So, apparently, the Gamespy forums are not as bad as I remembered them. It seems like they actually enforce rules now, because I looked for a long, long, time, and, I was able to find a homophobic assfuck, but it took me a long time to find such a person, and it was the only case of the lawless Gamespy forums of old eeking out right now. The douchebags are a minority now, not a majority, and I'm pretty certain the dude in question will probably be kicked out soon enough anyways, if that kind of behavior is rare now.
But, as recent as early 2007, the Gamespy forums were Hell. But, not anymore, I guess. Oh well, best not to obsess over it.
Meanwhile, I decided to take a look at the GameFAQs forums again. I still really don't like the place. You wanna know why? Here's why:
forum title: list your favorite anime series.
[gamefaqker 1] pokemon dragonball z naruto
[gamefaqker 2] macross code geass one piece
[gamefaqker 3] tengen toppa gurren lagaan flcl cowboy bebop
[me pretending to be a gamefaqker] eureka seven death note haruhi suzumiya
They are laconic as Hell! More laconic than the laconic pages of tvtropes! In my example, no one explained why they loved the anime shows they did, they must made a list and forgot about it! Again, far too inane for my liking!
Still, it's a step up from the elitism that pervades some forums I've been too.
[Me] I love Cardcaptor Sakura! It's so cute!
[troll] Ur a CLAMP whore. And a pedo. Get off my intarwebz.
And people act surprised when I say I told the Nuklearpower Forums to go to Hell.
And now, for another Tale from a Horrible Online Forum.
Back in the day, I was a hardcore fan of Sonic the Hedgehog.
"LOL! Furries!"
Shut the fuck up, Blue Yoshi! Anyways, I went to a lot of different fansites. Most of them are down now, but one still remains even today; SonicHQ. Oh sure, it hasn't been updated in months, but in the time I frequented the website, (2002 to 2004) it was hot. It also had a large messageboard.
There was two major problems with the SonicHQ forums.
Problem one: to SHQ forumers, Sonic was Sirius bidniss. In short, they cared more about Sonic and Company more than their own families! Okay, this is a slight exaggeration, but it's only slight. I even joked about this on the NPF when it was still cool. My joke went something like this:
"The SHQ forumers took Sonic too seriously. I was there when Sonic Heroes was brand new. A lot of their members said, 'if Sonic Heroes suck, I'm gonna kill myself.' Sonic Heroes came out, hundreds of forumers committed hara-kiri."
Yeah. They took the release of SH a little too far. Oh, and you should've seen their reaction when it was found out that 4Kids licensed Sonic X. Some of their complaints were justified, but on the other hand, why throw a shitfit over a franchise that already sucked in the original Japanese!? My god, peoples! Lighten up!
And problem number two? The mods. The mods were, shall I say, lawful evil. As in, they were banhammer happy. And some of their rules were just ridiculous.
There was a plus side to their iron fisted rule; anybody who said Big the Cat was "gay" got booted in a jiffy. Unfortunately, many good forumers (minus the over-reactive fans) got kicked out too, over nothing.
Most of the time, they would just issue a warning and not take any action, but get too many warnings and out you went. One of their rules was no swearing. Of any kind. I think they did let you say "damn" or "crap" but anything else would warrant a warning on the first time. But that's not the worst of it.
They also enforced this other rule, you had to be "respectful." Respectful to other forumites, sure, but they took it too far. You also could not criticize anything Sonic related. Here, I'll provide an example.
[Me] I don't like Sonic X. It's not even Sonic's cartoon. It's just about some Mary Sue who happens to be friends with Sonic. It could've been so much more.
[asstard mod] Your post is disrespectful not only to the fans of Sonic X, it is disrespectful to the creators of Sonic X as well. Retract or delete your inflammatory post now.
You see what I mean? Criticism was not allowed, not even constructive criticism. Many people got permabanned just for saying they didn't like Sonic Adventure 2, or that they thought Sonic "SatAm" was overrated. They thought saying that "offended" fans and creators.
As the Angry Video Game Nerd would say, what a shitload of fuck.
Look at me, I'm a Star Wars fans, I don't like Attack of the Clones, but I still love the franchise. I don't like any Sonic cartoon, (including your precious "SatAm" series) but I still love some of the games. What bullshit is this!?!?!?!?
Of course, that was then, earlier in the decade. This is now. Maybe the mods are less anal now. Some SHQers did criticise the mods, (becoming martyrs in doing so. Hey, getting "killed" for criticizing leadership? That sounds like something that would happen in a real-life dictatorship!) and hopefully, things are different now.
And thus concludes my current episode. Join me next time, when I come back, from the ANN messageboard.
