the Lawful Evil side of me (To use a 4chan meme, "Bringing order to the universe, even if I have to choke the shit out of it."), and I want to make it clear that this is just how I feel on the topic, and it doesn't reflect on any of you personally. With that in mind, please read on.
First off, why do you (Question aimed at everyone) think I put the 'No 4chan' rule into place? Seriously asking you guys. What would possess me - ME, guys - to do that? I want everyone involved in the discussion to answer that. I seriously want to know how many of you even get what the 4chan rule was about.
Secondly, do any of you really understand how big 4chan is? Could any of you quote me what kind of power Anon would have, if mobilized?
tktktk told me in our PM the other night that 4chan is a reasonably mature community with a substantial moral compass fighting for a noble cause. I let this go, assuming that he just didn't know what the Hell 4chan was, or is. Because while some of the boards on 4chan are inocuous, what I mean when I refer to 4chan is, specifically, /b/. And, to a lesser extent, some of the other adult boards, but whatever. I focus on /b/ because /b/ is most prevalent. The first thing I take issue with is the claim that 4chan isn't Anonymous. It is. That's entirely what it is. Stating otherwise is just wrong. I'm sorry if you don't agree with that, but I dare any of you to cite a source that says otherwise. If you've followed Anon as I have, you would know this. And I know that you haven't, so for that, I forgive you. It's not a big deal, but if you're going to go in and support something like this, you'd do well to understand everything that you're supporting. Please understand that Anon isn't tolerant of any religious doctrine, least of which being Scientology. Don't misunderstand what Anon is in this for - They're certainly not tolerant of anything. Anonymous has spread to other forums and sites, sure, but if they had a home base, 4chan is *it*. Yeah, the videos are all over youtube, but if I'm not mistaken, Anonymous spreading is a horrible thing. That doesn't mean they're being diluted, it means they're picking up new strength that they're now flexing in the real world. But the thing that kinda got to me is your lack of understanding at what Anonymous is. Anonymous is defined - defined by a lack of moral compass. It's what they do. Just another day at the office. Funny story about that image, while I was writing this post, I thought, "I'ma head to /b/ and screenshot the first thread, regardless of what it is." And it worked out fine to show what /b/ is about. The even funnier thing is that's perhaps the most inert I've seen /b/ in a while. It's all spam and trolling and debauchery and shock-value and shit-flinging. All of it. The anonymity makes it that way. Again, if you've spent any time on /b/, you'd see it, plain as day. Lemme drill this in to anyone reading - This is not a noble cause. Tim might be fighting it for a noble cause, and Hell, some Anons might be fighting it for a noble cause, and that's great. *THAT*, I fully support, because I don't like the church of Scientology any more than the next guy. But Anon's involvement in this is nothing if not chaos-in-action. Scientology is fucking silly, and we all know it. Come on, Xenu? There have been books published entirely exposing L. Ron Hubbard for what he is. Thetans in a volcano? Soulcatchers? When I first saw that South Park, I thought, "Oh, you have absolutely got to be shitting me." But here's the thing - Is that enough of a cause to support Anon in destroying Scientology? I'd say an emphatic "no!" It's not even a cause for anyone to destroy Scientology. The legal system should be doing that for us. Granted, it's not, but that's no reason to take to the streets with bayonets, right? Before this whole thing, we laughed at Scientology - They're fruitcakes. We all know it. They're an insane minority, it's plain to see. But so is the KKK. So were the Nazis, once. So is Hezbollah. So is Al Qaeda. Shit, man, Christians were an insane minority once. Discordians are an insane minority. Why not fuck them up? The Westboro Baptist Church has had some run-ins with Anon, but Anon supports the Westboro Baptist Church. "WAIT, WHAT?", You say? "But I thought Anon was *Against* insane, propaganda-spreading cults!" Well, you thought wrong. Jerry Falwell is eleven nutjobs, but did Anon ever speak out against him? Hell no! The only people who Anon go after are random! There's no method to the madness, it's all based entirely on a whim! The KKK hasn't earned Anon's ire, and why? Who knows? It's insane randomness. They don't call /b/ "random" for nothing. In fact, come to think of it, Anon "hates niggers," and doesn't think much of Jews, either. Ooh, man! That's the most noble, morally-grounded cause I think I've *ever* heard of. Please forgive the sarcasm, but I'm looking over this list above, and I see that one of these groups just ain't like the others. No, one of these things just isn't the same. There are bigger fish to fry in the long run than Scientology, so why speak out against it? Because it's an easy target? Come on. Let's get serious here. Anon doesn't want to bring Scientology down because it's corrupt and evil. Anon is just as corrupt, and just as evil. They'd do the same stuff to the same people, given the chance. This is no righteous crusade. This is a vendetta. I'll explain exactly how all this came about a bit later in the post. No, no, stick around, it gets really juicy - Like one of those Telemundo soap operas. I promise.
Lemme link you guys to something that you guys need to watch and analyze - this, this, and this. I want you guys to listen good and hard to what he has to say, because he's coming from the same stance as tktktk is - He doesn't know what anonymous is. He tells Anon not to do illegal stuff, but THAT'S WHAT ANON IS. THAT'S WHAT THEY DO. When Mr. Bunker says "It's not morally right, that's what they do to us, it's not what we do to them," and tells them not to do illegal stuff, Anon doesn't care. Anon doesn't care about morals or what's lawful or good or righteous. It doesn't care about right or wrong, they do whatever they want to do regardless. That's what Anon is. They're not going to call a senator. Why? Because they don't want a change. They don't care about Scientology one way or another. Anon and Scientology are the same thing in practice. What they do care about is showing their newfound power. The 'mistakes' that Bunker says that Anon is making, Anon doesn't give a shit. They don't care if six people get arrested, that's how this whole thing works. Bunker doesn't understand this, he doesn't know what Anonymous is, or how Anon thinks. He's a good voice of reason, and I think that because of Bunker, Anon straightened up a bit. And that's great. Bunker says, and I quote, "I urge Anonymous to fight Scientology legally. My voice may not matter but I feel I need to speak up." And that's how the protests got started, but as Anonymous, there are the couple hundred who go and protest, but there are another few thousand / hundred thousand who DDOS their website. After all, this is the Internet, they can't get caught, right? Why should they do anything legal when there's no force to control them? To-date, I have seen nothing positive come from Anon, and I can't think of a single positive thing that's come from /b/. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some good things, but I haven't seen 'em yet. Lemme clarify what Anon is for those of you who still don't get it. Browse through the Banned Persons forum, and take a gander at Drunk on Java. Take a gander at ermacrules and Fork a Dork... Hell, take a look at all of them. Ask yourself why they were banned. What did they do to hurt the community? Death Threats, Hacking, stealing accounts, spamming, trolling, breaking the rules. Ah, here we are. Why were they all banned? They broke the rules. What are rules? Why do we have them? Why do we enforce them? Why is kkstrong on his last leg on the IRC? Why are we incensed at the new wave of ads that are geared towards scams and adult material? Why do we have a B&T? Why do we enforce this shit at all? Because that's not who we are, perhaps? Because we like this community, and the people therein? Why do we even hang out here? What did they all do wrong? They were disruptive to our community. Some of them even broke the law to get at our community. Do you guys really, honestly enjoy it here? Because if so, that's great. But if you want the forum full of jackasses who can't spell and flame and troll and spam and hack, that's also fine. But I need to know if that's what you guys want. Because I don't think Metanet wants that. I think Mare and Raigan would shudder at some of the shit that goes down here. And we're still relatively fantastic! We have a couple bad seeds on the IRC and on Vent, but when Dave kicks you out of Vent, or when KA boots you off of IRC, do you stop and think what you might be doing to cause it? Asking us if we know how to do a DDOS attack and then trying to shut Vent down with it is a fucking retarded thing to do. And you wonder why we don't like you? Yeah, because it's not obvious, or anything. Don't I always say, "Don't be a jackass, and you won't be treated like a jackass?" Why does that suddenly no longer apply? What's different about any of this?
So, let's tie this in to Anonymous. Why do you think I don't like Anonymous? Because they do all that. They all do all of that. They break those rules. They make life miserable for everyone. Even themselves. The mods at 4chan don't enforce their rules, because most of them don't care, and they do just enough not to get shut down by the FBI. But most importantly, we don't want that type of person here. Right? Or am I wrong? Do we want people spamming "MODS=FAGS" in all caps all around the forum? Do we want dudes who come into the IRC who say "hay guise wuts goin on in dis channel?" DO WE?
Answer me this: Do you, who is reading this, right now, want to lose the forum? Because that's what it comes down to, for me. Even with as strict as we are, if a Forumer admin came here right now, they could take our Forum down. Just for the everyday running of the forum. Add Anon into that, and where are we? Do you guys want that? There's a handy little link at the bottom of each page linking to the Forumer TOS.
QUOTE ("Forumer Terms of Service")
If you create a forum, it is your responsibility to make sure that no content on your forum is breaking any of the rules outlined within this document. We expect you to moderate the content of these forums regularly, otherwise your forum will be deleted.
It is our responsibility, fellow moderators, to keep the forums from degenerating into anarchy. Why? Well, because Forumer says so, but beyond that, because Keron is legally responsible for this place. And so are LV and I. And a lot of the things that go on at 4chan are prosecutable offences. And I'm not feeling up for going to court because of someone else's fuckups. Why do we crack down on emulators and illegal filesharing? What do we care? Well, for one, it's saving Keron a lot of legal hassle, but I thought that this was the one place where that shit didn't go on. But more importantly, guys, I thought that we were better than all that. So unless you have some sort of Vendetta against all three of us, you guys need to do a job. And that job is to keep this place running, for Mare and Raigan's good, for Keron's good, for my Good, for LV's good, but more importantly, for everyone else's good. At least, until we move to the new server. But the rules will be the same there. Does it bug you when someone posts in horrible grammar? Yeah, me too. Why do I hate Anon? Well, duh. Does it bug you when people call stuff 'gay' or call other people a 'fag' or a 'nigger'? Yeah, me too. Why do I hate Anon? Well, duh. Does it bug you when people reply 'lol' to a thread and nothing else? Yeah, me too. Why do I hate Anon? Well, duh. Does it get under your skin when someone posts a thread about 2girls1cup? (Mods, check The Bin for that one). Yeah, me too. Why do I hate Anon? See the trend? I can go on from here, but I think the point is made.
So how does this tie into Anon, you ask? Anon doesn't abide by rules. 4chan has rules, and quite a few of them are the same as they are here - Don't post anything illegal, if you're under 18, it's illegal to view the site, they have rules against ban evasion, and they even have a Moderator Superiority Clause. Adorable. But here's the kicker - "Do not post the following outside of /b/: Trolls, flames, racism, off-topic replies, uncalled for catchphrases, macro image replies, indecipherable text (example: "lol u tk him 2da bar|?"), anthropomorphic ("furry"), grotesque ("guro"), or loli/shota pornography," but within /b/, all that is accepted, and encouraged. Accepted and encouraged, fellas. Is that what we want to accept and engourage here? Well? So, yeah, they have these rules, but the difference between here and 4chan is that no one follows the rules at 4chan. Or, more clearly, no one follows the rules in /b/. In fact, the rules for /b/, and I quote, are, "ZOMG NONE!!!1" Wonderful, non? No rules? What's there to stop them from doing anything they want? 4chan doesn't keep IP logs any longer than the threads last (Which is anywhere from 2 minutes to a few hours, and then threads are deleted permanently). Obby and I were chatting a couple nights ago, and he wanted to see what's so bad about 4chan. So, I decided to show him. I pointed him to /b/, and in all seriousness, it didn't take me 120 seconds to find the child porn thread. Of course, he didn't believe me, so I linked him to it. And I think it was at that moment that it popped into perspective for him what's actually going down. That's what Anon IS. That's what Anon does. And no one enforces the rules at 4chan. Do you want that here? Because if so, I'll just go talk to Limez and request that we shut the fucking forum down now and save us all a boatload of hassle. Because if that's what you guys want, that's what we'll do. But I assume, through all of this, that we don't want that - That we like the community, that we want this place to thrive and be fun for everyone, right? Are you guys starting to see the dilemma? Do you see why I don't want anything to do with Anon?
In either case, as Bunker says, "Don't tarnish your reputation," but when there's no reputation to tarnish, what then? What happens when the plea falls on mostly deaf ears? Sure, a couple Anonymous might do things the right way, but the nature of Anonymous is such that it can't reach everyone. The mob mentality is greater than the voices of those few who might bring reason and order into the mix. Why, you ask? Because reason and order are the antitheses of Anon. There are just no two ways about it. A lot of folk might take issue with that, but there's just no other way to define Anonymous.
During Bunker's second video that I linked there above, listen closely to what he says about Anon. In his extended second video, he says that whilst picketing, the goal is to peacefully get the message out, but Anon isn't interested in that. Sure, the protests went over really really well. I'm not in it to say that they're some sort of violent force, but that's because they have someone to answer to in the actual world - Police will arrest them. Police will shoot them. They have consequences there. On the Internet here? Not a consequence in the world. A few of them are peaceful and non-violent, sure, but they as a whole want something more. They're not into doing things by due process, they do whatever they want, whenever they want. Read the messages on Bunker's videos, read them all, and spend some time on them. Spend some time looking through each member's profile. Get to know Anon a bit better. I'm not going to shelter you guys from it anymore - Go ahead and immerse yourselves in it. But here's the thing - This crusade against Scientology is just one of many things that Anon has spoken out against - And most certainly not everything that they speak out against is as bad as scientology - Certainly a lot of the things that they attempt to ruin are good-natured and positive.
They're not doing this for any good reason, Tim, they're doing this on a whim. Anyone can masquerade as standing up for a good cause, but I assure you, Anonymous is the epitome of everything awful in the world. I don't know how I can make that understandable to anyone, but they represent the impulse that everyone here denies because you *have* to answer to someone here. Metanet has rules that are strictly enforced. And people either follow suit or leave. But Anon... They're a walking school-shooting, they put the Virginia Tech killer on a pedestal. They idolize him. There was a Norwegian kid that did the same, and they posted stats for each of them as though it were some kind of joke. Yeah, what a moral compass. They laugh at people's tragedy, they poke fun at death. They revel in misery, they enjoy it when people like me are angry. I wouldn't be surprised if Epic Lulz there thinks this is all a joke. Ask him what Anon is all about. At 4chan, you can call everyone a nigger and post necrophilia child porn, and it's fine. It's funny. You can post horses fucking children and dudes with faces blown the fuck off, and it's all good. It's hilarious. Are you in support of that? Do you laugh at tragedy? Do you jack off to kiddie porn? The janitors "clean it up," sure, but not before they save the child porn for themselves. "FUCK YEAH MORAL COMPASS", right? Lemme quote a couple things Moot said just yesterday -
QUOTE ("Moot")
There has been a lot of rumbling on /b/ [and the rest of the site] for the past few months, heck—years, about the quality of posts on the board(s). As we all know, there is no barrier to posting on 4chan. We don't have mandatory user registration, and God willing, never will. I've said in the past that "any retard with half a brain and a keyboard can post on 4chan", and that level of accessibility has produced mixed results.
The site is great because anybody can jump in and start using it, which has generated some amazing content, but also, a perpetual stream of garbage. Honestly, I don't know what the solution is. I'd like to keep the site as open to all users as possible (yes, that includes new ones too), while still enforcing a minimum quality standard. This can't be resolved via posting limitations and moderation alone; there is a very large component of it that needs to come from the userbase itself. For as many changes as I've made to /b/, hit and miss as they might have been, I still firmly believe that the real power to change lays within the users themselves. The 4chan staff doesn't generate the content on this site—you do. We provide the framework, and the community provides the rest.
What does that mean to anyone else? Because to me, that means that Anonymity just doesn't work. It produces that unfathomable stream of crap that will never go away. Moot doesn't like it, for sure, and I'm sure the mods are mods for a reason. But they're against controlling the tide. Wait, what? So, he wants the site to get cleaner, but he doesn't want to put any limitations on it. Well, what does he expect? He says the change needs to come from within, but look at where this "community tide" has taken Anon. The community moves in whatever direction it *feels* like, whether good, bad, or otherwise. Today, they fight against the Church of Scientology, tomorrow, they hack a bank website. I, for one, don't want my credit card info stolen and my life ruined. BUT MAYBE THAT'S JUST ME, LULZ. For every instance of a person whose life Scientology has ruined, I can cite one that 4chan has ruined. They may not be murderers yet, but they've sure got the mentality, man. They're one short, short step away from killing people and posting pictures of it for the lulz. A few months ago, some pictures surfaced of an autopsy on /b/ where the Anon (Who was a coroner) defiled the corpse. And everyone laughed and cried "Epic Win!" In fact, I bet that thread is still up at the archive. That's what they are. And I don't want that to manifest any further than it has. Why is that a bad thing? I want to petition congress to crack the fuck down on Internet, and get some regulations in place, but I think it's a bit too late for that. It's already gone as far as it can go. And here, this whole time, I thought that this - THIS PLACE HERE - was the last bastion against Anonymous. Man, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you guys don't care about the community, or something. I dunno anymore. Browse any Youtube video. Anonymous is there. Browse any forum that isn't run directly by me. Anonymous is there. Hell, browse a few forums that *are* run by me - Anonymous is there, too. Mostly because I don't have the freedom to make rules like this. Look at Gunbound, the entire Admin staff is Anon. The players are either Brasilian, Anon, or both. We let one of the chicks into Vent once, and she was banned not 30 seconds later for over-using 4chan memes. It gets old, man, when you have to deal with it all the time. There's nothing fresh or new anymore, there's nothing innovative, it's all just regurgitated bullshit, brought from the bowels of Anon. But that's not the thing. 4chan is the least of our worries. There's far worse out there than what 4chan can dish out, and I've been to the bottom of that barrel. To say the least, I don't want any of you subjected to it. I want to protect you guys from this. And I know that sounds all altruistic and maybe a bit selfish and stuff (Who am I to tell you what you can and can't be a part of, right?), but I know where this all leads. I know what's at the end of the Yellow-Brick road. I've seen this movie before, and it synchs up perfectly with Dark Side of the Moon, if you get the reference. Metanet is the coolest place we've *all* ever been to, but do any of you stop and ask yourselves why this has been such a fun place to be? Do you ever stop to think why this might be a really welcoming place? What if every member here called everyone else that joins a newfag? How long do you think it would take for everything to go to shit if we didn't regulate it? Freedom-of-Thought is great and all, but when you let in all ideas, you let in ALL IDEAS. Like I said on one of my blogs the other night;
QUOTE ("Blizzblag")
Conservatism is thoroughly dead because of this movement, and whilst I revel in that a bit, there's a good portion of the conservative doctrine that we liberals needed to have as a counterweight - And we won't have that conservative principle anymore. And whilst some of you may rejoice at that as well, keep in mind that pure, unadulterated liberalism can only go so far - At some point, the corruption catches up and forces everything to stagnate. Sure, the ideas flow more readily and far more quickly, but what quality do we sacrifice for the speed of new thought? When ideas flow that quickly, we don't take the time to discern the good ideas from the bad - Sure, we get the Internet a few years sooner, but we get the shit that comes along with it.
And that's what 4chan is. "Let it all in," they say. "Retard with a keyboard," they say. What does that get us? There has to be some control, guys, don't you agree? It's always been my theory that we congregate here and we all stay here because we keep this shit out of the community. Or am I wrong? Why do we even have rules if we're going to allow this shit to run rampant? Everyone wants me to ban Wasted Power again, but I refuse. What's he doing wrong? Nothing, according to you guys. I'm considering letting McP back in, because what did he ever do wrong? He's exponentially better than any Anonymous that could come here, so why is he banned? He wasn't "all that bad", right? Hell, clear the ban logs, let DoJ back in, call over some furries to post some furry porn, we'll make it a fucking party! In the absence of the 4chan rule, wedgie and Atilla (Thankfully) tightened the ship back up, but I still have every intention of letting you guys do whatever you want from here on out.
Why do you guys think that I don't visit #n anymore? Why do you think I avoid it like the plague? Honestly, again, I'm asking. Why do I spend time with the same eight people, and even more frequently, the same two people? Tell me some possibilities for my motivation there. I'd like to hear the guesses.
Ian, pardon me for being so bold - because I respect you as a fellow mod, and I want to make that clear. I want to let you know that despite the views herein, the same thing goes with you that goes with Tim - This doesn't affect my view of you or my friendship with you, and beyond that, I want to make clear that you're right, not all Anon are like those who I describe, but in a faceless, heartless group like Anon *is*, it's only as good as the lowest common denominator. There's no individuality, so they can only be referred to and judged by the whole. It's only as good as its worst, because there's no differentiation within the organization. Everyone is Anon, so they have no consequences. I look at it akin to the person who throws a paper airplane at the teacher - She turns around and says, "Now who threw that!?" But no one answers. They're all Anonymous. She can't punish them all, right? That's the idea behind this shit. No one has an identity, anyone could be anyone, anyone can do anything. So with that in mind, again - pardon me for being so bold - but you have no fucking clue what will happen if anon succeeds at this. You have absolutely no clue. Granted, nor do I, but I certainly think I have a better idea. I don't think any of you guys moderate any other forums, so I don't think any of you have seen how Anon ravages a place.
If you want to see a 4chan-ravaged shithole, take a gander at Gunbound Classic. Seriously, please take the time and browse around. Let me know what you think when you're done, and if you don't think it's too bad, I can provide some insight into why it is. I doubt any of you have heard of LueLinks, I doubt any of you have been inside LueLinks, and I have a hard time believing that any of you can even scratch the surface of what Anon is and what it has grown to be. And that was the idea behind my post up there. Please, please quit trying to tell us what anon will and will not do, mostly because none of you have a Goddamn clue. Again, forgive the forwardness, but Anon doesn't seek to impose the memes on others? Look the fuck around, man. Why am I trying SO FUCKING DESPERATELY to keep them out of our corner of the internet if there wasn't something ominous and horrible on the horizon? If it was entirely inocuous, what reason would I have to keep it away from us? I mean, what is it that I could possibly know about Anon to throw me into this kind of desperation? Again, why the rule if the ideals weren't being imposed?
Lemme pose yet another couple questions - Do you guys even grasp why this community works and thrives? I have to think about that. That's one of the things that's on my mind constantly. I have to understand the psychology of things like this, I need to know why people act the way they act, and why they do the things they do. And I can't for the life of me get the attraction to 4chan. So, another question. What would you say is the worst part of the community, and why? I'd say it's B&T. It's the closest thing to 4chan we've got here, I think. I've been trying to kill it for ages now, but then "people wouldn't have a place to be vulgar," right? Or whatever the fuck the argument against it was. What-the-fuck-ever. You guys know why we have a vulgarity rule, right? The only reason we have a vulgarity rule is because of the retards. I don't care when KA cusses. Not a bit. Why? Because he knows how to regulate it. Yeah, he's vulgar, but he knows he's doing it. He knows the affect it has. In kind, I don't (much) care when Suki browses 4chan. Why? Because he knows how to regulate it. Does an 8 year-old know how to regulate these things? Probably not. Maybe an exceptionally bright 8 year-old might have this gift where he can look at a severed horsecock and not be changed for it. But most of the rest of us can't. And that's what I want to protect. It's the same thing I say about doing drugs. If you've got a 170 IQ, and you smoke yourself down to 150? Whatever, not a big deal. But if you start out at 80, a high-school dropout, and smoke yourself down further... Well, boy, you just done smoked yourself retarded. Right? Do you guys understand that logic? Back to the vulgarity rule, people say, "Well, hey, why can mods cuss and we can't?" Well, that's mostly because we don't care if you cuss every now and again. I have a feeling this post is going to be quite vulgar, and I apologize for that, but I'm not posting "LUL FAGZ," I'm posting some coherent, pragmatic rhetoric that has a point and an impact. The reason you get warned for vulgarity is because you post in someone's map thread and say, "this iz shit lol." Is that what we want around here? If we were all halfway mature, I'd rescind the vulgarity rule in a God-Damn heartbeat. But we have the rule up because some of you children don't know how to handle it. So we have to make you handle it. To borrow another 4chan meme, the rules may be stupid and arbitrary, but God help you if you break them. So, what other part of the community would you call the worst? If not B&T, I'd say the IRC. And everyone who no longer visits #n seems to agree. It's amazing connectivity, but folk like BumBumMilkToffee don't get it. They don't understand what it's there for. They can't come in and say, "Hey, guys. What's goin' down?" They have to come in and "LUL CHIKINZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAA" the channel apart. That's why we don't spend time there. You guys turn us off. Dave and I enjoy having political discussions - He and I fucking *revel* in them - , but when that's being interrupted with "HAY DO U THINK BARRAK IS A GAY?????" What the fuck do you want us to do? Why can't you guys grasp this? I've sat here for the past eigth fucking hours editing this post just to try and get this message out to you guys. I can't fathom that you can't provide anything pertinent to a serious discussion - It's all gotta be about decapitations and furry porn and what a 1337 haxer you are, and such. Why is it any surprise that I can't relate to half of you? I honestly don't give a shit if you just did a barrel roll in Starfox. Can we talk about the good ol' days, or something? Please? Anything? Tell me about the show you're watching. Talk to me about a game we both play, or something. Challenge me to a game of Quad. If I'm not up for it at the moment, I apologize, but we've all got to make a little more effort here, right? Right? There are some of you who I have never heard a single serious thing from. Ever. It's all trivial and menial and very insignificant - And guys - that kills me. The retarded tripe absolutely kills me inside. And I can't do that all the time. I can't even do that most of the time. So, when I jump into #n, and I'm greeted by "hay blizz lol," how is it that none of you can grasp my fury? Why do I go hide out in #angrydome half the time? I'm in the channel for three seconds, and the first thing anyone says makes me want to leave. And the funny thing is - I don't get why none of you see it, either. For those of you who might still not get this, why is this rated higher than this? What causes one to be found hilarious, and the other not? What's wrong with BBMT? He's of this caliber of user that we have here that doesn't respect the community. He doesn't get how things here work, and he'd be better suited at 4chan, with the other jerkasses. Or, he can straighten up and be a fucking contributing member of the community. I was talking to Vash tonight, and he said, "Man, I've been here three years, and I haven't contributed a thing." Yeah, well. That's what happens, right? Hey, let's tie this into Anon! Guess what Anon posts on /b/? Nothing but insignificant, trivial, menial bullshit! WOW! WHAT A COMPARISON! Is it becoming a bit more clear to you guys? Because I'm trying my hardest to clarify what my problem with Anon is so that next time someone asks me what the big deal is, I can just point to this post, let 'em read for an hour, and hopefully sway their opinion. I'm pouring my heart out here, and it's tearing me up that I have to go to these lengths to get you guys to see this.
Topo: Y'know who else no one took seriously? Germany, circa 1930 or so. Everyone said "Aw, they're not all that bad. Just annexing some territory, not that big of a deal." Yeah, these kids might be kinda unorganized at the moment, but I've seen Anon grow expo-fucking-nentially over the past three days. THREE DAYS. Not even mentioning the past two years. Two years ago, 4chan wasn't on anyone's tongue around here, and y'know what? We were fine with that, right? But now, here we are, Anon is a force. It's a force, guys. Top 300 Alexa. Top three-fucking-hundred. 4chan outranks the AIM website. It outranks World of Warcraft's site. It outranks monsters like Mozilla and Wal-Mart, Mapquest, Symantec, Newgrounds, Skype, Ebaum's, and even Forumer itself. And it's now huge because no one thought that 4chan was anything but inocuous. But now they're mobilized, and they have direction. That's dangerous. Good lord, that's dangerous. It certainly could fizzle out like many other things, but think of the other road that this could go down. If things go badly, Anon could do some nasty things. Hearkening back to one of the first questions I asked, Do you guys understand how many folk call themselves Anon? Three-fucking-million. Organize three million people. See what they can do all at once. I don't think you'd like the results. Hell, I can name a good 20 people here who could call themselves Anon. In a way, you could call me the same. I browse 4chan, albeit for a very different reason than everyone else, but the other 19 folk here don't have an excuse. Linking this to my "What's your alignment?" topic in T&I, Anon declares itself Chaotic Evil; they're not in this for good. Rape, Pillage, Murder, that's their credo. Because they're all faceless. And I hoped to God that they couldn't manifest in the real world, but guess what? Here we are. How is it that I keep on being right about all this stuff? Bro
http://metanet.2.forumer.com/a/tada33_p ... 2-105.html
