I have LOTS of friends. On-line...

I'm confused as to why this site is considered a community? Looks more like a blog. That is not a community.

It's funny how the one with the douchebag comment to start with only has something retarded to post related to online communites.

Focus: I have been a part of a message board since 2001. It started out as video games and it still sorta is that but mostly it's just 15 people saying stupid shit. It has been in a downward tailspin for years now which is actually why I started lurking and ended up joining RMMB a long time ago. I was in need of a board that actually had a post more than 3 times a week. I enjoy being a part of some sort of community online even though I never really connected with people on the internet.

 

Dude, he never said it was a community. Some of the stuff on there is pretty damn insightful, I'll endorse his recommendation.

 

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Like many of you, I keep my internet life mostly hidden from my "real life". I am not quite sure why, I wouldn't say that it is the stigma necessarily, mostly more of my preference to have the opportunity to be more candid on here is I choose to be. I can't even say that I behave differently online than I do as the "real" me. For me, part of the draw of the internet is the many many different types of people that you can be exposed to in one place. I know that there isn't much variety in the majority of my friends, they tend to be roughly in the same age group, the same socio-economic class, same interests (doesn't help that I probably live in one of the whitest places EVER). Here you can meet all types, from all countries, with all sorts of different experiences. Plus, like has been mentioned before, you can get an honest, and mostly intelligent discussion on specific topics with many different viewpoints that you may not have been exposed to when discussing it with people who are very much like you. What I don't like is deliberate and obvious trolling, like happens on many many boards. Doesn't happen so much here, which I very much appreciate and is one of the reasons that I keep coming back.

I have met exactly 2 people from the internet (both from different boards), both were female. I didn't want to have to explain to my husband that I was meeting a man that I had met on the internet, no matter how innocent the circumstances, I think that it is just a situation that is ripe for misinterpretation. On that note, I live extremely close to Ballsack, who says I should call his bluff on the I would meet any of you thing that he claimed here?

 

Like many of you, the TIB is the only message board I ever come to. I'm kind of a dullard by comparison to most of you, so much of what I post is probably pointless. I'm kind of like Salieri in that I can recognize intelligence, but am not capable of expressing it in a meaningful way. I mostly come here for the diversity of opinions on various topics and the pop culture stuff. I don't have friends in real life because I work from home and am new to the state that I'm in, so it's just the wife and kids I socialize with. I frequented the RMMB for many years under one name or another and I agree with what much of you all said about how it was run. I honestly don't miss it because I always disliked Tucker and his ego, but the content of the site always drew me in. Even when I worked on site it was, and still is, a wonderful time waster.

I don't really have stories to tell because once I hit 24 I started living a very even keeled life. I do have lots of hooker, partying stories from my late teens early 20s, like the time I almost got arrested on my 23rd birthday but the hooker talked the cop out of it, or the time I was drunk and carrying weed and driving 80 miles an hour on side streets because I had an argument with a girl, got stopped by a cop, and he didn't realize I was drunk, probably because I was so pissed, and let me go, but I prefer to live vicariously through the 20 somethings on this here board.

 

I have made a couple of what I'd consider real friends on this board, a couple that really helped support me when everything was in upheaval in my personal life. I have made friends that I talk to regularly on a another board as well. I don't talk about these friends all the time to my "real life" friends, but I don't hide it. That being said, I have only linked one friend here, I enjoy having the option of coming here and getting a break from my day to day friends.

I keep coming here because ya'll are a bunch of funny bastards.

 

I got involved in forum "life" 10 years or so ago. It was a tech support board, and they had a "chat" forum. I actually met a fair number of people off that forum, but that was due to conferences, events, etc., that we attended for the most part. I did end up taking a vacation to England, and met some of the UK folks, simply because I needed a vacation, and "knowing" people over there, albeit only online, made the trip so much more fun.

I stated before that I was a huge Everquest addict for about five years. At that time, I traveled more than I do now for my job. So it was nothing to me to throw up on our guild or server forums, "Hey, I'm going to be in <insert town>, who wants to meet for a beer?" The only time it got weird is when I had a two day conference in New Orleans, which I promptly made a week vacation, and I met a few people. One guy in particular decided after partying with me (and the others in the area) for a couple of days that he was in love, we were soulmates, and he wanted to move here to live with me. Ummm, no thanks, that's kind of creepy. After getting home, he quit the game due to me spurning him. And no, I didn't sleep with him or anything, it was just that creepy.

As far as this board, I lurked here for a while before even registering. The discussions alone are worth it to me to keep checking it, even if I don't post on the topic. Believe it or not, some of the topics have become conversations while sitting around with friends. Granted, most people know that I'm a "computer geek" to an extent, so it doesn't shock them in the slightest when I bring up a topic from here or another board, or even mention people I've met in person after meeting them first online.

There's a certain gratification about the anonymity of an online community. I still play on an EQ emu server, and some of the people I've known online there for over three years. I'd go so far as to say that those people know more about when I've had a bad day, why I'm pissed at my SO this time, etc., than a lot of my "real life" friends do. Simply because I tell them. Now, do I tell my friends things as well? Yeppers. But there's times when I just want to vent, and it will never be brought up at the bar in front of anyone else. I just need *someone* to listen right at that moment. Around here, it's a small community area, where people know what time you took a shit half the time. So one wrong comment can be brought back to you for the next 20 years. Online, I know that while these people "care", it doesn't effect them. So while they may casually ask me, "So what ever happened with... ", I don't have to worry about everyone from the neighbor to my mother to my SO to the lady that cuts my hair finding out that I did/said something that they may not approve of.

As for meeting anyone from here? If anyone is in the area & wants to have a beer, sure. In a well lit, public place, and I'd keep my drink in my hand the entire time.

 

Focus: What's your story? How important are online communities (like TiB) to you?

The TiB reminds me of the tree house I had in the woods growing up. I have the Porn/Boobie thread instead of old playboys and our idiotboard topics are the same caliber of fucked up chats I had with my buddies.

It's an escape and thankfully this place won't burn down like the tree fort did, because no one here is stupid enough to light off 500 fucking bottle rockets in a confined space.

 

I'm pretty sure Chater was talking about trying to light a fireball with his ear a few days ago, so you never know...

Focus: The only message board I've ever been part of are this one, and RMMB for maybe a year and a half before it went down. I've checked out a few since then, but the mostly seem to be full of retards using smileys and saying LOL every other word. The main reason I like it here is because people know how to fucking spell, and try to actually say funny shit for the most part.

I have an internship, and most of the time I'm just sitting at a computer with nothing to do, and this is a great way to pass the day at least.

 

I'm definitely hesitant to mention this place to my personal friends. Whenever I see something funny on here, either a story someone told or an interesting link, I always just say that "I read it online somewhere". Always leave it inconspicuous. I'm already considered a computer nerd amongst my friends, I don't need to give them any more ammo.

While I've never met anyone from here in real life, I do have two friends that I met through Nexopia, way back in high school. It started off as them throwing a random wall post about me being cute or some shit, and we eventually started talking quite a bit. I forget where I met one for the first time in real life, but the other had a softball game that was only a 5 minute drive from my house, so I went down to the park to watch. Between innings she came over and we chatted for a bit. Since then she's come over to my house, and I've been over to hers. Just hanging out, one time she partied out here with some friends of mine and spent the night at my place. While I don't talk to them nearly as much as I used to, it still was nice having them there to talk to about random shit going on in my life, since they weren't connected in any way at all.

Any time people asked where we met, I'd always say that I met them through friends of friends or some shit.

 

I once disagreed with Tucker. He red dotted me, called me an idiot and deleted my post.

I once didn't disagree with Bunny. She thought I had, and banned me for a week.

The lesson here is clearly to don't not un-disagree with not-un-Bunny.

 

And one day before the board closed down someone *Cough, cough* banned me with a message stating that if I sent them $20 via Paypal I'd be reinstated.

In retrospect, it was actually pretty damn funny since I already had a heads up that the site was going down and had seen a bunch of the regulars bounced from the place for no apparent reason.

Before that blood bath leaching, I never had a problem with any of the mods on the RMMB. I even got along with SLF (Who although being heavy handed was hilarious) and Bunny.

I even posted crap on the RMMB just to see if I'd get banned. I got a few red dots, but never a ban. Or even an admonishment from the mods for posting shit that they normally would rain down the ban hammer on.

In short, online communication pretty much mirrors real life. Once folks get used to your shit, they'll put up with you and all your faults as long as you amuse them every now and again.

 

I actually started one here that got bumped, and exactly one person kept to the original intent of the thread.

I guess it was my fault for not making the goal of that thread clear enough -- the suggestion actually came from a PM conversation with Frebis, talking about how there is such an intelligent, funny, and (most importantly) diverse population on here that it could be a proverbial gold mine of stories. As others have mentioned previously in this thread, the RMMB was very story-driven, and content-driven, and it came up in that conversation that similar content would be a fantastic way to not only create traffic and entertainment value from the TiB, but it might also be a sustainable way to produce revenue. And keep this place around.

The thread above never caught on the way it was written to, but we/I weren't armchair quarterbacking; we genuinely liked this place, and wanted to help it succeed.

This is where it becomes relevant to this thread:

I see internet forums as a testing ground, and aside from producing the obvious entertainment that has been discussed before, they also help me refine what I do. I started writing sports articles for a place called SpursCentral.com when I was about 15, did so until I was 18 and was able to put a ton of shit on my college resume. From there, InsideHoops.com, a little on FullSportPress.com. The reading I did on those websites/forums helped my writing, despite receiving no formal training in the field, to the point where within about a month I got a book deal reference from an NBA agent and an offer for a press pass from ISH. Brain tumor happened, Samr was "tentatively" alive, and it all went to fuck. But bed rest means you have a lot of spare time, and I split it between reading the TMMB and writing a manuscript. Three re-writes later, and credit almost entirely to my earlier experiences on forums, I landed a name book agent for the manuscript based on my surgery.

Now, things have just gotten more elaborate. Fired the agent, proposed to my girlfriend, re-writing the manuscript for the umpteenth time, and using many of the computer skills I initially developed in online participation to earn me a paycheck (everything from typing and grammar to creating marketing materials).

Forums are entertainment for me, but at a base level, they're tools. I am professionally-driven and the moment I stop improving from what I read, produce, or learn on here or anywhere, is the moment I leave. Right now, I'm content. I feel my day, life, and goals are improved from participation on here.

So I hope y'all do find a format that will encourage some stories. The community on here is intelligent, humorous, extremely literate and exceedingly diverse; there's no way I, or anyone, wouldn't want to read material produced from that. And if y'all do start, I'd love to participate. I think we could all learn something. Or at least kill a little more of our boring work days.

 

I consider some people on this board my friends whether they even care that I exist or not. Weird, huh? I don't PM folk, don't give false validation, and enjoy [some of]the thoughts that spurs laughter to maturity. I see this place as cross section of a shadow community that represents at least pieces of the whole. Five years? I'll chill with your ideas. Generally speaking, the folks here are o-fuckin'-kay.

As a general announcement, I don't do Facebook, MySpace, Social Networking Forums....As far as online "friends", this is my go to, I also do the Redskins board. Truth be told, most them suck balls.

EDIT: I had met probably 10 people from the old board in person / party. Good folk for the most part, worthwhile interaction.

 

This is the only messageboard that I enjoy. There's plenty of entertaining shit on the internet, but this place is consistently funny.
Every single day I can find something here that either makes me scratch my head or laugh.
I don't use facebook or twitter, this is about as high tech as I'm comfortable with.
Besides, I'm just here to fuck Chater.

 

I've been a part of a few message boards. 7 or 8, I think. The four that I've enjoyed the most were the Ehowa message board between 2001-2004. It got retarded, turned into a popularity contest.

RMMB, great people, intelligent, funny discussion. Heavily dominated by better-than-you mods.

Nobigtoe, an offshoot from ehowa of the people that were fed up with the bullshit there. Maybe 15 regular posters, and many of them are racist and extremely right leaning, but I've also met most of them in person, and they are good people. I just have to be the guy that, twice a year, says, "hey, I'm not a douchebag like you guys, I just associate with you. can you cut it back a notch or three?"

TiB. I truly think we brought the best aspects of RMMB with us, and left most of the bullshit behind. There are only a few members here that will pick a fight on an honest opinion to make themselves feel better, and overall, it's the smartest board I've been a part of. I don't know what that says about me, but...

I think online communities like this have become much more acceptable in mainstream. I have no problem telling someone, "So, I was reading about this very issue on one of the message boards I post on..." Shit, I have more problems telling people about something I heard on the radio show I listen to, which isn't local.

Internet friends have become, if not normal, accepted.

 

Here is the thing, and I guess central to the overall theme of the thread. Does it really matter? Everyone is acting like a ban from an internet messageboard was akin to having someone fuck your mother and then shit in your bed. My initial reaction is 'go get a real life'. This is probably an unfair response and ignorant of the degree to which technology shapes and shifts culture.

Twenty years ago my Father would have been confused that playing video games could provide a viable alternative for me to going outside and playing. Now I am confused to the concept that virtual relationships and socializing can provide a viable alternative to real ones. While my gut reaction is to react negetively the reality is I am probably a late adopter.

 

See this is on my point above. How can you get so irrationally angry at a messageboard and an individual because you feel you slighted? Many have posted in this thread that they like to keep their 'online' life seperate from their real life, does this also flow through to emotions or is their no seperation for them? Does anyone actually drive to work seething over a red dot?

I have always thought of messageboards as just a frivolous waste of time, to be honest I am suprised by the level of emotional value given towards online interactions shown in this thread. I mean I am obviously aware there are insane individuals who will e-stalk after people online if they dare insult them, a nutjob is a nutjob no matter the setting, but I just never knew that seemingly normal people actually attach an emotional value towards messageboards. If anything it is making me think there is a connection that for whatever reason I am not making.

 

I guess here is the problem. I wasn't angry, per say, about being banned or a post being deleted. It is an internet message board, so who really cares?

The problem is: it is an internet message board where the mods were the ones saying "don't take this so seriously," when they were the ones that would drop a ban hammer on someone who disagreed with them even slightly. They were the ones taking it way to seriously. People were annoyed with them because the entire board seemed like it was just an e-dick measuring contest for the mods. It was like they were saying "this is OUR message board. YOU can post here, but if you even THINK of disagreeing with us, we'll throw your dumb ass out, because clearly anyone who doesn't agree with us must be clinically retarded."

Think of it this way: you're driving. Someone cuts you off, and when you honk at them to show you disagree with their shitty driving, they get out of their car and start waving a gun around at you. All you did was show you didn't agree with something they said/did, and they responded by acting like an irrational asshole. That pretty much describes virtually every mod at the old boards. Its not that people hate being banned. Its that they hate being banned by some overreacting e-bully who feels butthurt cause you don't agree with his view of things.