The Rise and Fall of the Last Emperor of TWC

[Justinian]

I looked through my logs with Justinian and found, well, actually also mostly him bothering me with tech questions,

I remember asking you a lot of questions about the FTP when I was updating the front page, right?

[HorseArcher]

I still have all my MSN logs from that era too, for what it's worth. Just read through some with Ogre and Besim . . . mostly them bothering me with tech questions, or vice versa. But man, I have loads more. I looked through my logs with Justinian and found, well, actually also mostly him bothering me with tech questions, but also a January 2007 log of lots of people getting together to form seditious plans against ON. It would take ages to look through all this stuff, though.

I still got some posts, discussions, conversations saved in .txt format.

Ohh, the power of the blackmailing.....and not ever doing it..gives me this fuzzy feeling...

[Simetrical]

That, yes. And a virus you had. And Mambo. And TV tuner cards (was unable to help you there). And a site DB error. And the front-page latest posts script. And unsubscribing from reports. And "Unable to add cookies, headers already sent". And broken news content. Yeah, don't worry, everyone does this to me. (To be fair, some of it was more reports about site problems than questions.)

[Justinian]

That, yes. And a virus you had. And Mambo. And TV tuner cards (was unable to help you there). And a site DB error. And the front-page latest posts script. And unsubscribing from reports. And "Unable to add cookies, headers already sent". And broken news content. Yeah, don't worry, everyone does this to me. (To be fair, some of it was more reports about site problems than questions.)

Sorry about that

I never kept logs on MSN, too bad. Probably would be a lot of history on there.

[Lysimachus]

I do not appreciate this TWC history :wub:.

Well, considering I wasn't a part of it

[Belisarius]

I remember Mambo *shudders*

[Simetrical]

See, and people ask me to install a CMS for the front page. We used to have one and all hated it, why would we want to go back?

[Belisarius]

I have no idea what you use now and I had to teach myself Mambo lol

Btw Sim some nice logs in the History Project forum if you want to have a read and contribute

[Belisarius]

Send them to Justinian, he's in charge of the TWC history project.

Hope all is well you old fart.

[HorseArcher]

Send them to Justinian, he's in charge of the TWC history project.

Hope all is well you old fart.

Ohh the impudent youth today!

Hey, who made him a moderator???

I bet he is plotting and planning already!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

[Garbarsardar]

Ohh the impudent youth today!

Hey, who made him a moderator???

I bet he is plotting and planning already!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Well, a part of me wishes he was. Unfortunately no one can plot anymore; there is no one to plot against.

[Nole4694]

Theres always you...

Down with the tyrants! Down with the Hex!

[Belisarius]

Well, a part of me wishes he was. Unfortunately no one can plot anymore; there is no one to plot against.

We can plot against someone garb, there is always someone.

[Garbarsardar]

We can plot against someone garb, there is always someone.

Someone, doesn't cut it for me. I want to plot against the unseen overlord that manipulates the Hex puppets...aha...Ian!

[Belisarius]

I retired from Politics.

[Belisarius]

I would cook up something but I might get crucified by the knights of st john! :O

[smack]

Just popping in to say a quick thanks to HorseArcher for writing all this down, but moreso for all you did during the hacking/civil war era and beyond. We sort of came up the ranks together though I think you joined earlier than I did, and I strongly remember you as one of the few (other) non-partisan voices of reason during what was very nearly a total dissolution of TWC. I remember your surprise at being made Quaestor and how you and Carousel and I would chat every few days about how moderation was going in our various subsections, etc.. There was a long period of smooth sailing as I remember it, just before all hell broke loose. Its always that way, isn't it? I really miss that calm period. Good times.

I couldn't have hoped for a better person to have taken over the helm for the following era. Well, I had hoped that Sulla would work it all out and that no other crisis-appointed admins would be necessary. But I'm glad you were here to take up the reigns when it was needed. I'm sure you ed it all up just like you said, but I'm sure it was 1000x better than many alternatives that come to mind, the most likely of which would be the dissolution of the site. You were more mature than I was at that point, which is evidenced by your sticking with it even thanklessly, and also by your research into saving the site from ON's dissolution. I would have cried in my beer and hung up my boots under those circumstances, likely.

I don't know if anyone ever reported the details more specifically about the hacking incident, but it some ways it was much worse than what's been written here. ON nearly shut the site down for good, we nearly lost all the data a few times, Spartan was in a RL crisis, Sibz was basically not there (or of serious mind, lets say), Sulla left for awhile, Crandar claimed to be white hat hacking the hacker and worked closely with ON who I don't think had any idea what he was doing, and we were losing data left and right from hacks while all the while taking the heat for having done it ourselves by former staff / admins who had been themselves hacked. There were alias admin logins and some people were not who they claimed to be. It was a ** battlefield with no enemy but plenty of panic and rage.

I remember Spartan's dictatorship of course a bit more favorably. He is/was my friend and I could understand why he made the decisions he did, though I did not agree with them all and let him know it. None of us had the time to do what needed to be done, but we did manage to soldier on. I felt my job was to help end the civil strife with as few bodies left behind as possible, so that's where I tried to fit in. When no more bodies were apparently in danger I walked away. Quite irresponsible, but I did feel that was my strength and all I had left to give to TWC.

If I remember correctly HA, you and I were working under Spartan during the chaos that followed, before Sulla came back (and yes, some was surely exacerbated by Spartan)? Perhaps you neglect to mention me because you resent me leaving? I know I would probably have resentment had our positions been reversed. Had I known what was coming I would have returned I think. Nonetheless I am sorry I left you alone with a ghost Sulla. That was .

With the hacking incident: When Sulla returned I naively believed that it was "Crisis averted", "job done", and left. I think I mostly believed that because the crisis had worn me out and so I needed to believe it. 2 weeks of constant IM'ing and trying to prevent ON from just hanging it up whilst others bemoaned the draconian autocracy wore me out to the point where I just had to walk away.

At the time it was frustrating but also exciting, trying to get parties to see eye to eye, and all that. I started to realize though that there was a significant core of membership that just loved the drama too much. By "too much" I mean that if any secret could hurt an enemy, they would leak it. If any rumor supported a claim, it was believed and shouted from rooftops. All injustices were protested and there was significant investment in disruption for its own sake.

I think that kind of mentality will always be part and parcel of forums like this. I began to see that there are roles that people play in certain circumstances. I guess what I'm saying is that during a crisis some people seem to inflate like raging balloons and seem to feed from the panic and distrust and backstabbing they help to foment with their excitement, while others rage-quit, others try to sincerely broker peace, etc.. I was saddened and worn out by those who would claim to want peace and understanding only to return to an orgy of hatred at the slightest upset. There was a big loss of trust and perspective during that crisis, and for one thing I don't think any of the admins did enough to communicate just what was happening. (edit: I'm not sure we could have though as we never really got to the bottom of our investigations and repairs, but rather made do with some cobbled together defenses and not-quite-certain conclusions)

In retrospect I should have seen to that. It just simply didn't occur to me. One day I was some Quaestor / Praetor / whatever, trying to offer calm counsel to people caught in a hornet's nest, and the next I was an admin. I tried, through IM, to stem the flow of misinformation, but I think something more official in terms of reparations would have been better. Spartan's tactics did exacerbate and prolong the painful divisions of the people, but I was just too green to insist on doing something else. And in fairness to Spartan there were some draconian measures that I would have taken myself. I may have the IM logs somewhere but I remember some serious threats to the site ending in bannings and in the circumstances I remember thinking it was reasonable as a temporary stop-gap. The thing is, this should have been coupled with an all out airing of dirty laundry from the admin side. Not a discussion. At those times a thread would appear and there would be a discussion. Like 20 pages per hour kind of discussion. That would not have helped. Rather, just an open conversation with all the admins that others could read as apologies would be made and misunderstandings abated. (shrug). As you can see, I never did finish thinking about this incident, and though the myriad details are largely forgotten (or more likely blocked off to prevent insanity) the whole thing affected me deeply for quite awhile.

As it was, things didn't return to normal for a few weeks, if I remember correctly. Even then, it was a serious blow to TWC, and apparently not the last one either.

P.S. I have no idea how voting works these days but I suggest that TWC pay Horse Archer $47.00 for the Go Daddy account that would have saved TWC right there. We should post-quote that section of this history in some frequented area of the forums with a paypal link or just pay it out of running costs, or something. Its amazing how fly-by-night things have been from time to time and it is efforts like this, alone in the dead of winter with nobody ever the wiser, that make places like TWC possible.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

Smack!

Smack

Funny to see you around again....

Good to see you are alive m8.

[Omnipotent-Q]

Just popping in to say a quick thanks to HorseArcher for writing all this down, but moreso for all you did during the hacking/civil war era and beyond.

Interesting read man - brings back some hilarious memories. Oh what trouble he caused!

[smack]

Interesting read man - brings back some hilarious memories. Oh what trouble he caused!

Egads, we have a Crandar smiley? That is nutty. Personally I don't know that is was Crandar that caused the hacks despite going over the logs at the time. I was a year or two into a secondary Computer Science degree so there was at least some small chance I would have smelled a rat. Truth be told I think that any of us could have caused the data damage and nobody would have been the wiser. Yes, Crandar seemed to have motivation, but not all crimes are committed by the most obvious parties. I remember believing him when he described his efforts to hunt down the hacker via IP traces. He was around a lot during the crisis, behind the scenes. If it was him, he's a stone cold killer to have kept up such a plausible and proximate front. (shrug). Maybe HA knows for certain? Most of the real damage was done to the rep of TWC and to the trammeled feelings left behind. That was a sad thing to be witness to. From where I sat it all seemed so unnecessary and unintentional. Somebody used a priest and a ninja on us, damnit.

Haha smack my mysterious boss who went missing all of a sudden.

Yeah, whoops, sorry about that Bel!