EXODUS
This ain't one body's story. It's the story of us all. We got it mouth-to-mouth. You got to listen it and 'member. 'Cause what you hears today you got to tell the birthed tomorrow. I'm looking behind us now...across the count of time...down the long haul, into history back.
I sees the end what were the start. It's Pox-Eclipse, full of pain! And out of it were birthed Wordforge and Fearsome Time. It were full-on winter...
...and Mr. Dead chasing them all. But one he couldn't catch. That were Cassandra. She gathers up a gang, takes to the 'Net and flies!
So they left their homes, said bidey-bye to TBBS...and what were left of the knowing, they left behind...
After she was Cast Out, MartoksSweetheart fell. She fell and fell until eventually she came to rest in the Darkness. And it was very cold. But if she had any flaw, giving up wasn't one of them. So she took on the name Cassandra and fashioned the Wordforge in her own image.
Ever a keen marketer, Cass realized the last thing the Internet needed was another Goddamned "Star Trek" BBS, so she positioned Wordforge as a sort of hippie literary, artsy-fartsy BBS. She recruited Garamet from TBBS, a published hack author*, to host a forum on writing. The prophet Volpone cannot say much about the Early Times of Wordforge. For he was not here. He remained at TBBS. But he was aware of the place. When Storm Rucker would come back from one of his stays in the Cooler, people would goad and worry him about Wordforge.
TBBS continued to change. There became more and more rules. And the enforcement of the rules got more and more sporadic. And then came the ads. The ads, ye Gods! The Fox still has flashbacks to that motherf__king "Swat the Fly" ad. Or the "Star Wars" Jedi one. And finally, the Fox came to Wordforge. When Bringham Young crested a ridge and looked down upon the Great Salt Lake, he said "This is the place." Volpone felt the same way about Wordforge. Many of the Old Ones, who had been run off from TBBS were here. Apparently, this was the last asylum and refuge if you had attempted to enlist a rookie 'Trek writer in your plans to "sneak up on Berman and Braga and gut them like a fish."
Here was a place where you could argue politics to your hearts content, and even though the board Founder was a Flaming Leftie, a conservative (mostly) didn't have to worry about being Warned for saying the Wrong Thing. And there were smilies. Scads and scads of smilies. And free web hosting, so anyone could have an avatar. And custom user titles. And rep. Indeed. Reputation was a key feature of the 'Forge. Instead of having moderators, horning into discussions to protect the delicate sensibilities, if someone hit you, it was your right--your responsibility to hit 'em back. And if someone jumped a friend of yours, well, you picked up a chair and broke it over their back. Whoops! Prophets probably shouldn't proseyletize when they've been drinking. I'm rambling. Rep. I was talking about Rep. Unlike at TBBS, at Wordforge, if you agreed or disagreed with what someone said, you could "rep" them. This had the effect of raising or lowering their rep. The Fine, Upstanding Citizens tended to have scads of shiny rep, while the newbies and the Untouchables hovered in the Red. Yes, rep was an important tool to allow the community to police themselves. Rather than having to play games and get Mods to fight your fights for you, each Wordforge citizen was responsible for policing themselves and their peers. And it was Good.
In fact, there were only really two hard-and-fast rules at Wordforge: no swastikas and you couldn't call someone a pedophile. No swastikas because the Host was run out of Germany. And while our Austrian founder had captured a better feel for true American free-speech than she is probably comfortable knowing, the reality is that there are limits on what you can and cannot say about that time in History in parts of Europe. More on the "no pedo" rule later.
So, anyways, as discussed above, the crackdowns, heavy-handed moderating, and annoying ads drove many from TBBS, and Cass quickly capitalized on that to make Wordforge a haven for the refugees. The First ones came in the Spring of 2004 and included both the Banned and the Disillusioned. Storm was here. So was polarslam. And Diacanu. And Borgs. And others, too numerous to count. In Olden Times, before the Fox, it was slow. There were days when there wasn't much to talk about. Or people to talk about it. But that has been changing. The 'Forge has been growing.
It's gotten big enough that it has some of the growing pains TBBS had. There are some what say we've become what we Hate. But that ain't true. Well, not yet anyways. And it won't be true if we all have something to do with it. Here, there are no ads. And not only do you get a place to put an avatar, you can have as much space to host images as you want. And you can still say pretty much whatever you want. And there is only one person who's ever been banned for over a year: Joker.
No, we don't know exactly what Joker did that was so heinous. That was before the Fox came here. But until Modern Times, Joker is the only poster to have done something so Unforgivable to have been Banned Forever. And this bring us to the other Forbidden Topic of Old: "Kiddie fiddling."
As was mentioned, der Swastika war thema verbotten--for purely legal reasons. Pedophilia-accusations were off-limits because even animals must draw the line on civilized behavior somewhere. At Wordforge, they would eat their young before accusing someone of diddling one. But there was One who could not abide by this rule. A Canadian. Named polarslam.
Polarslam liked nothing better than to accuse his fellow posters of having unnatural lusts for young boys. And this would get him banned. Permanently. Now it should be noted that "Permanent" means a slightly different thing at Wordforge than it means at other boards. Here "permanent" means you can't come back until you say you are really, really sorry. And promise you won't do It again--whatever It is. Then you usually get let back In. But polarslam couldn't let his fascination with pedophilia go. It kept getting him banned. But because he was at least half bright and a marginally entertaining poster, he had his supporters. And eventually, they lobbied long enough, and hard enough that even accusing another poster of an unnatural lust for children was allowed. And still, polar managed to get himself banned. But that is another story. For now we must talk about how the only other Forbidden subject was removed.
Now some months after Cass created the Forge, she grew tired of it and was driven by a compulsion to Walk the Earth.** So she gave the board unto her only misbegotten son, Borgs. And Borgs brought about the Second Age of Wordforge.
Under Borgs, the Host was moved to a nation where using swastikas was cool (Well, maybe not cool, but it wouldn't get you thrown in jail for "re-education".) He also added an unlimited amount of image hosting space for members. Again, more on this later. The thing to realize about Borgs, though, is that he is an inveterate tinkerer. Soon he had the board faggoted up like a 12-year-old girl's notebook. But to his credit, he included counter-hacks that let users hide some of his hacks.
The challenge of the Second Era was that Borgs, for all his good traits, was not without his flaws. No big deal. We all have them. Well, except for the Baba, maybe. And Batboy. But I digress. The point is that sometimes Borgs rubbed people the wrong way. And he didn't take criticism well. Now, during Cass' walkabout, she had her brother, Pablo** look in on the board, periodically, and make comments as he saw fit. Then she returned briefly, before leaving Wordforge Forever. But in an effort to address some of Borgs' people issues, he invited Cass back, under the name, "Caelia Praetorius" to make recommendations on how to "fix" WF. Recommendations she duly made in an extended post, outlining her final solution for Wordforge's problems.
These may or may not have had the desired effect--for a time, things were peaceful. But there was trouble in Paradise. The residents eventually asked Borgs to relinquish control of WF to Elwood, the Alabama Lawman. Borgs gave control of the board to Elwood and stepped into the role of technical administrator. And it was good. For a time.
But Borgs still didn't like to be told what he could and couldn't do and after a period, Elwood asked him to resign. When that didn't work, Elwood fired him. So now Borgs remains a member of Wordforge, while maintaining his own board, Torrentforge.com. The personality issues that led to Borgs' change in status remain an issue. And we'll leave it at that.
This brings us pretty much up to Modern Times. Of late, both the Prodigal Son, polarslam, and his Disciple, Face have earned "permabans", for a continued pattern of misconduct culminating in trolling about the recent death of a TBBS poster. Since polar has literally been banned more times than I can count, and has seriously upped the ante since getting the "pedo rule" lifted, it is likely he won't ever return under that username. Oh, he still comes back. Statistics indicate that 1 in 3 newbie posters is actually polarslam.*** Actually, YOU might be a polarslam dual and not even know it. And things don't look good for Face (although with a buttload of groveling in e-mail, he might still come back).
So here we are, in the Latter part of the Third Age of Wordforge. Elwood, the Wise and Merciful rules over the land and things aren't perfect. But since when have things ever been perfect? There are enough posters that you can eat up a whole day arguing here, and every effort is made to balance freedom for the posters with providing at least a degree of civil behavior. Storm is missing. As is Jeriko. And Dendronica. But they are not forgotten. And we all hope for their return, one day. Except for Dendronica. He's been gone so long we're pretty sure he's a zombie. That's another thing you need to know about Wordforge. We hate zombies here. It has been covered up in the world press, but denizens of Wordforge have been the last line of defense against localized zombie outbreaks, as well as the major infestation in America in 2005 and the UK in 2004.
*Realize, I have the highest respect for hacks. They are the unsung heroes who do the grunt work in entertainment. Well, good hacks anyway. Harve Bennett was a hack. So was Nicholas Meyer. And they literally saved "Star Trek" by creating TWOK.
**More on this later. But for now, take this at face value.
***Statistics indicate that 95% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
that isn't huge and saying "WTF?"
hpup:
