Flame Warriors ~ View topic

Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 18

I just read the registration rules for this message board for the first time. Rather Netiquette Nazi-ish sounding to my ear. I would change them, but it's server-side code, so I don't know how to edit it.

Suffice it to say that you would REALLY have to behave very very badly to get banned from this forum. I hasten to add that by saying this I am NOT issuing a challenge...

Cheers

Mike Reed

Clueless Newb Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

Damn dude, I wish you were the admin of all the forums that I post in!

Lurker Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 9

I never read them. Usually forums have thread with rules. So I was ignorant to it all. As Anittas said, you are cool. Wink

Lurker Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 9

Ahh, you mean the standard phpBB message. That is generic. Some admins, who are confident in php, edit. Most forum admins leave it alone and do what I wrote in my other post.

It WOULD be tempting to give spammers the heave-ho. Which reminds me - the roster doesn't include a Spammer Warrior yet. The descriptions I've received thus far have not been sufficient to flesh out the character. If anyone else has more info on this variant please send it along.

Here are some of the descriptions I've gotten for Spammer-type Warriors:

•Spam Master-this person replies to every topic, usually multiple times,
rarely saying anything of note, but increases his/her post count at an
astonishing rate. The spammaster can often be mistaken for a grunter.

•Although Serdar Argic is not a 'type' of poster, he was the godfather of SPAM back in the eary 1990's before the graphical browser explosion. He wrote to USENET out of anatolia.org, and his beef was against the Armenians. His crosspostings were legendary. He was Turkish, and claimed the Armenians of 1912-1914 commited, or attempted, genocide against the Turks then. Most historians have this the other way around. He would innundate anyone with thousands of words that start out as specific rebutal to whatever comment, and then become quite deranged, and personal (... your genocidal Armenian granparents!). It got to a point that if anyone were to mention 'Turkey' or 'Armenia' in any context whatsoever (... we're having turkey this thanksgiving...) in absolutely any USENET group he would attack. People would write calmly and diplomatically but to no avail. Due to the sheer volume of words this person generated, it was generally assumed that Serdar Argic was a bot, and was rumored to have been written by a disaffected AT&T programmer (whose name at present escapes me.) Serdar Argic disappeared around 1994. If you look around the net you can find stuff on this 'guy'.

He was known for 'screaming through the wires', and yes, t-shirts were made!

•(more in line with current events) Tsunami - Tsunami (perhaps a giant tidal wave words washing the computer out of the room, with two little bitty feet at the bottom) is an odd warrior, if they are a warrior at all. Tending to infest forums and USEnet as opposed to live chats, Tsunami is a foe to be feared. Through the use of non-sequitur generators, Tsunami will flood a NG with posts of strange, meaningless, stream-of-consciousness blather that eats bandwidth like a kid at a double feature.

Tsunami will, once in a great while, post a long and substantive post, sometimes worthy of praise and then, just as suddenly, the tide will turn and the word-bath increases, inundating all who bother to read them, in gibberish soapsuds.

Tsunami is similar to flood, but uses language that one would have to take large amounts of chemicals to remotely understand, and even then, it's not likely that any sense would come of his drivel.

Clueless Newb Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

I assume that the guest who replied in the last message is Mike.

I think that many spammers are closely related to bumpers - or as you call them: necromancers. It's hard to distinguish spammers from fanatics who keep repeating the same arguement in order to sound more convincing.

And let's not forget about the flooders. They use a slightly different tactic.

I usually relate spammers to users that advertise for commercial services or products. My idea is that you create a character that would include all types of spammers, flooders, and bumpers.

If I posted a story about using aborted fetuses to make an elixir that I then sold to unsuspecting folk as a kind of health drink, would that cause a problem?

Hardly, besides, evidence abounds that there's an audience out there with a taste for lame and/or sophomoric writing. Who am I to prevent them from indulging their appetite?

cheers

Mike Reed

Wisdom is an admin's best weapon.

I'll be good. Very Happy

Dark Lord of the Stealth Joined: 27 Dec 2004 Posts: 361

I have a feeling Mike is going to start getting impersonated here real soon, lol. Log in, Mike, for heaven's sake! Wink

To me, Spammer is just someone whose primary motivation for posting is to post. For Spammer, posting is it's own reward. Spammer is often a Lonely Guy who has gone neurotic and become his own best company. Warriors who take themselves and their forum very seriously will invariably develop a distaste for Spammer. At the end of a long heated discussion, Spammer may chime in, "I agree!" for no apparent reason. Sometimes Spammer is seeking the perceived 'prestige' that goes with being a top poster on a given forum. Sometimes Spammer believes that if he/she makes enough posts, he/she will become a Royal. Deep down, however, Spammer is someone who likes to listen to themself chatter. But, for some strange reason, only when other people are listening. Forum personalities ape human personalities, hehe.

--Alistair

Clueless Newb Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

Are you sure you're not describing someone who just posts a lot and saying very little? I mean, spamming is supposed to be about making identical posts and flood the board with them.

Lurker Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1

Possible Troller Joined: 24 Jan 2005 Posts: 102

Possible Troller Joined: 24 Jan 2005 Posts: 102

Gotta get the message out.
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I'm wondering which of the "living incarnations" of the various flame warrior types will get bored and move on first. Grunter and Rebel seem to be the obvious picks right now, but you never what dark horse will emerge...

Possible Troller Joined: 24 Jan 2005 Posts: 102

What the hell are you on about?
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http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/warriorshtm/rebelwithoutclue.htm

mmmm as it happens, grunter is not on the member list anymore, therefore gone. Of course, anyone would realise, they should at the very least, still be lurking, or better still, back as a new member. Really I think the removal was just a bit of a game, to humour those who can't resist troll bait. But here I am anyhow.

RWaC, somewhere along the lines, I think you should ask Admin to change your name to Crash Test Dummy which has been suggested recently for a warrior.

I thought we all knew toons never really die.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

heh Thanks for mentioning an instance where paint thinners are deadly, reincarnation was not possible.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

I figured someone would catch that reference...
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The Grand Suggestion List

Lurker Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 1 Location: London

Now know that old 'toons never really die,
They merely retire to the great sketchbook in the sky,
To be resurrected, one day, in a countenance fresh,
To amuse and perform before the generation next.

The Voice of Reason Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 1368

I believe the spammer reference meant someone pounding the board with sales pitches, not someone hammering it with mindless crap.
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Tireless Rebutter / Archivist
The Grand Suggestion List

Don't give them ideas.

Hate to tell you this, but mindless crap is some people's middle name.
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The Average Woman Would Rather Have Beauty Than Brains Because The Average Man Can See Better Than He Can Think