Why Did JC BBS Fail? (It has failed.)

[Thaumatergist]

Out of the blue? No in Salt Lake, the air color is currently a putrid sort of gray-brown. I prefer to say that I came out of a morass - any morass will do, I'm not picky.

I am up to what any other guy is up to: world domination, working, and in general proving to the world that I am not condescending, I am just better than everybody (this is taking longer than expected, but should my world domination plans work out, it won't matter much in the end). You know - the usual.

I do have to admit that I have been dropping by once a month or so, I would check a few messages, not get the joke and then go back to what remains of the Hilton BBS scene, and with them fondly remember days when shiny objects amused me and I didn't have to worry about accomplishing anything in life. I suppose I am as much of the problem with a withering JC as anyone else - though I am surprised not to see much of the old Crew (Da King, Bunky, JQW, etc....) or even the late crew (insert name of HeartBeater here).

[pinback]

What is this, old fucking home week?

JC failed because it refused to MOVE ON.

[Guest]

What is this, old fucking home week?

JC failed because it refused to MOVE ON.

That is a fault of the users, the board can only reflect their input - and is the weakness of nearly any tool.

[JQW]

I suppose I am as much of the problem with a withering JC as anyone else - though I am surprised not to see much of the old Crew (Da King, Bunky, JQW, etc....) or even the late crew (insert name of HeartBeater here).

The strange fates of time have meant that most of the original JC crew hang out over on the Groucho.org BBS, while current JC users are mostly what we old-timers call "RobB's new friends." Somehow, the twixt never quite gelled together very well, so the oldtimers tend to avoid JC and the new ones tend to avoid Groucho. "Can't we all just get along?" Apparently, the answer is "no."

Da King is still a regular visitor over at Groucho (as am I, obviously), while Bunky left after we proceeded to trash slate.com after they quoted one of her notes about her ipod a few months ago. (We trashed them for being slate.com, not for quoting Bunky; though there were some anti-ipod comments, too.)

[ChainGangGuy]

"Can't we all just get along?" Apparently, the answer is "no."

Still, though, I've always considered you to truly be a pillar of the online community.

[co]

This board failed because pinback is a tool.

[Jack Straw]

Would you say Pinback more resembles a vise grips, or a crescent wrench?

[co]

channel locks

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'm glad this thread had legs and we had a good discussion about it. I will now address... points.

The strange fates of time have meant that most of the original JC crew hang out over on the Groucho.org BBS, while current JC users are mostly what we old-timers call "RobB's new friends." Somehow, the twixt never quite gelled together very well, so the oldtimers tend to avoid JC and the new ones tend to avoid Groucho. "Can't we all just get along?" Apparently, the answer is "no."

Whose fault is that? You were trolling the text adventure forum about as hard as I've seen you troll anything when we were based over there. Not that I put all the blame on you, or anything. The Trotting Krips site originally had a threaded conversation system and then when we moved to your phpBB site we lost posters. Not that I care too much -- you know how you can love something, yet totally see its faults? I love text game guys, but they have the weirdest peculiarities when it comes to messaging systems. I'm of the belief that if the content is good, you go to the site and deal with the software. Changing to phpBB instantly roped off half our posters. But you can't let that kind of BBS autism affect you -- if we had left the site on the free system we originally used it would have been deleted suddenly one day (I never took the site at Dencity down, but it IS down, so there ya go).

There was also an incident where one of your posters at Groucho blew up at Mike Sousa. Mike, one of the best guys in the world, who never says boo to anyone was suddenly public enemy number one. Give me a break. That was the point where I realized I needed my own website for people to use. (And, I love running BBSes, too, which is obvious.)

Don't take this the wrong way, but the Rochester crew rubs people (other people) the wrong way. It's a fact. It's not that people can't get along with you, it's that you people can't get along with anybody. Again, no offense intended.

Da King is still a regular visitor over at Groucho (as am I, obviously), while Bunky left after we proceeded to trash slate.com after they quoted one of her notes about her ipod a few months ago. (We trashed them for being slate.com, not for quoting Bunky; though there were some anti-ipod comments, too.)

It was Salon, not Slate. And regarding that -- there was a guy who called himself James Wagner Au whose real name was James Au Wagner, who used to write about video games for Salon. I don't know, maybe he still does. He's the worst writer of this generation. Pretentious, flowery, overdone, overbearing, arrogant, inane... there hasn't been a single thing I've read from him on Salon that wasn't eye-rollingly pathetic. The only reason I read him at all was because his stuff would be linked on the Old Man Murray forum, which I of course had a deep fascination with. Each new link became less and less believable that one man was capable of writing it.

Au was horrible. He came on one time to defend himself and, Christ, he really did write that way. I can't imagine seeing what one of his grocery lists would be like. It would probably take up an entire college-ruled spiral notebook and draw asinine conclusions about how squash and Bean and Bacon soup are ahhhhrt.

Anyway, nobody knows any of that shit or what my opinion on Salon is because my days on the OMM forum are lost to time and I wouldn't have wanted any of you guys there anyway, because they skewered all that they came in contact with. But the writing I've seen on Salon has been consistently horrible. It's filled with people who think they should be famous novelists and write in a way which is cock-slurped by other budding, would-be writers but the thing is, it's ultimately garbage writing. You can't write anything of value unless you've been personally attacked for what you have written. I got my prose's ass kicked by the text game community for years before I thought I could write a single decent line. I put out three games with a not-insignificant section of text before I ever wrote a single paragraph that was "good." (For the record, the first thing I think I ever wrote that was any good was when Yar slept over at Clara's house in Fallacy of Dawn. I think that was okay, and the ending of No Time to Squeal was all right, but other than that it's been a million words that could have been better.) The text game people (rightfully) told me that what I wrote sucked, the standard to post on OMM was so high that I studied writing and prose and comedy and learned from other people's successes and failures and here I am at 31 thinking the sum of the not-mindbendingly terrible things I've written amount to about four paragraphs.

It just isn't like that on Salon. Or the Straight Dope Forum, another area where people think they are fantastic writers, get feedback from other people who think they are fantastic writers but in reality couldn't put together a sellable sentence if their very lives depended on it. You know how America needed Jack Nicholson on that wall in "A Few Good Men"? Every writer who is serious about it needs a bunch of people who don't care about your feelings telling you how much you suck. If you can't handle that, you'll never be a relevant writer in any context.

So, right. Poor Bunky comes into your forum, all happy that she got posted on Salon and you guys go and trash her. I can't stand Salon but for goodness sake I'm not going to be the person who goes and says, "THAT SITE SUCKS" to someone obviously happy. I know that makes me someone who craves honest feedback without necessarily giving any (not totally applicable in this case, as there was nothing wrong with what Bunky wrote, I just hate the site where it was posted) but that's life and life's a bitch like that.

But that's what I mean about how you guys can be assholes. There's this thing called tact, you know. Like it would have killed you to not gone on the 69,105th tirade about the iPod and Salon (which I guess you guys hate, too).

Anyway, even though it ruins this thread, this place is obviously not a "failure." It is a place that lives and dies based on what I contribute to it, and I'm utterly, totally fine with that. I love this place, and I love all you guys and girls that call it. If it looked dead at times this year, it was only due to the fact that I was trying to kick ass at my new job because I love it, love the company and love the people I work with. That leaves less time for other things. (Less time for all things, really.) This place makes me smile pretty regularly, and I'm quite thankful for the people who drop by and read - even more thankful for the people who drop by and post, though I don't expect it or feel entitled to it. I've been lucky to meet such an array of wonderful, dazzling people and I hope the denizens of this site have gotten a regular chuckle by visiting.

[Marska]

I was always under the impression that Jolt Country was some sort of Dialogue between the conflicting personalities of a coked up Douglas Adams right off the bender of a New Years Eve party.

Reading this thread I'm not sure if Jonsey actually wants new posters because the whole prevailing attitude is of an off limits stage inhabited by a few main characters. Theres back story here, an elite circle of people who have some link with eachother outside these forums who feel comfortable with mocking eachother and critizing little faults of character that mean nothing outside these pages.

Every personality works well with the other, hateful or not. The only real mistake is taking the whole thing seriously or not noticing that there is some deep brotherhood between this cast of wacky characters, even when they are pulling eachothers teeth out.

Believe Pinback said that this forum was nothing more than Jonsey's journal, but as I said, its really a dialogue between Pinback, Worm, Aardvark, Jonsey, etc.

This forum brightens my day when I am wondering when will this portion of my life will end (College, go figure) and realize that no, I'm taking things too seriously.

At the very least, I ask that you archive these forums. I'd hate to lose them.

[Knuckles the CLown]

ASL?

[AArdvark]

Nothing like a good honest outside point of view.

As for this board 'failing', well, Since it really has no charter, or purpose other than communication, I don't think it could fail. Failure would be to remove it, take it down, format the drive it resides on. Those things would be failures. JC has made the days a little brighter by being able to come up with stuff that is amusing, poignant, and interesting. (Even though I seem to be a thread kill*)

I say this board is a success. Has been since the day it went up.



THE
KEEP ON TRUCKING
AARDVARK

(*what I need to do is add more content rather than just two sentences that comment on the subject and a sig. Consider me the Jim Rome of this BBS, all commentary, no substance)

[Lysander?]

I think that Jolt Country BBS failed because it logs me out at random for no reason at all.

Okay, seriously now. All fucking around aside.

I think that Jolt Country BBS failed becasue the read-post ratio is a about 20 to 1.

Seriously guys, this may e the most hostile forum on the internet but it's also the most fun. You know what I did to get accepted here at JC? I started a topic saying hi, and started posting to threads. People, that's all it fucking takes. it's not rocket science. Just start posting, and if we will make fun of you. If we don't like you, we will make fun of you, only visciously. How many new people have popped up out of hte woodwork in this thread to basically say "funny ass shit kep going cause im not that funy :("? Christ, how many times have I posted some stupid assonine post or even an entire thread that had no point to it whatsoever? This isn't The Balad of Shame and Wasted Lives. We won't bite your head off and make you public board enemy #1 if you breathe wrong. Just *relax*. 'Cause if oyu don't I'll... I'll leave... forever...

[MasterGrazzt]

I think forums where users post images of split-open penises in response to people saying they don't like such-and-such anime are the ones classified as "hostile".

I realize that since my account is what, three days old, there's a chance it will be deleted because I posted in this thread.

[Worm]

I think forums where users post images of split-open penises in response to people saying they don't like such-and-such anime are the ones classified as "hostile".

I have a few pictures of split open penises with flowers in them.

I realize that since my account is what, three days old, there's a chance it will be deleted because I posted in this thread.

That's the wonder of the PHPBB software, YOU CAN NEVER BE DELETED!

[Jack Straw]

I have a few pictures of split open penises with flowers in them.

Why does that not even begin to surprise me?

Is your desktop background also penii with flowers?

[Worm]

Actually, I just saw them on bmezine recently, so they're technically only cached on my computer.

This is my current background.

[pinback]

Welp, Worm's my hero again. That was fast!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

ASL?

What's wrong with you.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

(*what I need to do is add more content rather than just two sentences that comment on the subject and a sig. Consider me the Jim Rome of this BBS, all commentary, no substance)

Outstanding.