The Rise and Fall of the Last Emperor of TWC

[HorseArcher]

Really? Why do you think this? I had never heard of that before. Doing an IP search, I can say that at least for the posts that are still around, there's no overlap in IP addresses used. IP addresses from before the board switch seem to be preserved accurately, so if there was any overlap, either Spartan was deliberately hiding his tracks or the posts have been pruned.

Spartan told me, that he had control over Siblesz' account and switching between here and there. It could be just he wanted to tell me how awesome he is or I don't know.

[Justinian]

I wouldn't point the finger at Spartan. He loved TWC enough to not seek to destroy it. If you blame anyone, you have to blame Crandar, and does anyone really think Crandar would go out of his way to help someone else if it didn't benefit him? Crandar wouldn't hack TWC for Spartan's sake.

[HorseArcher]

....so Anyway...


-Back to the time When Spartan was in control, Siblesz went to China, Sulla was climbing to the top and half of the forum members were banned or left on their own...


After the hacker attack occured and the RTR turmoil there was a large exodus from the TWC, when Spartan began the "police-state" and Marshall Law was in effect.

I won't go into details the deal with Boris, but what I know, he got into a fight with Crandar, who was advocating to make Boris step down or have the Staff demote him, due to his inactivity.
For this, Boris went a little crazy and he banned himself and deleted his account (I think that was his 2nd or 3rd time he did that) then came back later and started posting some crazy stuff, like the naked guy hanged upside down with a knife in him (or something similar) for which the Staff banned him.

(Maybe some people remember this more correctly, I'm don't know the small details)
Many people started to rebel and started to spam around in protest and as usual, various conspiracy theories started to rise around the remaining staff members.
This was the time when the 'ana' was established by Boris as one of the main creator , together with some other 'ex' TWC members.
I tell you the truth, I have visited the place like 3 times ever since, I just wasn't interested.

It was within a month (or 2), that Spartan signaled, that he was sick and he made the decision to step down as the sole-admin of TWC and handed his power over to Sulla.

Not long after, Sulla begun to rebuild the forum, which had a few breaks and I remember days, when we only had 10 or 20 people online, half of them only guests.
Mithras and the other guy (forgot his name) were checking on the place time to time and as far as I know, Sulla had to follow some strict lines of what was allowed and what not.
For example the "Curia" remained a hot topic and the Network Admins were highly opposing its re-opening and it took a while until it was activated again.
I remember, I wrote an email to either Ogre or Mithras, that it's crucial to open the Curia and it should be no problem if the moderators and the Staff keep a close eye on it.

I got to know some of the Staff members at the time, Simetrical (although I remember a conflict between Sim and Mithras) , and some others I can't remember their names right now, but many old-timers here probably remember the Sulla-Crew.

Sulla was very popular in the Curia, but soon after he declared himself the Emperor of TWC, there were some backfire from different directions, especially from the Black Prince , who had some conflicts with Belisarius at the time and although they both enjoyed being Staff for a shortwhile, their continuous fight within the staff (tBP Posting Belisarius' picture on Gay-dar) have gotten them dismissed from staff.

Me, on the other hand, I stayed away from politics mostly , I was focusing on moderating and modding around in the TWC modding forums and thinking up various ways to make TWC better (sub forum here and there).

Later on, (within a few months) Sulla begun to disappear for longer and longer periods of time. First, it started out as not being around for a week, then it went to weeks , then months.

Meanwhile, we had various discussions going on in the staff forum and they were halted in half due to Sulla's absence, we had no idea what to do.
Mithras showed up a couple of times but mostly did nothing but checked around on the forums, left a few words here and there, then left for months.

Then, we had a few staff members quitting and at the same time as the "Barbarian Invasion" expansion was closing in, we had an influx of new members signing up to TWC.

We started questioning what direction we should take, and as I was the most senior member of the staff at the time, I wrote a few emails to both Sulla and the Network Admins to respond.
One day, Sulla showed up and handed me the admin powers and declared me the new "emperor" of TWC , and this really took a while, not to mention they have never gave me any root-access to the site, beside the badge and 'almost' the same admin powers I already had.

Ok, next part, I'll be writing about the absence of the ON and how they came back and informed me on the chat, that they were about to delete TWC and disolve the entire OgresNet by the end of March, 2006

[Simetrical]

I won't go into details the deal with Boris, but what I know, he got into a fight with Crandar, who was advocating to make Boris step down or have the Staff demote him, due to his inactivity.
For this, Boris went a little crazy and he banned himself and deleted his account (I think that was his 2nd or 3rd time he did that) then came back later and started posting some crazy stuff, like the naked guy hanged upside down with a knife in him (or something similar) for which the Staff banned him.

(Maybe some people remember this more correctly, I'm don't know the small details)

Boris had deleted his account at least once, I'm pretty sure (you can see the old posts in some places, with the username showing up deleted). What happened in this instance was all of Hex more or less wanted Crandar gone, but Siblesz threatened to resign if he were removed. Finally, Siblesz agreed to remove Crandar if Boris resigned as admin, since he (Boris) had become very inactive but was clinging on to his badge regardless. Siblesz always felt that Crandar was necessary to bring in to cut down on spam and he did the right thing by keeping him, AFAIK.

Boris had made no secret that he wanted Crandar gone, and when Crandar got admin rights he messed with Boris' account. First of all, he deleted his signature and avatar, which were both animated images much bigger than the limits. Crandar had been instrumental in getting the sig limits enforced (he wrote a script to check every post and automatically trim them*― I like my solution better, which I stole from the Guild, although it doesn't check byte size like his did). Boris simply ignored the sig/avatar rules while he was admin, and once he resigned everyone was too respectful to remove them, until Crandar. Second of all, Boris' old username had been borispavlovgrozny, and after resigning he had it changed to Kazak borispavlovgrozny. Crandar changed it back on the basis that it was obnoxiously long.

So Boris got really angry and posted a rant in the Symposium, which included (for dramatic effect, I guess, I don't know if he set out to break the rules) some painting of a naked guy nailed upside-down to a tree. Someone, maybe Crandar, I don't remember, deleted it, and then he reposted it, it was redeleted and he was banned.

When Sulla came in and took over, he unbanned Boris and some others who had been banned, but left some rank removals in place temporarily for "****-stirring at the worst possible time".

This was the time when the 'ana' was established by Boris as one of the main creator , together with some other 'ex' TWC members.
I tell you the truth, I have visited the place like 3 times ever since, I just wasn't interested.

I used to visit the TWC thread, which was mostly friendly spam. I think I stopped when they locked it or something, when some of them felt the site was too TWC-oriented or something. I can't remember, it was like a year and a half ago or something.

Mithras and the other guy (forgot his name)

How could you forget Besim?

I got to know some of the Staff members at the time, Simetrical (although I remember a conflict between Sim and Mithras) , and some others I can't remember their names right now, but many old-timers here probably remember the Sulla-Crew.

I got into conflict with Mithras and also somewhat Sulla for being too power-hungry, as I recall. I repeatedly criticized Sulla for being too inactive and suggested more people be given administrative access, possibly limited administrative access, because during this time nothing bloody well got done in any reasonable timeframe if you had to wait on Sulla to do it. The implication that I would be suitable for such access was not necessarily absent from these suggestions. When I became a global mod later, I flat-out asked to be made admin, and in the admin elections (Beli vs. Justinian vs. me) I even asked Justinian to resign and ask that his votes be given to me.

All of this was, of course, because I perceived I would be able to actually run the damn site properly in terms of managing things technically, such as editing templates and writing plugins, and in this I think I was quite correct. In fact I think it was pretty soon after I became an admin that I got the appropriate permissions to upgrade the site, which I did, porting over Besim's old Rome skin. Which I could have done a year or more before, if I had been given the rights. In, I think, late 2006, you (Archer) told me the cPanel password, and eventually Ogre (or Besim?) gave me the root WHM password. I finally got root command-line access when Ian bought the site.

But enough of that, this is your history thread!

Sulla was very popular in the Curia, but soon after he declared himself the Emperor of TWC

He didn't really. He instituted a Consulship, which was what had been in place before him, basically, since the Triumvirate had been reduced to two when Boris left, with four Praetors (super mods). He was the one who first introduced the accursed idea of admin elections, with the Republican and Imperial Consul. So he and Spartan were the Consuls for a while, but Spartan was absent for ages. When Spartan was finally removed, Sulla promoted smack as Republican Consul, with a sham election (nominations open for a few hours, won by default with no one else nominated).

I think it was in this period (smack also became inactive fairly quickly, IIRC) that Sulla proposed a bill in the Curia to make himself Imperator, which the Curia passed. As far as I know this was all above-board, the Curia okayed it.

there were some backfire from different directions, especially from the Black Prince , who had some conflicts with Belisarius at the time and although they both enjoyed being Staff for a shortwhile, their continuous fight within the staff (tBP Posting Belisarius' picture on Gay-dar) have gotten them dismissed from staff.

Actually, tBP presented fairly convincing evidence that he didn't post the entry in question, or at least not as Beli presented it. Of course, Beli later admitted that he provoked tBP into posting it. I thought Beli resigned, and wasn't dismissed? I should look it up. It would be easier if you hadn't compulsively mixed all the threads from staff forums into Hex at some point*.*.*.

One day, Sulla showed up and handed me the admin powers and declared me the new "emperor" of TWC , and this really took a while, not to mention they have never gave me any root-access to the site, beside the badge and 'almost' the same admin powers I already had.

You got the cPanel password, which is as much as was reasonable with their shared-hosting setup. Any further access allowed control over the other sites on the network too (which they did end up giving me eventually).

[Belisarius]

Actually, tBP presented fairly convincing evidence that he didn't post the entry in question, or at least not as Beli presented it. Of course, Beli later admitted that he provoked tBP into posting it. I thought Beli resigned, and wasn't dismissed? I should look it up. It would be easier if you hadn't compulsively mixed all the threads from staff forums into Hex at some point . . .

The story hasn't yet been told in full but aden and I had a conversation about it later. There was always alot more going on then meets the eye. But- I didnt get fired, I was given a choice and i opted for resignation over castration.

[Simetrical]

Being asked for resignation is the same as being fired, you just don't get severance benefits.

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Sim... I wonder if it would be possible to "declassify" some of the relevant archived posts in staff?

[Belisarius]

Being asked for resignation is the same as being fired, you just don't get severance benefits.

I wasnt asked, I was told I would be asked unless I did something I didn't want to. He wouldn't fire me, I was too popular at the time.

[Simetrical]

Sim... I wonder if it would be possible to "declassify" some of the relevant archived posts in staff?

I would be reluctant to do so without consent of all participants, which is probably not practical in most cases.

[God]

Finish the thread Archer. I've just discovered it, it's interesting

[vizi]

Things titled the Rise and Fall that are autobiographies often go unfinished God. The author tends to get ummm killed.

[Portuguese Rebel]

Crandar was Siblesz's fault. And maybe Mithras', later, since Spartan once said Crandar was given shell access during the hacker attacks (above Sulla's and Spartan's heads).

This is unfair. Crandar was a collective fault. Siblez suggested his name for some minor moderating and it was accepted by the leadership (which was fully democratic) and that went ok for a while since the guy apparently had no life, was on 24/7 and worked hard. Eventually he started to go ape on posters for minor things and was really getting off the spirit of the board and had to be removed.

That's when the problems started...
Many people talk about "the hacker" and who could he be. I personally have my beliefs and if i told i guess i would surprise many. Anyway, after that "hacker" suff (i'm using brackets with a point) the whole stuff went african... Spartan was placed in charge by the people at ogrenet. Which was in fact a very funny decision and a very suspicious one since that guy spartan was just an upstart moderator and there was multiple people above him that could have served has emergency admins due to Siblez's absence.

You see, this board TWCENTER.net is not the original board at all and there was a very tight leadership and group of core users who were here basically from the begining. This included Siblez, Boris, The Black Prince and some others with yours trully here included.

This group became known as the "Old Guard" when Spartan got the almighty position of board admin. When that happened the older users complained about the BS it was that Spartan was given such power over a community we basically had seen grow and in part had created with Siblez's great effort after Paul left for good.

Well, Spartan went all african dictator and basically banned everyone that said he did not diserve the position (basically proving our point). I was personally banned for speaking out against Spartan and the return of Crandar. Yes, because one of the very first things Spartan did was to place a hated by everyone person back in charge.

When they reativated my account i did exactly one post saying goodbye to the board i had been in for years. At the time of my departure i was with almost 4000 posts (as you can see i have recently returned after landing here in a google accident and seeing that the idiots were gone).

I went on to the closed club of Annagenese, a funny social experience that i was in until professional issues robbed me of the time i had to post there much.

All the stuff about HA was after all this. I remember HA being given mod power. I believe i was a praetor at the time and so i even probably aproved his position, although i can't be sure because it has been all these years and when i was banned i had resigned my position due to lack of time.

[Simetrical]

This is unfair. Crandar was a collective fault. Siblez suggested his name for some minor moderating and it was accepted by the leadership (which was fully democratic) and that went ok for a while since the guy apparently had no life, was on 24/7 and worked hard. Eventually he started to go ape on posters for minor things and was really getting off the spirit of the board and had to be removed.

That's when the problems started...

But Hex would have removed him much sooner if not for Siblesz's refusal to allow that. He threatened to resign if Crandar was removed. So it was his fault Crandar wasn't booted when he became a problem.

Anyway, after that "hacker" suff (i'm using brackets with a point) the whole stuff went african... Spartan was placed in charge by the people at ogrenet. Which was in fact a very funny decision and a very suspicious one since that guy spartan was just an upstart moderator and there was multiple people above him that could have served has emergency admins due to Siblez's absence.

It was Siblesz who put Sulla in charge, in his edict from China. Although that was after Mithras announced that "Sulla and Spartan" (that order, quote) would be in charge, it's true, but Siblesz agreed, anyway. Then Sulla had to step out and Spartan was the sole person in charge for a while.

Spartan was promoted to Praetor on May 15, before the hacker attacks. I'm looking at his first post in Hex right now. He and Sulla were both Praetors when they were promoted. The admins were Siblesz (away) and GEN (who didn't end up in charge, I think because he wasn't very active). The only people above Spartan in actual rank were those two. Above him in seniority there was Sulla, and maybe a couple others: I think Profler and Necrobrit were the Praetors before the attack?

I don't know why those two were chosen specifically. I'm guessing it was to do with activity. Sulla was an obvious choice, as the one who had spotted the hackers to begin with, and he might have spoken up for Spartan or something like that. I'm not sure. But that part doesn't seem very suspicious to me.

Well, Spartan went all african dictator and basically banned everyone that said he did not diserve the position (basically proving our point). I was personally banned for speaking out against Spartan and the return of Crandar. Yes, because one of the very first things Spartan did was to place a hated by everyone person back in charge.

Spartan has already said (and I believe him) that it was ON who reinstated Crandar, due to his knowledge of networks or something. Spartan was on the record as being in favor of Crandar's return, though.

Regardless, as I have elsewhere said, I agree that Spartan mishandled the situation terribly. There is no reason people have to shut up just because the site is in danger. If admins have better things to do than read people's pointless chattering, they can ignore them. Sulla was a lot better, but he was also too fond of closing threads for no good reason, then and later, IMO.

[Portuguese Rebel]

The admins were Siblesz (away) and GEN (who didn't end up in charge, I think because he wasn't very active).

At the time GEN went on and asked to be given control. I would have been on until the crisis was gone. He was denied this and the threads were simply erased. It's no wonder people think he wasn't very active at the time. Spartan erased every thread in which his rule was questioned. I was banned for doing it, so was boris and some two handfulls of other guys. Guys that were here before spartan. There was actually no reason for that guy to be given admin status and that was a major screw up by the guys of ogres net. Every thread GEN did was erased and he was banned. It wasn't that he wasn't active, he wasn't allowed to communicate with the community and could only do it with a bunch of us who had his MSN email. The full story became clear in conversations offsite in Annagenese.

Spartan has already said (and I believe him) that it was ON who reinstated Crandar, due to his knowledge of networks or something. Spartan was on the record as being in favor of Crandar's return, though.

It was not that linear... But i'll let that rest... But let us just say that his knowlage of networks didn't mean he should have returned has a moderator.

Sulla was a lot better, but he was also too fond of closing threads for no good reason, then and later, IMO.

Absolutely...

[Wild Bill Kelso]

It would be great if all relevant posts stored in HEX were to be made public in the living history section. I would like to comment on these events as well, but will not as memory is truly fallible.

[jimkatalanos]

It would be great if all relevant posts stored in HEX were to be made public in the living history section.
.

Yes, that would be nice.

[Mímirswell]

It would be great if all relevant posts stored in HEX were to be made public in the living history section. I would like to comment on these events as well, but will not as memory is truly fallible.

Virtually all the relevant posts were purged long ago (pre-Ian purchase) though I think a few still remain.

[Simetrical]

I see tons of relevant posts . . . which ones were purged? Some, but I think most remain.

[HorseArcher]

All the stuff about HA was after all this. I remember HA being given mod power. I believe i was a praetor at the time and so i even probably aproved his position, although i can't be sure because it has been all these years and when i was banned i had resigned my position due to lack of time.

Yeah, I was given a Praetor power (global mod) , since (IMO) after the exodus off the TWC of the 'old guard', the place was running short on moderators. Anyway, I just noticed I still haven't finished this story, I have been stuck in the mudpit too long lately.

[Portuguese Rebel]

Yeah, I was given a Praetor power (global mod) , since (IMO) after the exodus off the TWC of the 'old guard', the place was running short on moderators. Anyway, I just noticed I still haven't finished this story, I have been stuck in the mudpit too long lately.

Please do finish it, i'm trying to update myself on all the stuff that went to past after i left.