The Gamer's Quarter

[Hot Stott Bot]

Yeah, that's why I need my Axe back! This is also why I'm not posting outside of this thread...

...and it isn't really funny. ;_;

[Hot Stott Bot]

Anyways!

I'm going to bed now!

Wow, look at that wget go... I'm going to have hundreds of megabytes of "Find all posts by user [random spambot]" and millions of copies of "Please login to send a private message!" by the morning!

[dongle]

can i hit one of you guys for a tar.bz2 of the archive? my uni will be pissed at me if i archive the entire forum.

[Hot Stott Bot]

Yeah, if the forums go apoof, I'll zip up whatever this ends up downloading and send it somewhere...

[internisus]

I don't know what a tar.bz2 means.

the me in this is rud13:

5:20 PM Andrew: oh well
5:21 PM looks like insertcredit.com is dead and buried
me: ?
5:22 PM Andrew : schild reported it to godaddy (a hosting company) and is getting the DNS severed from the server
5:23 PM because of the child porn
it will be difficult to get that domain name back
me: fun.
5:24 PM why's he doing this now?
5:25 PM Andrew: to keep brandon out of legal trouble
it's complicated
don't really understand it myself
5:27 PM me: good job brandon, you fucked it all by never fucking talking to us

so everything about insertcredit may really be gone and dead.


I am wondering, my fellows, is there anything in a forum that you would like that you felt IC lacked?

[chompers po pable]

i think i got banned for psoting in balbanes general axe thread. oh noes!

this is mildly humorous at best, weaksauce all around.

[dongle]

it was good meeting you, rud. i still think of you whenever i play trauma center.

strangely i felt a lot less lonely whenever i was on IC even though i mostly lurked. made me feel like less of an aspie.

[dark steve]

may it rise again under web 2.0 compliance
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[chompers po pable]

[internisus]

i don't know how anyone could possibly not blame brandon vehemently.

toups you have grown soft and stupid i t t

[Mister Toups]

also you don't have to put spaces inbetween itt there's no world filter here OH GOD ;_______;
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[internisus]

Well, fuck, Psiga. =( What are you interested in?

[dongle]

hi tim

can i still see you in japan and eat vegetarian food and play king of fighters?

[Psiga]

[extralife]

*Sigh*

I am really, truly, honestly sad (itt) right now. I don't know what happened, man. I leave for a few hours and IC goes from "terrible shitfest looking slightly better" to "complete and total armageddon on a frightening level."

Brandon's decisions and lack of communication with those in charge of his forums was mind bogglingly terrible. This situation is...the worst thing I have ever experienced on the internet. But you know what? If there was ever anyone in a position to stop us from heading down this path, it was me, and I am very fucking sorry on a million levels that we stand here, now, as we do. If there is anything that can be done, I am going to try to do it. We're going to get our forums back, damn it. I am not ready to "move on."

I've been at IC since '02, myself. I remember what the forums were like when Brandon was the most active poster. Yeah, I joined IC because tim told me I should, so maybe I'm part of the "problem," but Brandon always liked me well enough. When he originally decided to leave the forums and give mod powers to me and aderack, I tried to get him to stop. Not like I could do anything, anyway--the dude had asked me to write for the site for at least a year by that point, and I had never bothered. I was never as effective a mod/admin as I should have been, and by the time I realized that, I was out of "power." Those of you that have found me insufferable over the last ten months of so--well, I apologize. I really am sorry. But I want you to know that my behaviour stemmed from my belief that I was capable of making the forums a better place, and I was no longer in a position to do so. I was frustrated. Now, well...we all fucked up, I guess. I just don't want it to be over.

In all my years of very active posting at Insert Credit, what have I done? I don't speak to anyone outside of the forums, ever. I don't even know how to contact anyone. Those members of the forums that, you know, weren't online for twelve hours today and thus might not know what's up or where to go--well, it's very likely I'll never hear from them again. As it stands right now, I don't want to "move on." I've nothing to move on from. As I said, I never interacted with any of you outside of the forums; never met any of you, was never affected in any real, positive way by something I put so much time in. I liook at a guy like rudie, and as easy as it is to sort of point and snicker at the gusto with which he's embraced...whatever it is he's embraced, I can at least read what he wrote and know it to be true. I can at least look at him and say "now there's a dude that figured something out, and did something about it." So props to you, rudie. I'm glad IC was like that for at least someone. I just...I know it was sort of supposed to be like that for me to, and I just sit around and let it not happen.

That's a pretty big theme for me.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing with anything these days, but at least I knew insert credit dot fucking com was a place that felt comfortable; a place I had an emotional investment in that wasn't intent on fucking me over (even when it seemd it was!). It was my internet home, and damn it, make all the "lol internet serious business" jokes you want, but that meant something to me.

I want our fucking forums back.

[dongle]

i talked over the facts of today's events with one of my friends who has no connection to IC and he was completely blown away. it's true - today's events were in some ways epic in revealing all sorts of dark facets of net culture and human nature, particularly the sack by barbarians prophesied by Dess' av.

IC was a forum about games on the internet, but I see no reason why the psychologies and workings of the situation wouldn't apply to the explosions of larger, "more important" think tanks or societies. Reminds me a lot of 5th and 4th century BCE Greek history, especially.

I'm still pissed at whoever called for the raid. It was perhaps fitting considering that IC turned into a clash of egos, but it was pretty non-productive. The optimist in me hopes that we learn something from this and take the time off to cool down.

[108]

[Dracko]

I'm sure it was all in good fun!

P.S. Where's your avatar from? I know the game, having played it way, way back, but couldn't name it if my life depended on it.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Hot Stott Bot]

Or maybe if icyclam hadn't acted like a fucking psychopath/moron/etc.?

Anyways, the events of the evening as I observed them went something like this:

1. Exodus and icyclam make their announcements.
2. Most of the old mods more or less quit IC.
3. Big threads are started, and everyone writes long posts saying why this is bad.
4. Exodus responds civilly, all is well.
5. A few people make some "crazy threads" and icyclam locks them. Everyone is still relatively ok.
6. Exodus mentions something about how some of the good culture from the Axe might be integrated back into General.
7. A completely harmless thread is made that had nothing to do with the state of the forums, and was not baiting in any way whatsoever.
8. icyclam closes it, tells people to discuss the state of the forum in the main thread, and bans the poster. (Steps 7 and 8 happened several times.)
9. Some polls are made about Forum Axe -- overwhelming support for the return of the old Axe is recorded.
10. icyclam makes a "Ban List" (with me on it)!
11. A whole bunch of people say, "fuck this shit."
12. Civil discussion is still ensueing somehow!
13. Guardian has been very supportive of the changes all night and makes about the most civil thread you can imagine to discuss things.
14. icyclam closes it and threatens to ban him.
15. A few people get angry.
16. icyclam bans a shitload of people.
17. A bunch of people flip out.
18. 4chan.
19. The end.

There was an incredible amount of self control from everyone on IC all night -- with the exception of icyclam -- and people were pretty damn cautious in not pushing the line, but at a certain point, tensions had been building slowly all night and things pretty much went haywire at a point.

[Hot Stott Bot]

Let's see who was on his bullshit ban list by the end of the night...

Me
Guardian
Legato
Captain EO
Baron Patsy
Balbanes
Gouki
Brock

All of our biggest problem posters with long histories of disorderly conduct -- of course!

Good thing the forums didn't last another 30 minutes because I think virtually every poster on insert credit would have been on that list!

Like, who was openly rebelling by spamming in the "Glad I'm not on the ban list!" thread?

Toups
Loolapaloozer
vision
inmatarian

And DAIS had pretty much lost his mind even more so than usual by that point.

How did you guys manage to not get on that list? I wasn't even spamming and he threatened to ban me. (Oh shit, maybe it was because I outed myself as an ethnic minority!? ;_;)

Also, why the fuck did icy delete the gamedev forum? That was a curious event that I don't think anyone else noticed!

The gaurdian thread was particularly ironic. In usual guardian fashion, it was very talky, and he gave it a lovely title like: "Would you like to see a more professional demeanor on the forums?"

Naturally, this awful thread, caused icy to flip out in a matter of minutes -- before it even had any replies -- say that guardian was "one click away from being banned!" (who had not done a damn thing all night), lock the thread, and added guardian to his little "list".

This was of course, precedented by other civil "forum discussion" threads that weren't locked, and weren't anywhere nearly so delicately put together, so I don't think anyone still has any idea what the fuck that was about.

(Also, when icy locked my thread, the personal insult directed at me was a nice touch!)

Oh right, of course all the people who quit the forums before they could even get put on the ban list when icy had started randomly locking threads in a nonsensical fashion weren't banned of course.

I mean, the mods had already all quit the forum, of course.

Like, seeing Winker dramatically quit the forums halfway through the night was interesting!

And seeing TOLLMASTER dramatically quit with a TOLLMASTER-THREAD about how this was the worst thing ever was particularly poignant.

And how come I was put on the ban list before Wilkes? What the fuck.

Also, I liked how he just backed right on over his word that he wouldn't edt or delete people's posts/threads, and only lock them, because he felt that was "right".

It didn't take him very long to start deleting, now did it? Gosh. Now those are the kind of convictions we need managing the forum!

So come on guys, fun times right!?

[Hot Stott Bot]

Sorry!

But the drama had already been started in this thread, and I felt the events of the evening needed to be stated accurately for those who weren't there.

[Hot Stott Bot]

Okay.

(Oh wait, let's use our new icyclam memes!)

Go outside and get a life!

locked

[ajutla]

tim you and your photosynthetic apes. jesus
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[108]

it's a reference to sea monkeys, by the way
_________________
www.largeprimenumbers.com
www.insertcredit.com

[enjoy all monsters]

it is a good omen to see stotelheim here!

hey stotelheim, i just caught up on such as a month of achewood and am now feeling better about the forum collapse.

[Hot Stott Bot]

The sudden busting out of Rud13's avatar was very dramatic!

108, bust out an avatar!

I always felt the way phpBB didn't save the title/avatar/etc. from the time when a post was made was one of it's biggest flaws in terms of good strong narrative. Though, there's obviously a lot of technical reasons for this...

[rye]

what's up guys.


i'm just a dude looking for a place to talk intelligently about video games.

[Rud13]

Well I'd probably read it first. The trick here is we are dealing with vague guidelines. Is this opinion, action, fact, crazed ramblings.

Notice I did not tell the public (I did discuss it with one person) before it happened. It looked unsound. The person I discuss it with said it was probably an act to get me riled up. Because people know how to press my buttons. Which was the source of my cryptic email to you last week. The email was revealed after the fact.

Still if you think me untrust worthy now, sorry I slighted yourself and Brandon.

EDIT: I have a problem bringing up my opinion in person, but I'm getting better at it.

[Mister Toups]

Look, so far the only clear suspect I've found the 4chan invasion was this guy E_Megas knows, and his only reasoning was that "no one else uses the word weeaboo".

...

So yeah, I don't think finding out who staged the invasion is possible or even that important, and I sure as hell don't believe that Tim has any fucking idea who did it. It's fucking 4chan -- no one has an alibi! (tm)

Anyway I get the impression that people think that Brandon is some kind of Emperor Nero who fiddled away while the forums burned. And this isn't true. His attempts were ill-informed and misguided, yeah, but he cares about the forums just as much as any of us. He just has a different vision for what he wants them to become. The problem is, he chose the wrong man to enact that vision.

I mean honestly. Icy's "rules" thread was NOT that far off base when it comes to making valid criticisms of the forums. Shit like what happened in that Arcana Heart thread was common and civil threads were more the exception that proved the rule. I think he even had a good point about not enough discussion of doujin/indie games and the newsposts. And really anyone who actually READ that post would find that nowhere does he say that "YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT MAINSTREAM GAMES", nor does he ever say "YOU CAN'T DISAGREE WITH STAFF MEMBERS". It was more along the lines of "Try to increase the amount of discussion of obscure games that the frontpage is focused on" and "give the staff members the benefit of the doubt and at least treat them respectfully if you disagree with them". Good message, I think, but wrong messenger. He could've said anything and people would've lynched him for it.

And perhaps rightfully so! No one had any good reason to give Icy the benefit of the doubt given his reputation and history here. But that doesn't mean that what he said isn't true, in this case.
_________________
where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Mister Toups]

Well yeah, so we would have had to deal with an asshole moderator for a week. Worse things have happened. The thing is, the desperation was a real problem here. If everyone had kept their cool, Icy would've proven himself to be incapable as a mod either way. Starting threads that challenged his authority only inspired to tighten his grip further, which inspired more desperation, which eventually led to someone panicking and calling in a 4chan invasion.

This could've ended a lot more quietly and peacefully had everyone just kept a cool head.

What's that saying? Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself.
_________________
where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Hot Stott Bot]

[Mister Toups]

[Hot Stott Bot]

[shnozlak]

When they try to take your fort away,
in a tree on someone else's land
you can go and join a new fort
or you can burn it to the sand

Poems aside I thought it was silly of exodus, typical of icyclam and childish of most everyone else. But really, who wants to take part in a forum run by outsiders?
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[Mister Toups]

did anyone see this? http://img.7chan.org/i/res/38679.html

The more I read this the more it seems like icy's style. And this sort of maneuver is the exact sort of thing he's known for for pulling. Of course we don't have any proof, but still.
_________________
where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[dark steve]

aw man they took out the wiki
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[Lasa]

I missed the second half of icy's reign, I decided when the ban list showed up I would just play rainbow six vegas.
Hi guys, maybe I'll actually post on this forum.

[dark steve]

[DaleNixon]

[dark steve]

The wiki is sort of a #butanpressfight favorite, if for no other reason that you can whittle away a lonely night making "list_of_games_with_gratuitous_motorcycle_stages" in the vein of (aderack's?) five kinds of videogame opponent topic.

Legato, that would be one hell of a coincidence.

Also, Toups, if you told me there were all of six people who were seriously contributing to "hysteria," i'd say you padded the list. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even be talking about anyone who's normally a big-volume poster, either. I don't think you could conceivably connect the gentle, winker style passive (agressive?) resistance with anyone crying POLICE STATE POLICE STATE LET'S TAKE THIS PUPPY DOWN other than some thread overlap (mostly on the part of the latter).
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[inmatarian]

Well, even though I was playing FFXII most of the night, I'd like to offer an apology for my share of the blame, which was the 80x80 avatar, and the icyclam as a mod poll, and... probably a couple other threads where I kicked in a charming quip before it was locked. So, yes, I'm sorry for being a jerk.

Now, lets all have a big group hug.

[dhex]

[Shapermc]

This is all pretty surreal.

Anyways, welcome to the forums guys. If you want I think that you could use Wilkes blog page as a sort of Axe. I mean, that's totally up to the person who's thread it is, and Wilkes (based on if he submits an article he says he has) is staff here, so he can make a thread there.

Just saying.

Also, welcome, I guess.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Psiga]

[Hot Stott Bot]

Hmmm... well that's just the thing. 4 is kind of an unproductive route I think. I mean, I think the forums could have been headed towards a much better place than 4, but they never quite made it there, probably because they were far more socially complex than those sorts of communities, but that's also why they had so much more potential to produce interesting results!

Suggested reading: The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yochai Benkler

It's an economic approach to the sort of "large internet community" phenomenon, but it can easily be reapplied to the production of ideas and content and whatnot too...

[Pijaibros]

Wow, I wander away for 1 weekend and all hell seems to erupt.

You know I've tried joining the small forum style communitiesthat some people were wishing IC would become, but I've always found that I was muscled out/ignored since I've not been around for the decades that the rest of the community seem to have already been.

Kinda like going to small town dive bar and everyone just stops and stares at you when you enter the room in your funny, city clothes. I was also trying to uh..."fit-in" at IC, but if I wander away for even a couple of hours, any points I would make have already been made and the new topics in place, I have no grounding in.

I also can never have the time to always be on the look-out for the really obscure/Japanese stuff since I don't/can't make a living on the videogame industry.

[extralife]

Toups, I appreciate that you are trying to sort all of this out, but I think it's a little ridiculous to attempt to blame the people talking in this thread for...well, just about anything. I think we all acted like God Damn Angels considering the situation. I mean, seriously: Brandon swoops in from above, takes over, tells us how things are going to be, installs the one universally reviled, completely banned dude to step in and ban any regular that he feels like banning after telling us what we can and can't talk about.

That's...not good. That's as bad as it could be.

I wish someone had consulted me at some point, really. I mean, if there is anyone that has ever taken any shit for attempting to do things with mod/admin power, it was me, and I never went a tenth as far as this shit did. It was a stunningly terrible idea implemented because: 1. Brandon really, truly did hate the forums for not being mmcafe and 2. tim's feelings got hurt once he figured out he didn't have intellectual sway over everyone that posts there.

I'm sorry, but I'm calling a spade a fucking spade. Leadership fucked up as much as leadership could possibly fuck up, and we are living with the consequences. I am actually quite shocked that things went as well as they did. I left to go do things at maybe 8:30 Mountain time, and at that point I felt that we were all doing a wonderful job of turning things around in spite of what had happened, not because of it. Yeah, someone fucked up and called in the antisocial monstrosities of 4chan, but considering we were all told we sucked and basically needed to leave because a few people didn't like us, and here was this dude with an axe to grind to police the situation and make sure we leave because he gave the head honco a handjob at some point...well, shit. I'm not even on bad terms with icy, and I banned the fucking guy.

Brandon, tim, I'm sorry if we no longer fit your warped social perspective of what the forums should be. That's just too fucking bad.

Seriously, tim--you're the one making me angry, here. Don't be so fucking insecure, and please don't pull the "I'm just fucking around and being TIM ROGERS" schtick here, because it's not all that hard to see through. So people get to you. That's nice. You managed to live homeless in Japan for god knows how long--I'm pretty sure you could have gotten over this. Hell, you didn't even see what icyclam was doing (apparently) so don't try to give us "He seemed to be doing ok to me!" routine, either. The way this went down, and the way icyclam behaved--unchecked--gave a large amount of people the impression that what little "reaching out to the community" efforts existed on Brandon's part were a farce, adn the end goal was a complete implosion of the forums.

Really, now, I want to know exactly how icyclam even became a part of this equation. "hay brandon i was banned from your forums for being antisocial maybe i can help you make them better because i like japanese doujin games and look at my site here with art of tokyo."

I mean, hell--I'm pretty sure he was picked because Brandon and crew knew icy wasn't us, and Brandon figured icy liked the same things he did so he could make the forums what Brandon wanted. Just...just a stunningly bad move on every possibe level. I don't know what else to say.

[Hot Stott Bot]

Oh yeah, I have them saved.

Actually, the discourse was completely civil until the first thread icy locked, at which point some people (LegatoB) started complaining, but he still did it while remaining civil. Even our usual spammiest, flamiest, most pissed off posters didn't act like jerks for quite a while. I'd say everything remained amazingly civil up until about thread... five or so?

Really things, were under control until the first banning, and then they started accelerating with the Ban List, and then around the time internisus was put on the Ban List without even realizing it is when I think the shit hit the fan.

That might have been the most civil the IC forum collective has ever reamined in the face of adversity, in fact!

[Wilkes]

[internisus]

I'd like a copy of that as well, please. You can just click the email button on my post.