Drew Linky
1st of September
Interesting day. As far as the community is concerned, altgen is getting more upset about the warning we gave them yesterday. They have taken to insulting me and reminding me of how awful the idea of deleting altgen is. I think it bears repeating that I agree this is a terrible idea; I also think it bears repeating that deleting altgen is not the end goal here. I don't know how to explain to them effectively what's actually going on. Now though, I've thought of a second idea for handling them.
I mentioned already the idea of an “altgen confinement” role, which would be the easiest way of handling this situation with no bloodshed. However, if genocide is required, then I suggested an alternative where we hide altgen from view again and pretend it's deleted, then watch for people who go to shitpost in other channels by default and ban them all. Then after an hour or so has passed, or maybe a day, then we reveal altgen again and only the people who behaved themselves will remain to use it. This method would almost certainly be disastrous, but it would definitely be entertaining in some ways.
Aside from this ongoing dilemma, we had a nice peek at Hiveswap thanks to Somerandomguy. There's an event in Seattle this weekend called PAX West, and a playable Hiveswap demo is being provided there. Somerandomguy happened to be in the area so they very gracefully gave us a large collection of pictures of the game. This has helped stir the atmosphere a little bit: it feels like there is some actual excitement attached to this now. Many of us expressed concerns that the repeated delays had effectively killed hype for this game, which to some degree it had. Yet, as if by magic, that hype has returned now that the appointed time is nigh.
There is nothing more that any of us want than for this game to be successful. If it can achieve that even despite all of the incredible problems that Hiveswap has suffered, then we will be pretty happy I'm sure. There is some hope that it will proceed in the same manner that Undertale did—which is to say, it may spread and succeed through word of mouth. Undertale was a relative unknown that positively exploded in popularity after about a month of being around. Undertale's developer, Toby Fox (who also composed for Homestuck and is a bit of an icon for us), has made music for Hiveswap. Between the vague similarities of their release and his presence on the project, there is significant hope that Hiveswap will be enjoyed by enough people to be a commercial success, as well as a critical one. It would be disappointing beyond anything for it to fail after all this time.
An event that I would be hard pressed to describe as anything but “weird” also happened today, where an old regular from when NSFW was still a channel came back. HP is actually a key figure in the destruction of NSFW; I mentioned that WoC was ultimately responsible for the death of #NSFW when it was still around on HSD, and this is because he ended up DMing a .gif of a deer getting its head blown off to HP. HP was a pretty central figure to the community of #NSFW at the time, and she ended up leaving the server over this. WoC was almost demodded over the incident, and I would have been his replacement. As things go, he claimed it was done accidentally and he kept his position. HP was gone for ages though, and I hadn't seen hide nor hair of her for a while. Apparently she's been back for a few months and I just haven't seen her.
Since I've noticed her being back there has been a noticeable degree of underlying tension. There is no open hostility but there is a pervasive air of uneasiness between us and her. I'm not sure why, but it appears she has an immediate disdain for anyone who is underaged or a mod. She has explicitly claimed that “there are no good mods left”, although I'm not sure who she could be referring to, since the mods that were around when she was still here are basically the same now. These statements also tend to draw people to her, a tendency that we call “establishing a cult”. Whether done on purpose or not, this is usually a bad sign. Other people who manage to establish these followings usually turn into a problem for us in various ways, usually by causing an enormous stink once they find something to disagree with mods on and getting the people who support them involved over it.
Personally noteworthy, Makin came in to the mod chat earlier today and extended an offer to Wheals and I. He pinged us and said that “the first one who accepts will be made the new moderator of the subreddit”, or thereabouts. Wheals responded first, but declined the position. I was actually kind of ambivalent about accepting because I started graduate school recently and my time is at a bit of a premium. I enjoy helping out though—I enjoy the HSD very much, and I especially appreciate being able to make things better for people. I don't use the subreddit that often, but I did promise myself a while ago that once Hiveswap came out, I would participate there more often. If worse comes to worst, I can always just resign, so I accepted the position.
Toast and Makin made fun of me for it of course; I provided basically the same reasons that I did here, and Toast immediately joked about me being “power hungry”, the implication of which he knows bothers me. Makin also suggested that I was trying to word things in a way that suggested I didn't want the position even though I was accepting it. I know Makin well enough at this point to recognize when he's trying to play mind games so this didn't faze me too much.
I think that part of this behavior is an extenuation of me being an easy target in some ways; I'm anal retentive and don't take to accusations well because I try my best to be sincere in most things. The longer I know people the more relaxed I become and the less of a problem it is, but it's still an annoying pitfall to keep an eye out for. Admittedly once I've learned the patterns of it simply being a joke then in a strange way I start to enjoy it as well. I guess this is just how the process works, kind of like baiting. It's always a positive note when I begin to better understand how people work.
Nothing else for today.
2nd of September
Corresponding fairly closely with my being modded on the subreddit, Makin announced the creation of a Tumblr blog where top posts from the subreddit could be “saved” onto Tumblr for posterity; these posts also link back to the original post on /r/Homestuck and credit the person who posted it. I didn't pay much attention to this when it first became a thing but it's become more popular than I would have given it credit for. It also seems to be attracting an insane number of people to the HSD—as of this writing we now have 7,738 members, over 500 people more than when I began writing this journal. The increase in activity has been noticeable, and my previous concerns about the relative activity of the server has been alleviated; in its place, new worries about integrating new people into the server successfully and maintaining peace has taken root.
It is indisputably a very exciting time for us though. Hiveswap coming out would mean a serious balloon in content for us to discuss and latch onto. The lack of new content in the last several months was slowly having increasingly visible effects on us, with significant channel slow down causing things to stagnate. Due mostly to my experiences with previous communities, I'm fond of saying that a lack of new content will almost inevitably lead to some form of community death.
Oddly enough though, I think that the HSD has some inherent mechanisms that protect from that sort of decay. The source material is old enough that fans of the webcomic are well established and probably aren't going anywhere, unlike TPP Red where the community sprang up over night (while extremely energetic at the time, it had no staying power), and it's a specific enough branch of media that people are able to discuss it for a while even without new information to work with (whereas Sydlexia was generalized and thus depended on input from all angles). Contrary to this, the HSD went for almost an entire year without any news or substantial updates whatsoever and it only took up to the last couple of weeks for me to grow worried about the drop in activity. That's a positive sign as far as I'm concerned.
Worthy of note, Makin's creation of the Homestuck + Hiveswap Tumblr blog has led to some backlash from some rather unsavory characters in the fandom. One in particular that I recognize is a fellow called Swamp Wizard; from what I've seen he goes pretty relentlessly after Tensei, a fact that is more bemusing to me than anything else. His assertions are that the HSD is a repository for bigots and racists/homophobes/what have you, accusations that are basically pointless and unworthy of comment except that their very nature is frustrating to me. Another such post from a so-called “Big Warnings” blog popped up and was gaining a little bit of traction, but then ost dropped by and opened an incredible can of verbal whoop-ass on the person who posted it.
Ost pulled out some of the most well thought out and touching sentiments I've ever seen regarding the HSD, all the while retaining conversational validity. The main focus of people behind posts like this and especially Swamp Wizard is often Makin causing estrangement between the Homestuck fandom at large and WP officials or employees. Ost explained in no uncertain terms that Makin's behavior is not representative of everyone in the HSD even if he does own and administrate the place. Ost also remarked on how we, the mod team, do our best to make sure things are running smoothly and effectively. Honestly, many of us were moved by the contents of the post, and especially their sincerity. I've looked at it a couple of times since it was originally posted, and each time I find something new to appreciate about it.
Of some small note, the uptick in activity on the HSD also means that the voice chats have been getting used again. It seems most of the users are from altgen and end up doing altgen things, like mic spamming or planning things they shouldn't be. Anervaria is usually the brave soul who goes to watch voicechat when it becomes very active, although one of the other mods will often step in if she's been doing it for a while or if the room usage is absurdly high.
Anervaria is a curious member of the team. She's the pseudo-mod for the art-music and voicechat channels, and her demeanor is kind of static. In her channels she's pretty responsible and keeps an eye on things as expected, even begrudgingly sitting in the voice channels and listening for anyone mucking about, sometimes for hours. However, in almost any other context she is focused on memes, and especially memes about vore. I have no earthly idea why or how she got into such a thing, but I guess she really enjoys those sorts of jokes. She often changes her handle to some variation thereof, typically Anervoria or the like. Her avatar is typically of a black hole with a green outline, perfectly in keeping with the vore jokes. I don't envy Aner's job in the coming weeks, it's going to be miserable to physically keep track of what people are saying.
Nothing more for today.
3rd of September
I was woken up by a ping from Makin in modchat telling me or Wheals to prepare a statement. Apparently a tweet suggested that Hiveswap was going to officially go up on Steam today, and he wanted one of us to post a message about the HSD along with a link as soon as it went up, for maximum visibility. Techniques like this strike part of me as unsavory because they're essentially just shilling, but I also can't be bothered to care that much. As it is, I'm excited to see just how many people we can get to join the HSD, so I agreed to write something short.
Alas, Hiveswap did not go up on Steam at the appointed time. This led to some confusion from people since the tweet was fairly explicit, and now there is a small amount of concern as to the status of the project. I'm waiting to see how it develops further before making a judgment one way or the other. It's fairly likely that the game will go up on Steam tomorrow, although I'm not privy to how Steam releases work so I could be completely mistaken. Either way, not a terribly big ordeal.
Nothing more for today.
4th of September
Today has been pretty frustrating on a personal scale. There's one guy who's been around for a week or two now that does things that bother me intensely, and his name is ggrey.
Ggrey has been sticking around in #serious and often engages in discussion to their utmost extremes. We actually had a run in with this guy near the end of May. He claimed that he was being persecuted because of his political leanings, to the point that he was serious banned for the rest of the day. This was elevated to a month long ban because he then argued with Ceru in DMs that he should be allowed to insult others because of his views, which was of course utterly ridiculous to us.
Fast forward to now and he's been unbanned from #serious for about a week and then some. The effects of this have been almost purely negative. It's difficult to describe exactly why ggrey's attitude bothers myself and so many others this much, because almost everything he does is bothersome. He calls upon logical conventions to support his own arguments and refute others but then doesn't uphold the tenets of the logical appeals he makes, which is insanely aggravating to witness happen in real time. He asserts that evidence does not make his opinion wrong, which is also insanely aggravating. He has managed to cause many, many hours of discourse in just the week that he has been back, and I've had to Za Warudo #serious twice now because of it.
And yet for all of this, he technically hasn't broken any rules. My frustration with him came to a head earlier today and I officially motioned that he be banned. Shitler agreed with me, I assume because he's also spent a decent amount of time in verbal combat with this charlatan, but Ifnar, Cerulean and Toast did not agree. I did my best to explain why exactly I was so irritated with the guy, but the main point that prevented an agreement from forming was that the guy simply hasn't broken any rules. This is understandable, and I fully admit that my desire to have him removed was inappropriately founded. As such as I withdrew my motion to ban and have recused myself from interacting with or passing judgment on ggrey, a resolution which is probably for the best in many ways.
On the other hand, Toast then went into #serious to talk to this fellow and appraise him. It was amusing and, I am unashamed to admit, intensely satisfying; Toast quickly grew frustrated with him as well, or at least used some rather choice words to describe him that made me feel more than a little bit smug in my original stance.
Alas, there's nothing that can really be done about ggrey at this point. I've kept my eye on the ongoing discussions to ensure that they don't get too out of hand, but I haven't bothered to speak with him again. There are, thankfully, enough other people around to do that anyway. I think that this too is for the best; some of them appear to be able to handle ggrey's gross misuse of reasoning better than I can. As such, they're more well equipped to deal with the lapses in logic, and my earnest hope is that one of them will finally be able to reach this guy and help him see actual reason.
In a broader sense this issue made me reconsider some of the things I've grown to stop thinking about during the course of my time on the HSD. I used to be more concerned with issues like exactly how much should we intercede with things like this, as moderators. Was I trying to improve the quality of discussion by having him removed or was I actually just frustrated enough with his perceived chicanery to want him to be removed, even in an illicit manner?
Rather than repeatedly question myself like some kind of angsty schoolboy, I guess it's appropriate just to resolve to learn what I did wrong and how to prevent it in the future. It's not exactly the first time I've made such a mistake on the HSD, there have been scores of people who are just as odious to deal with as ggrey; these kinds of people just tend to break a rule or ten by this point, which gives us sufficient reason to actually remove them. Too many times now I've gotten emotionally invested in seeing a particularly vexatious troublemaker removed, and I still don't know why I allow such things to get to me as much as they do. Regardless, I forget my place—it's not mine to actively influence a discussion or who is allowed to participate in it.
Hopefully this sort of thing does not occur again in the future, at least any time soon. Nothing more for today.
5th of September
Last night I went through with a series of actions that were prompted by a discussion in mspa-lit regarding the extent to which rules are enforced. The overall point being argued upon was, predictably, that altgen does in fact have rules, but it appears as if they have no obligation to listen to them at any time. This perception is obviously incorrect in theory, but in practice it appears that moderation of altgen is a little bit lax in nature.
One of the primary complaints in this vein concerns the use of “slurs”, or offensive terms, apparently used with reckless abandon in altgen more than any other channel. Our policy about slurs is very specific: in order to maintain our position against censorship as much as possible, we do not ban the outright usage of slurs (even if it is heavily discouraged). What is a bannable offense is using a slur specifically against another person (thus, “you are a faggot” would be bannable, while simply invoking the word “faggot” in a discussion would probably not incur a ban). While we still receive complaints when these words are used anyway, there has been a significant uptick in complaints concerning the latter case, which obviously warrants attention. I looked around and also received information about people doing this, and a few people came up who were doing this repeatedly. They were all banned, although two of them are worthy of some note.
Scalene was a very notorious shitter that we weren't certain what to make of for the longest time. Their greatest period of activity was a few months ago, where it seemed their name cropped up almost daily in some new act of inanity or general shittiness. They fell in that category of people who were generally unappealing but didn't cross the line enough to warrant a full ban; many people avoid punishment in this fashion, which is a pain to keep track of for us. However, Scalene's recent comments finally crossed that line, and they have been removed.
The other notable character in this play is $trider, a more or less important figure in altgen and the person over which this set of actions became worthy of writing about. He exhibited the same behavior as the others I banned last night, so I followed through with him as well. Today, however, I was assailed with a number of messages and pleas to renege on $trider. This was bothersome, but I decided to speak with him about this matter anyway. In my haste to purge altgen of these people I had neglected to give those I was unfamiliar with their due process, and $trider gave a fair case for why he should be let back. I was reluctant at first, but I felt bad that I hadn't given him a proper warning before his ban. It was especially inappropriate because this was his first offense; between this and him expressing a sincere desire to come back and interact with the community, I decided to apologize to him and lift the ban.
It was actually a rather nice sight to see: true to his words, as soon as $trider had rejoined the server, he said hello to everyone in altgen, and he was received very warmly. It's gone a long way in reinforcing the idea to me that these guys actually are a cohesive community of their own, and not simply “a problem”. The option of total destruction of the channel is not really on the table, it would obviously be more than disruptive and actually generate an insane amount of bad will towards us. More idealistically I just can't support destroying a place where people more or less harmlessly congregate and enjoy being around each other. I'll work on asking if we can incorporate the altgen confinement role instead, I would hate to lose this facet of the community completely through some dumb, contrived nonsense.
Nothing more for today.
6th of September
Today was pretty turbulent. Hiveswap finally got put up on the Steam store, so we began advertising the HSD as directed by Makin. It was almost instantaneous; the page went up around 9 AM and I believe we had the topic for it up in about one or two minutes afterwards. Let it never be said that the HSD mod team is not a well oiled cog in a machine, assuming that machine is made out of utter nonsense and funny pictures.
The discussions page for Hiveswap is currently pretty inactive, but I don't know how common that is for Steam games. Could be totally normal, but from where I stand at this point in time it's kind of worrisome. I have heard a lot of discussion going on in the HSD proper, which is to be expected, but I wonder if any of that will carry over into the actual release.
A minor effect of the Steam page going up is, I think, a small revitalization of the rivalry between us and Hiveswap Discord. Icel, the owner of HVSD, actually came over to talk briefly after we started talking about HVSD a couple of nights ago, but it was primarily a cordial interaction aimed at clearing up what they deemed “misinformation” regarding an activity they're doing—a giveaway in which they'll be awarding nine copies of Hiveswap to different people once it comes out.
Today, shortly after the Steam page and our discussion of the HSD was posted, a followup post for Hiveswap Discord appeared as well. While neither of our groups have said anything about this development, I think it's evident to all involved that there is at least a small competitive spirit here. I'm interested to see if this will lead to a more serious rivalry again or not.
Nothing more for today.
7th of September
Not a lot to remark on today, just a couple interesting tidbits. We had a rare encounter with Elvish today: they came on the server for all of a single minute and posted one message, which was a screenshot of three hostile, anonymous Tumblr comments on their blog attacking them for gender-related issues. Elvish then warned us that if these hostile asks kept happening then they would be “forced to do something nasty”, and then they immediately left. This was an incredibly bewildering event, I think no one really knew how to respond at first. Then as the reality of the matter set in, discussion slowly resumed as people tried to figure out what the actual fuck just happened.
As we see it there are three possibilities to this: the most obvious is what Elvish themselves is stating, that someone or someones from HSD are harassing them through Tumblr. Another option, though, and more likely in my mind, is that this is just some random person perpetrating this nonsense. This scenario also carries the possibility that the person involved is systematically trying to make us look worse, given our history with Elvish. The third option and the most conspiracy-oriented by far is that Elvish themselves posted those asks in an attempt to pin the blame on us and make us seem terrible to lookers on.
This last option doesn't seem very likely to me, but Tensei remarked that Elvish's coming on to the HSD specifically to warn us against doing it more seemed fairly suspicious, an assessment I agree with personally. Unfortunately we have literally no more information to go off of in order to determine which scenario is most likely. Thus we've collectively decided to move on until something develops further and we can get to the bottom of the matter.
The other notable event, which was far more positive, was a user joining and informing us that the HSD had been linked to organically from another place. DannyStrider joined a few hours ago and mentioned that he was from a Discord server dedicated to Ryan Haywood, a Twitch streamer and member of Rooster Teeth. I don't know the exact context of which they were speaking about us, but the topic of Homestuck apparently cropped up and someone provided a link to the HSD as a result. This is fairly good news: it means that we're notable enough that some circles recognize us, or are at least aware of our existence. The ramifications of this are exciting—when Hiveswap comes out, if it becomes a widely played thing like Undertale was, then we may see a serious increase in membership, which would lead to a whole host of developments and probably the ushering in of a brand new culture if the number of people is large enough.
Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself with that. There is no telling exactly how popular Hiveswap will become until it actually comes out, and even then it may take some time to know for sure what'll become of it. From where I'm standing though, the future seems very exciting. This is in addition to some rather interesting developments internally; of note today, an old regular named hstanon came back.
Hstanon is an interesting figure; the main word I would think to describe him with is “unapologetic”. Both through the name (/hst/ is the current name for an old Homestuck-related 4chanboard, /hsg/, that no longer exists, and an anon is historically any given user on 4chan) and through their behavior, they have asserted themselves as a stereotypical 4chan user: loud and abrasive. I never spoke to them much personally, but the instance in which they left the server was pretty indicative of the typical experience of dealing with hst. Some months ago, he either snapped or lost all pretense of keeping things at least somewhat sane and began pinging Makin or mods repeatedly, calling them various epithets and practically demanding to be banned. Thus it was that they were removed from the server, and months passed without any word from them until today. Makin unbanned hst after he specifically requested to be let back in, for reasons that I'm not personally aware of. His behavior now, while still ruthless in some ways, is a far cry from the profuse insanity and self-destruction with which he left us. I can only wonder what went through his mind, and even what may go through it now. Either way, his presence is almost guaranteed to shake things up a little bit more in the server, so I look forward to seeing what may happen.
I've also established a more or less Official Policy with which to handle the journal being viewed by others. I've mentioned before that I worry what effect releasing copies will have on the behavior of people in the community, and that some of those fears have already been justified. Optimally I would not release any copies at all in order to preserve the behavior of the community as perfectly as possible, but I also don't want to sacrifice the accuracy of the information presented here, which means I must ask people to occasionally review this work. As such, I've decided that it would best to offer the opportunity to read it once in every fifty pages written—that is, once I reach 150 pages I will let people read it, then again at 200, and so on. This way the effect it has on people is minimal while also not jeopardizing the integrity of the recording. Hopefully this system works effectively.
Amusingly, Makin did hold this principle over my head right after I announced it to everyone. Not even five minutes after stating I would no longer let people read it, he demanded I give him the latest copy to peruse since he was bored. I was going to refuse, but then he said that he would revert the name of the mod chat to illuminati-not-hangout, since it bothers me that he changed it due to my actions in writing this journal. After confirming this was not a joke (“no bamboozle?”), I DMed him a copy and before I knew it the glorious #illuminati-not-hangout was back. I consider this a personal victory, if not exactly a particularly important one. I'll take what I can get though.
Nothing more for today.
8th of September
The appointed time is nigh: Flare has been unbanned from the server, and no time has been wasted in making this as controversial as possible. We've already received reports of him taking others' art and editing it against their wishes. This isn't grievous enough to warrant a ban, but not everyone sees it the same way. It's been described as no less than “art theft” by the leader of Hiveswap Discord, Icel.
Icel is a difficult character to assess; there has been a lot of tension between them and Makin, to the point that they do not come to talk on the server unless he's gone for the night or if they feel an explicit need to argue about something he's done or said. This tendency usually means that discourse follows their appearance, which automatically makes it harder to talk to them. Aside from these incidents they are also strongly compelled by a sense of justice and rightfulness, although their opinions and actions regarding what is right often clashes with our own (such as with with the banned words list of HVSD). I would like to avoid bad mouthing them too explicitly but my interactions with them haven't been that pleasant; they are often extremely accusatory and make snap judgments or inferences that are inaccurate or scathing, or both. The way they word things is also often fairly manipulative, a trait I dealt with myself in this conversation with them.
Right around when we were due to unban Flare, they contacted me personally through DMs and stated that it “looked bad” to be unbanning someone like him. Already I could tell that something was off about this assessment, and I ended up talking with them for a while about what exactly Flare's offenses were and how they should be handled. Unfortunately, neither of us made much progress on this point; they are adamant that Flare should be handled immediately, given his offenses against various members of the community by way of his art edits. On the other hand, while we think that the practice is distasteful and we don't condone the activity, we don't think that editing art deserves a ban.
We do have a policy for actual art thieves, which is of course to ban them—the rub lies in what constitutes art theft. If, for instance, Flare was taking the art, editing it slightly, and then reposting it with no credit to the author in any form (“This is my own work!”) then that would clearly be art theft. As it is, Flare has either provided credit to the original work of his edits (the best case scenario) or he has simply referred to them as “edits”, which removes the idea that they could be his own work. The second one is slightly more egregious but still does not constitute “theft”, so we can't ban him for art theft. Based on this and the fact that I was not speaking for the mod team as a whole in that capacity, I did not accede to Icel’s points.
As I said, neither of us made any progress in this discussion: they did not provide me with any convincing arguments and I did not provide any to them, apparently. After they realized I wouldn't be changing my mind they decided to call the conversation quits, which is of course fine. I have fervent hope that they will talk with us more and we can try to convince them of what we're saying, but I have a feeling that outcome is very unlikely. Sometimes I have to wonder which party is “more correct” in situations like this, but in the end I believe our arguments are more or less solid. Additionally, their point about “bad optics” struck me poorly.
Hopefully this does not turn into a bigger issue. Nothing more for today.
9th of September
LOFAM 4 is out! We had an intense community stream dedicated to its release, hosted by Lambda herself on her Twitch page. It was actually a pretty decent set up; the album is divided into three parts, or “discs”, and between each disc—which were all a couple hours and then some long—there was an intermission where we played shitty memes or what have you.
It was honestly a very nice time; LOFAM's title albums are all assortments of music made by other Homestuck fans and groups, and can be pointed to as a “best of” collection. It's a great honor to be put on the album so the stream is usually a pretty jovial event, and it's always nice to give credit to people who have made considerable contributions to the fandom.
It should be noted that all of these albums are available for free—none of the music that Homestuck fans make is for profit. I'm not sure of the exact reasoning for this but I'm sure that the legal problems of doing such a thing are a significant factor. For a lot though I'm also sure that there is element of decency to it: the music is made by fans for fans, and they want to keep it as accessible as possible. However the hosting site that carries all of this fan music, Bandcamp, requires you to assign a price to your work if you want it to be downloaded by others. In order to skirt this particular issue, fan albums are usually associated with ridiculously high prices, often in the hundreds of dollars, and then they provide a link to a free download of the album in its description. I've always thought this was a clever workaround to the hosting issue.
Nothing more for today.
10th of September
Today had a couple of interesting things; Putnam and MrCheeze got into a discussion about “callout culture”, or the practice of seeking out “problematic elements” of someone, even historically, and using that to invalidate their stance or position (I could be mangling this definition, that's just my assessment thereof). The incident was spurred by a blunder from an enormously popular Twitch streamer using a racial epithet on air, which needless to say is a pretty serious deal. I'm not quite sure how this transformed into a discussion on callout culture, but the net effect is that MrCheeze left the server.
This in itself isn't that huge of an ordeal; MrCheeze leaving the server has occurred multiple times already, and is usually an infrequent enough event that it doesn't need to be punished. This particular time and others have been due to controversy, but sometimes they may leave simply because they don't want to be distracted, which is far more understandable. Either way, we expect them to come back eventually.
More excitingly, a giveaway was announced! A giveaway is when the leaders of a community have a contest for distributing free gifts to members of the community, either donated by themselves or by an official from the company that sells merchandise. The latter case can be an indication of a strong relationship between a community and the people who are more or less in charge of its content. I'm happy to say that ours is as such: the items being given away include two sets of a themed shirt and wallet, contributed by We Love Fine. The associate who is in contact with us is a pleasant figure named Kara. Obviously we don't know much about her, but our interactions with her have been nice and she's always helpful.
We've actually had one previous giveaway through WLF, which was conducted simultaneously as an art contest and a raffle. People submitted their own works to the community, who collectively voted on who should win the giveaway (Nights won that one). Unfortunately the art contest portion had a few problems, the most obvious of which was that not everyone had time to finish their submissions. After some thought, this time Makin has decided to stick with just a raffle instead; if you are a member of the Discord community and reblog the post on Tumblr, then you are entered and have a chance to randomly win the prize. Two people will be selected, who then give their shipping information to Makin, who relays it to Kara.
It's actually a pretty nice event, and I hope that it increases community activity for a while. It's always fun to see these things play out. Nothing more for today.
11th of September
A bit of a headache situation today. The giveaway has sparked some problems between us and members of HVSD, partly due to Makin's interference. I mentioned a couple of callout posts the other day, namely Big Warnings, who were throwing serious but insubstantial accusations our way. Makin apparently went through and blocked whoever reblogged those posts from participating in the giveaway, which honestly makes complete sense. However, he took it one step forward and blocked Icel and another from reblogging as well, even though there is no substantiated link between them and the post itself.
This obviously led to some drama. Icel appeared and demanded to know why they were not allowed to reblog the post, and based on Makin's input I incorrectly stated that they had supported the Big Warnings post. They claimed that they hadn't, and after talking in mod chat briefly it was apparent that Makin had not known this for sure (stating in his defense that he was sleep deprived). These sorts of blunders, while not a huge deal, are still pretty embarrassing so I retracted my statement.
In addition, Makin blocked Alex on the supposition that they were the ones who wrote the Big Warnings post on Tumblr. Makin has stated he did so based on the manner of speaking between the two being very similar, which admittedly they are; however, using this as a direct link between the two is tenuous at best and we had to discourage him from this. I think the situation has been resolved but this is still a pretty damaging event in the face of building relations between HSD and HVSD. I think the rivalry has been reignited in a bad way, and with more energy being injected into the fandom as a whole through Hiveswap, this may turn out to have some fairly annoying consequences in the future.
I don't believe that the effects will be thoroughly damaging—HVSD is a tad too small for such interference—but it can prove to be a stubborn thorn in our side, and assuredly many small conflicts will rise from such things. I'm not looking forward to putting out the fires but we'll see how it plays out in the future.
I also want to describe an incident of some small note that actually occurred last night but didn't think to write down until now. $trider has been utilizing the voice channels to DJ for people listening. This has been a rather amicable process so far, as near as I can tell no one has complained about it. However, there was a miscommunication involving Anervaria, who thought this was not allowed; we were going to let the activity continue, but “playing music” in the voice channels is typically not allowed because it's disruptive. Based on this precedent Anervaria went to tell $trider to stop DJing in the voice channels, which led to a small stink. $trider insisted that no one had complained and then requested that, in order to avoid making music in channels where people might prefer to talk, that he be given a special “DJ” role that would allow him to play in the radio channel.
This request was immediately denied. We are strictly not into making custom roles for people for historical reasons; before I joined this server, the role list had an insane number of joke roles dedicated to specific people, which caused problems with role structuring and chain of command functioning. I'm not sure if this occurred at a different time or was concurrent with The Reckoning, but Makin deleted all of the roles and completely reorganized the system, shaping it into what we have today.
All of this is to say that we are not about to create a new role just for $trider, as useful as it may be. In fact, we had a corresponding talk about what to do as per people playing instruments in the voicechat, and we decided that it should not be allowed—thus it is a new rule for the voice channels, one that unfortunately has upset $trider. There might be an update to this rule later that leads to a more nuanced and effective system, but for now it is what it is.
Nothing more for today.
12th of September
A small event for today. After an extensive stakeout of altgen for the last however many days, I have come to a decision about who should be nominated as new altgen janitor. Since I haven't elaborated yet on what exactly a janitor is, I will now take the liberty of doing so. The hierarchy of the HSD is as follows: Makin ← ← ← Mods ← Pseudo-mods ← ← ← Janitors ← Regular users ← The common earthworm ← Altgen users. There's an enormous power gap of course between Makin and literally everyone else, but mods and pseudo-mods are still above the “common folk”. Janitors are basically just regular users with some duties attached to their channel, they can't see #illuminati-not-hangout so they do not have any say in the governance of the place. They do have the power to ban within their channel though, so they're at the top of the bottom of the totem pole in terms of power.
To date the only channel that's really needed a janitorial position is altgen, due to the sheer force of shittiness associated with it. Makin spontaneously janitored two people, definitely_not_him and Tsimona. Tsimona, or TS, has done a fine job so far, but definitely_not_him has not been active and outright stated they don't do their job. I'm not sure if they were referring to simple lack of activity or if there was a degree of rule breaking they played witness to that they did nothing about. In either case, we decided the role was better suited to someone else who would be more attentive. I took it upon myself to go and and keep an eye on altgen for a couple of weeks when I could to find a suitable replacement, and a few options did gradually appear. First though, it would be prudent to describe Tori herself.
The #altgen pseudo, there is a lot of talk, by herself and others, of how her time in #altgen has warped her own views on humor and irony, and occasionally she'll descend into rambling fits about the nature of jokes and internet humor. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's all an elaborate schtick or if it's sincere, which I'm sure is an additional layer she appreciates surrounding her persona. She will often launch into lengthy speeches about the specific nature of a single image, ascribing heavily obscure terminology to it both in an attempt to educate and to confuse people. No one is quite sure how genuine this act is, which is in keeping with her overall personality, which I think leads to some emotional isolation. A heavily conflicted person, she is simultaneously tortured by and relishes her time in #altgen, forced to deal with constant shitposting day in and day out. There are a number of habits she has developed to keep the people of the channel on their toes, because if they manage to figure out anything about her schedule regarding taking care of #altgen, the regulars of the channel will take advantage of it and wreak unmitigated havoc. In fact, recently we introduced the janitorial position so that the channel could continue to be handled even if Tori is asleep, a fact she is both pleased and dismayed to be confronted with.
The problem with altgen is that there's an inconvenient gap in user quality: the characteristics that are preferred for a janitor would be active use of the channel in question and seriousness or ability to handle responsibility. Unfortunately due to altgen's nature, users who fall into both categories are exceedingly rare. I've found two users (Linked Girafarig and Pigeon Jude) who fall into the former category and sort of fulfill the latter, and there's one user I've taken note of that would probably be able to fit both, Malice (or AKA Grandma Molly).
Malice at first glance does not appear to be extremely active but they respond to pings immediately, which suggests a tendency to lurk the channel even if they're not talking. Whenever they participate they are well received and somehow fit into both roles, both as an altgenner and a serious contributor. Based on all of these factors, I made my recommendation to the mod team, Tori seconded the idea, and Makin approved. So it was that definitely_not_him was removed as altgen janitor and Malice was instated in his stead.
I hope that these decisions help improve the channel's reputation somewhat; one of the more significant problems is that the rules aren't getting enforced as much as they should be, which leads to more people breaking rules in more ostentatious ways, which leads to them getting banned and pissed off because “no one else is banned for this”. If we can get to the point where people who categorically break the rules are banned when they're supposed to be, we might avoid significant problems in the future regarding this issue.
Nothing more for today.
13th of September
Grand news: we hit 8000 members as of 8:12 AM EST! The timing couldn't have been better (indeed, part of me suspects Makin specifically orchestrated it to turn out this way, somehow), what with Hiveswap coming out tomorrow. To commemorate the occasion, Makin has implemented a number of things: created a new channel for hype purposes called #8000-party, bought more adspace on MSPA, and initiated a survey for feedback and questions. These developments are a lot to take in, and the server has been in a positive flurry of activity since the morning started. The new channel is dedicated largely to celebrating the server and all its new members, which is accompanied by a large selection of fan art made by the community members, among other things. I'm unsure of whether the channel will be archived once the festivities are completed; Makin has stated that he intends to post the funny and/or good art to the associated Tumblr, which means those works will be archived regardless. I assume this means the channel itself will be deleted in the future.
My intuition in this manner was partially correct: it being now several hours later, Makin has since hidden #8000-party from the server. I've been notified that there are channels even moderators can't see, which means that Makin has an indeterminate number of channels around for archival purposes that only he can see. I wonder what information is stored away where no one else can see it.
While the channel being removed was a predictable outcome, it is always at least mildly disappointing to see such things be born, live, and die so swiftly. On the other hand, Makin has still not released the results of the survey; most, including myself, enjoy the peanut gallery that follows the closing of a survey, and past experience indicates he's usually done with them after less than 12 hours. For whatever reason it appears Makin is leaving this poll up for an extended period of time. While we'll have to wait longer for results, that just means there will probably be more to amuse ourselves with when the time comes.
The time has come to describe a significant subplot that's been in the works for a couple months now. WoC was demodded back on the 12th of July, although shortly before in a characteristic bout of competitive spirit WoC made a bet with Tensei that Hiveswap would not come out this year. Tensei didn't bother to take up the bet, but Anervaria did. The conditions were that if he lost, he would have to pour hot sauce up his nose on video and upload it for everyone to see. If Aner lost, she would have to buy him a hat of some kind.
WoC actually made a similar bet with me some time ago, although we both simply agreed to gift the other a hat in the case of victory, rather than include the hot sauce part. The content of the bet in question at that point was a bit more esoteric perhaps: the time was about a week before 4/13 earlier this year. Hussie was slated to write a newspost on the website since it was the anniversary of the webcomic, an event which is typical of him. WoC asserted that the newspost would have a specific term included in it (I forgot which one exactly, but it was suitably moronic), and I took him up on the chance that the newspost would not contain the phrase in question. I won this bet, and so WoC gave to me a hat in his color with the phrase “WoC is a Loser” embroidered on it. It is now one of my most prized possessions, occupying a place of honor in my house.
Returning to the present, WoC has of course lost his bet with Anervaria since the game will be coming out tomorrow. True to his word, WoC contacted me and a number of others with a video of him performing the deed. It is truly 42 of the most glorious seconds I've ever played witness to, and I imagine his nose must still be burning as I write this. Let it never be said that WoC is not true to his word.
Shortly after this incident, WoC came onto the server to answer any questions people may have had about the hot sauce video (of which there were naturally many). I expected him to leave shortly after doing this, but as soon as he joined back an impressive number of people received him warmly. I think this made him feel happy about being back, and for some hours now he has remained. Since Makin agreed that he should be given the gaming janitor role upon his return, I bestowed that title upon him. WoC then demanded it be changed to “gaming enforcer” because it sounds better than “janitor”. I figure now that I'm in for a penny I might as well be in for the pound, and so I acquiesced to the name change. Hopefully Makin is not upset by this development, but I don't necessarily see why he would be. WoC has stated that if this will lead to trouble for me, he'll renounce his position entirely and leave once more. While I certainly appreciate the gesture, I'm simply hoping it won't be necessary; his return has been more satisfying than many people would admit, I'm sure. It would be a shame to have someone of his caliber be turned away after all this. Time will tell of course.
Nothing more for today.
14th of September – Hiveswap Zero Hour
The appointed day has arrived: Hiveswap is being released, and the community is appropriately in a frenzied buzz. Makin is running a community stream with a special edition of a movie that is culturally significant to the fandom, Con Air. He has timed it so that the end of the stream coincides with the release of the game, a level of planning that does not surprise me coming from him. People started to receive download keys about two hours before release, and although I will not receive a key (since I hadn't backed the game on Kickstarter) I have been poised with wallet in hand to pay for this game once it is officially released.
This is a very exciting time for the community, and the first time since I've joined that I will be around for new official content to work with while among other people. It is unprecedented territory for me. Ceru shares some of my nervousness, but mostly I'm excited for the possibilities. All day already we've had people joining regularly, at a rate that is completely unbelievable. I will update the figures later when I have a better idea of them.
Now, several hours later, I have completed the game and many other people are doing so as well. Considering it is only one part of a whole it is pretty straightforward and short, but the content itself is actually rather enjoyable. This sentiment has already been echoed by many others, with most giving it a fairly positive review. The channel dedicated to talking about it with spoilers included has been speeding by nonstop since the game was released, and already the off-the-cuff theories and speculation has begun, accompanied with the Homestuck fandom's characteristic attention to detail and legendary ability to grab onto things that would go otherwise unnoticed by literally anyone else. All of this is exciting to me; I had heard about this years ago when I started reading and never looked into it, but seeing it happen in real time makes me feel a particular giddiness that I was not expecting. It is gratifying in a way that is hard to express with words to be included in these actions this time around, like some sort of fulfillment I didn't fully know I was missing. I believe it's safe to say that Hiveswap has rejuvenated us.
Here near the end of the day, the rate of people joining the HSD has been mindboggling—I don't remember who, but the figure “approximately one new user every 3 minutes” was tossed out. We hit 8000 people only yesterday and now we're just shy of 8,300 as of this writing, a user gain that is almost unfathomable to me. The strain is being felt though; with general being an unutterable hive of activity; there is significant danger of the culture there being lost a la The Eternal September, and even most other channels are experiencing a heavier load than normal. Makin has made talk of recruiting some people temporarily to be pseudos and help with containing spoilers in the appropriate channel, or just regulating traffic; this hasn't been completely necessary up to this point, but during the day when a lot of mods are busy then it may be a different story.
This activity has carried over to the subreddit as well; we've had to keep an eye out on new posts or users that are promoting piracy. Notably, the ggrey person I mentioned was finally banned from the HSD for offering links to pirated material, and then he (as well as 6 or 7 alts) did it on the subreddit as well. I'm not sure if he is the sole source of these problems but either way it has compounded into something that could present a serious issue if not handled adequately.
WoC has remained on the server, with more details regarding his position on the server coming to light. I believe, at least on a tenuous level, that everyone aware of him is okay with his remaining the gaming “enforcer”. He is not to receive additional duties or abilities. The janitorial role's position on the role list ensures that he can no longer modify his own permissions anymore, which eliminates the risk of power abuse. All of these things give me a sliver of hope that things will remain positive.
Of course, WoC has made clear some of his thoughts on the matter as well: first and foremost, he wants to “Make #gaming Great Again”, lamenting especially over the state of the channel now that he's been gone for a while; unfortunately, there is a significant chance that he will not stick around to accomplish this, as he has begun college and expects his activity level to drop substantially. In his words, “no reason to hang around in a place that I don't participate in”. This last point is sensible, although would still be unfortunate on a certain level. As it is, we will have to see how things pan out.
I should take the time to describe one of our users, Niklink. Nik is actually one of the mods of the subreddit, and he’s a fairly laid back individual. He has a humorous streak in him, often delivering commentary that is unexpectedly funny. This has given him a reputation for being clever and witty, and as such his input is usually pretty valued. Now I think about it, however, most of his posts involve something meant to be funny. Some of these are outright memes; I guess he just really likes joking around on the internet. Can't blame him, he's good at it.
Niklink has brought up a salient point about Hiveswap's success, in that it seems like it isn't starting off very strongly. He has given a rough figure of “40,000 purchases in order for it to be successful”, and if it doesn't reach that threshold then the future of the project will be ill-fated. Hopefully the news in the morning is good.
Play Hiveswap – nothing more for today.
15th of September
Today has actually been exceedingly eventful. I'll try to recount everything as faithfully as I can, although I'm certain I've forgotten some things.
The survey has actually been more or less complete since the day it was created, but Makin had deemed the responses “not funny enough for a peanut gallery”. I was initially skeptical of this, but after looking through it myself I have to agree: the caliber of responses this time around was simply not good enough to work off of. That was pretty disappointing to hear; the associated roast is always the best part of a survey. Perhaps next time we'll see some higher quality answers.
Speaking of suggestions falling flat, Makin has ultimately reneged on the potential for taking on a new pseudo, even on a temporary basis. His reasoning is that he's “already beaten hiveswap”, so there's no need for another staff member since he can keep an eye on things himself. While the status quo doesn't exactly seem in imminent danger, I still wonder if this is entirely true. There's a threshold to where you're going to want more help, but of course I'm not qualified to say exactly where that threshold is. I trust Makin to know what he's doing here, but based on sheer numbers alone the time for recruitment may come sooner than any of us are expecting.
In an unprecedented move, Makin also mandated the creation of a #welcome channel at some point in the near future. He also tasked me with creating a channel list complete with descriptions of the activity of each, since I keep this journal (which he amusingly referred to as a diary). This came as a surprise to me; I may be mistaken and simply thinking of #rules again, but I'm fairly certain that Makin has stated we would not create a #welcome channel since it's a redundant feature of the site, seeing as most channels' purposes are self-explanitory. Regardless, I'm not one to turn down an opportunity to help so I set about drafting a channel list up. It's not finalized yet but the brunt of the work is done, and all that's left is to polish things once the time comes. I'm curious to see if this will have any actual effect on the relative quality of our server; it's standard practice for servers to have a #welcome channel, so the absence of one in ours has elicited comments in the past. Just another of the many things we've carried out in an unorthodox fashion.
I mentioned yesterday the element of Hiveswap's profitability, and how we all want it to be a success. Niklink kept us updated today as to the status of Hiveswap purchases and downloads. From what I understand, approximately 20,000 now own the game, which is around half of what we'd optimally like to see. The nail in the coffin, so to speak, is the fact that it can be expected most of those people did not actually pay for a copy at this time; they paid for it years ago with the Kickstarter, and they received a key to download it on Steam or receive it on Humble Bundle. Either way, the point is that Hiveswap is not turning a profit by any means. Thankfully most reviews have been very kind to it, and the game itself is enjoyable enough that it merits these positive reviews, it's just that these don't mean much if the project makes so little money they can't afford to continue.
The exact reason this is the case, with so few actual purchases, is difficult to assess with complete accuracy, but it has been the subject of debate all day and some obvious or reasonable explanations for this repeatedly crop up: first and foremost is the lack of proper advertising done for the game. Linked no doubt to the general lack of communication we experienced for long, and I personally suspect because there was no room in the budget for it, the game was advertised almost nowhere. We received the trailers on Youtube, but as far as I can see there were no ads put up in an attempt to garner people not already aware of the game.
This act is somewhat maddening because it feels like something that could easily be rectified and used to attract people who want to buy the game, but there are other routes besides advertising of course. Oft-discussed is how Hiveswap could parallel Undertale in terms of developing a fanbase, and the latter did so by being picked up by a multitude of people who stream themselves playing video games, or release videos thereof. Hiveswap being picked up by a massive streamer or Youtuber would almost guarantee that it becomes much more widely sold than what we're currently seeing, and would ensure its financial success1.
In fact, such a thing has already happened. Jacksepticeye is a Let's Player who was responsible for Undertale absolutely exploding in popularity back when it came out, and just a few minutes ago as of this writing he released a statement on Tumblr stating that he had already recorded the “first episode” of a series for a Hiveswap let's play. This is truly bittersweet news, as it will almost certainly lead to good things for Hiveswap's financial success, but jacksepticeye's involvement is arguably what led to the Undertale fandom having such a horrid reputation.
I'm personally excited for the possibilities but also experienced enough to know that this will be culturally destructive, even if it is a positive occurrence for the developers specifically. There is a non-zero chance that our community (or the Homestuck fandom at large) may be destroyed in its current form by the sheer influx of people with no regard for the existing structure. I don't expect this to actually happen in such a blunt way, but the possibility still worries me somewhat. Communities that experience growth too quickly are often altered in significant and irreparable ways.
Looking at the various channels and seeing the people talking and having a good time with each other is what makes me fear for this possibility. There is a distinct semblance of culture here, and especially leanings toward a strong community. For the most part, everyone likes everyone else. Even those who don't strictly like each other still display some camaraderie just by dint of being here and associating with each other. It reminds me of why I started this journal and why I like this place so much; it is easy and tremendously enjoyable just to be here. I am loathe to see this community disappear in any way, be it by force or time. I am going to redouble my efforts to preserve what I am witnessing, and also to assist in keeping the community happy and healthy.
Here's to hoping that the future holds only good things for us and Hiveswap. Nothing more for today.
16th of September
The jacksepticeye video is out, and it has almost immediately garnered hundreds of thousands of views. This is the kind of publicity that we were really hoping for; if enough people see videos of Hiveswap, then they'll start to pick it up and support the game in a serious financial way. This is the optimal outcome, following in Undertale's footsteps. There are some interesting comments, as Jack mentioned in the video that some people have told him not to play the game because it'll “ruin the community like it did with Undertale.”
Such comments strike me as distinctly mean-spirited and not really accurate. While jacksepticeye's Undertale videos did kickstart the fandom into what it is now—mostly unsavory and rabid—it was the actions of many who contributed to this process, not just one person's efforts. I admit that there are many of us who wonder what direction jack's involvement will take us, but I think we're all more concerned with Hiveswap succeeding at this point. We'll cross the other bridge after we've crossed this one.
As for exactly what the video may do for the game, that remains to be seen. Of course it will increase its visibility substantially, reaching out to people that would otherwise never have heard of this game, but the playstyle of Undertale is significantly different from Hiveswap; there is a significant chance that people won't pick up on it even though they know about it because the type of game isn't interesting to them. We won't even be able to tell what the effects of the video's presence will be until some time has passed—Undertale's search trend increased gradually over the course of about three and a half months after it was released, peaking near the end of 2015, but by then it was so widely known that people picked it up by osmosis alone. It's been only two days since Hiveswap has been released, so there's literally no way to tell if it will follow a similar trend or not. It's been pointed out to me that the purchasing trends for Hiveswap so far are outdoing what Undertale had before, which induces some optimism, but ultimately does not tell me what the future holds. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
More strictly related to the server, the Swamp Wizard blog disappeared today. After some brief confusion, it was deduced that they've restricted access to their blog, and the exact manner in which they restricted their blog means it is unviewable by anyone. This could be due to a number of factors; Tipsy has elaborated on the occurrence with some detail, speculating that it may be because “so many people turned against them”. A number of people have begun talking about them, which tipsy takes to mean that they are “universally hated”. There was also a sighting on Twitter from James and an affiliated artist named Shelby Cragg, neither of which were explicit but almost clearly referring to Swamp Wizard's activities.
In the interest of documenting this as accurately as possible, I would like to point out that I don't know any of this conclusively. Swamp Wizard restricting their blog access could be due to something completely unrelated, all of the things I've mentioned so far are more or less speculation, and I don't exactly pride myself in utilizing internet gossip to fill out the entries of this journal. That having been said, the confluence of factors surrounding the incident are all pretty convenient in their placement. For the sake of not misrepresenting things as worse than they need to be, I will move on from this topic and revisit it only if conclusive information is presented.
Instead, I'm pleased to present a story that I've yet to detail here. About a month ago, there was an encounter between Toast and a user who wanted to ask them a question. This user wanted to know if they could “kin” Toast. For those who are unfamiliar, “kinning” is a concept that involves assuming the identity of another object or person. A classic example is someone enjoying the concept of dragons so much that they want to be one themselves, at which point they would call themselves “dragon-kin”. The vast majority of us find this sort of instantiation of the concept distasteful, but that's a topic for another day. The point here is that this fellow wanted to “kin” Toast, to literally become him in their mind.
Obviously, Toast denied this odd request, albeit as tactfully as possible. All this by itself wasn't that big of an issue; we talk to some pretty unusual people all the time, and a polite—if unusual—request like this is downright pleasant compared to some things we've been asked to do or say. If it had been left at this, I'm sure that we wouldn't have even known that the conversation took place. As things go, the person in question could not restrain themselves and asked one more question: “is it alright if i suck one of your toes? like in a rp or smth?”
Things have never been the same since. I don't think a week has gone by where the toe-sucking meme has not been called upon at length, and we routinely make fun of Toast for this. It's one of the more infamous things to occur here, as far as my memory serves, and I don't believe anyone is going to let it stop anytime soon. I wonder where that person is now; they immediately withdrew the request and stopped messaging Toast after the initial comment, which has been positively ensconced in the folds of our personal mythology. I'm not sure we will ever forget this occasion, nor should we forget it. Someone's gotta rake Toast over the coals for it, after all.
Nothing more for today.
17th of September
Since WoC returned, he has been so kind as to read over this journal and provide his own insight as to the events here, and some of my descriptions of him. He has talked at length about the state of channels both past and present, and wanted to clarify some things. The full document is included as a separate file, but when this journal is complete (should that day ever come), then it will be added in an index of miscellaneous materials alongside the documents provided by others, such as for CANMT and LOFAM. Edit as of 1/15/17: the item is now included in appendix B under “Addendum”.
Speaking of WoC's return, there has been a noticeable change in the quality of discussion at any given time. For instance, today we managed to talk about shitting for over 45 minutes. I'm not kidding—this is the kind of discussion that WoC's mere presence encourages. I don't know how the topic sustained itself for nearly an hour, but the overall point is that his involvement has already influenced the channel to an extreme degree. The conversation itself was oddly engaging so what I'm saying shouldn't be taken as a strict complaint, it's more just bewildering to me that he manages to make such things happen just by existing and being in close proximity.
Other topics discussed included the history of altgen, and how there is a noticeable change in the quality of conversation there from before WoC left to now. From the time it was created to just a couple weeks ago, altgen was a repository for shitposting. I've covered this topic at length, so suffice to say that for some reason its intended purpose has changed somewhat as of late. WoC has firmly decided that their attempt to form a legitimate community instead of being an exercise in meme masturbation is a change for the worse, an assessment that amuses me greatly. WoC is nothing if not principled; he may not agree or like what you do, but he will respect you if you stick by your guns and ideology when it matters most. To him, the reduction of shitposting in favor of community building is an inexcusable upset in the dynamics of the place; in his words, “it's different and all change should be met with open hostility and fear”. Timeless wisdom for the ages, surely.
I want to take this time to mention an old regular known as Sylandrophol, who was fairly infamous in the community. They fit into the mold of “lowkey shitposter”, where they often had a net negative effect on discussion, but were so infrequent or subtle about it that we couldn't outright ban them for it. By the time we ever noticed something was amiss, it was either already done with or it had been so long since a previous infraction that they were let off the hook. Sylandrophol had a strange habit of interjecting into conversations when certain romantic pairings were suggested; I don't remember which characters caused them to do so, but if one they disliked was mentioned, they would automatically leap to attack it ferociously, which would draw the ire of anyone participating in the conversation since it was extremely disruptive and rude.
One of the more interesting things Sylandrophol ever did was create a fanfiction of Makin and some members of HVSD. This creation had the rare and impressive effect of making literally everyone who read it uncomfortable—even Makin, who is fond of parody and teasing, was distinctly unnerved by some of the things suggested in this story. I never read it myself, but one event of the story described to me in some detail involved Icel killing Makin's parents. After this passage was released, Makin demanded that Sylandrophol stop writing or at least releasing the story to the public, as it could stir animosity between the HSD and HVSD for absolutely no reason.
This warning seemed to work, but in keeping with the general behavior of keeping it subtle Sylandrophol kept distributing the work and finally people got Too Upset about the crassly written literature. I am uncertain but I think this, in combination with advocating raids on HVSD, finally earned them a permaban somewhere a few months ago. A strange fate for an even stranger person.
This aside, in the current day the jacksepticeye video (and others I'm sure) have proven to be of some success. We ended yesterday with around 20,000 people owning Hiveswap, and today we're ending it with over 30,000. That's a significant increase in ownership, and as jack produces more videos I'm sure there will be more of a boon to Hiveswap sales. If this momentum keeps up then Hiveswap will have sold enough copies to ensure that What Pumpkin isn't gutted by the time they finish, which is an outcome that we all hope for obviously. I wonder what the effects on the community will be if we continue to grow in size as we have been, but I consider that development to be exciting. I have intermittently stated my excitement for obtaining a round number of 10,000 members in the HSD as a whole, and then to go even further beyond2. I'm very curious to see what the future holds for us, hopefully good things.
Nothing more for today.
18th of September
Nothing of importance really happened today. Instead, I asked the regulars hanging around at the time to provide some material that might help me bolster this journal a little bit more. I received a pleasantly large stack of information, which I will try to explain in full here. My knowledge of most, if not all, of these events is patchy at best, so I rely on the information given to me by those who were here for it.
First I think it would be good to describe a rather notable member of the community, Andrew. He is the person who has been on the server longest besides Makin, joining before anyone else. He is a rather interesting fellow, eager to share insight on a conversation when he has it. He is also a rather notorious flirt, even hitting on me once or twice to my recollection. Interested in all sorts of entertainment, especially gaming and even tabletop, he has regularly created Dungeons and Dragons groups, although to the best of my knowledge they don't typically pan out as time goes by. I consider him one of the main members of the #gaming crew, consisting of himself, WoC, LRS, and then regulars Somerandomguy, Mildly Adequate Snoiper, and then some others. They're all by far the most active people in that channel—I can peek in at any time and there's an almost certain chance that one of them are talking, no matter what's being discussed.
Andrew was gracious enough to describe the conditions of the place before it assumed its current form. Apparently the server was more specific in purpose, as it was meant for people playing The Overseer Project back when it was still in earlier development stages: “Well, it was originally an Overseer Discord as you probably know...”. The radically smaller size of the server and its specificity must have given it a much different feeling. Andrew's creation of tabletop gaming groups existed back even then as well: “... during the transfer from Overseer to Homestuck AnionCation, Rumull, myself, Medix, and someone else I can't quite remember played DND”, Medix in this case being our very own Medixum, and AnionCation a figure that still floats among us on the HSD.
His presence here from the beginning has ensured that Andrew is more or less aware of all of the servers' bumps and stories. I think his involvement was less pronounced compared to someone such as Toast though, who not only remembers these incidents but also caused a few of them himself or directly participated in them. There are a number of other users that used to make up a significant portion of “The Old Crew”, remnants of what Toast refers to as The Golden Age of the HSD, specifically February through June or so of 2016.
The first I'd choose to describe would be CynicallyCritical. I'm not sure of the exact word I would use to describe them; I've spoken with them a few times and their personality strikes me as a strange blend of many different aspects, which aggregates into this generally bewildering character. CynicallyCritical, or just CC, is self-centered in an almost aimless way. They seek out amusement from others and if you fail to provide it, they are very quick to tell you that they are not interested in speaking with you. It's far from personal; they are simply curt and honest in a way that borders on rude. Conversations can go from amicable and thought-provoking to the most outrageous horseshit to being cut off completely because CC got bored all of a sudden. It makes talking to them in a consistent manner kind of difficult, at least for me.
They also own a server that, if memory serves, is the progenitor to the splinter server nonsense. I don't have a thorough knowledge of this and no one has bothered to clarify so I'll avoid saying much more on its history, but the server is still around to this day. A number of people from the HSD are on it, and many of those people have since left the HSD. The activity of the server fluctuates in ways that are difficult to fully assess, so I will move on.
Another significant user from the past was a guy named Wade. He used to be a moderator on the MSPA subreddit and also this server, but eventually had a falling out with Makin. After this, they went to HVSD instead. They're also very active on the subreddit and a pretty recognized figure for our pocket of the fandom. He started or at least helped start a rather ambitious fan story called “Redditstuck”, which utilized the assistance and personalities of the subreddit members themselves to make a rather impressive story. As of this writing Redditstuck is still being made, although the update schedule is exceedingly slow.
One of the more amusing stories involving Wade (that I'm familiar with) occurred recently actually. I mentioned they joined HVSD and were content to hang out there some time ago, but then on April 11th of this year he joined HSD again very briefly to say: “its official hsd is the better server I cant call people cucks in [HVSD]” and then simply left again. This encounter had us positively reeling for days afterwards, and is forever pinned in #general for posterity.
A less savory person, in the same vein as people like Talons or Itoan, was a user named Lognes. Before their eventual ban, however, they left a mark on the server that is still present to this day. Lognes was more than a bit of a shitter who liked to repeat meme phrases ad nauseum. One of these phrases was simply the word “kek”, which anyone versed in 4chan lore will be more than aware of. Lognes spewing the word would have been more or less fine on its own even if stupid, but for some reason it was picked up by everyone else in the server, and it got repeated so often that it became a banned word. This event was eventually commemorated with an emote that is simply the word “BANNED” in big red letters, called with :kek:. I was actually pretty fond of that emote when I first joined, although I would say that its general use has fallen considerably in the last several months.
In the category of problem users, it is long overdue that I describe Daddy. I've mentioned them once before as someone who succeeded in making the vast majority of people insanely uncomfortable, but I have not gone to any lengths to describe what it was they did. They were unfortunately before my time, but Toast has explained that he, “spammed porn in gen every day... and claimed to be 7 years old”. I assume that the server was far less structured at this time, which is why he wasn't immediately banned permanently for being a shitter. Of note is that, during the server's one year anniversary, Daddy was unbanned for the duration of the day to celebrate. Remarkably, or perhaps not remarkably at all, he immediately round robin'd the mod team and asked for access to the NSFW channel (still in existence at the time), which everyone obviously refused him. The part that amuses me about this is how swiftly and easily he resorted to the tendency. There was no hesitation in it—only the practiced and unthinking actions of someone who has undoubtedly asked for access to porn hundreds of times prior. I almost wish I knew more about this person and how it is he is allowed to exist, but ironically he serves also as a lesson against asking such questions; some things are just not meant to be comprehended by us mere mortals.
There are two events that have been described to me that I wish to relay as well: the first is a meme phrase that pops up every once in a while, which simply involves someone shouting “THE PHYSICAL RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST.” I've always wondered what was meant by this, and hb was kind enough to provide context tonight. Earlier in the server's history, there was some random user who spammed a video of the character “Biggie Cheese” from the Nickelodeon movie “Barnyard”, accompanied simply with “The Physical Return of Jesus Christ”. Eventually they were banned from this, but like a curse they came back and spammed the image more. Then it happened again, and again, and again. It happened so many times that the phrase has effectively been embedded into our collective consciousness here. I sometimes don't even register it when I see the phrase; it's simply a part of the fabric of this place.
The second incident involved the original altgen pseudo-mod, named swifterjack. This user themself has an interesting and drama-filled history with this server, which I promised some time ago I would explain here. I am reasonably certain that there are actually a large number of things that caused problems, but the main thing is that several months ago, perhaps as early as last year, the swifterjack was part of a group message with a bunch of other people; all of the people involved were underaged, including the swifterjack, and they all began sending each other nude pictures. This activity went undetected and unknown for months, until finally in about May or so it came to light and we had to sort through the fallout in order to figure out what needed to be addressed (this is actually the incident that precipitated Twonks becoming angry and being banned from the HSD over). Between this and some other behavior that won’t be elaborated on for reasons of privacy, the swifterjack was banned from the HSD in full, and it is highly unlikely they will ever be allowed back.
At the time of this incident, however, the swifterjack was the pseudo-mod for altgen before The Reckoning. It might have been this next incident in particular that led to their demodding, or at least slated them for the axe; one fine day, the swifterjack decided to rename everyone in the server to Wah, and abused the bots to set the radio in the voice channels to play a single video: a ten hour loop of the Mario character Waluigi saying “Wah!” over and over again, in increasingly warped or layered fashions. This activity went unchecked for an entire day before someone finally realized what was happening and put a stop to it. This event has been suitably dubbed “The Wahhening”, and there are still accounts in the server named “wah”, although I couldn't tell if they're relics of this situation or if they obtained the name organically.
Shortly after I was modded, sometime in March if memory serves, we had a raid that can only be described as an intense microburst; with absolutely no warning, over 300 accounts joined within the same minute of each other and all posted exactly one message, which was a link to another Discord server. These bots all had the same name: Fuck. It took over half an hour for myself and other mods to comb through the messages and delete them. Discord has an option to delete the message history of a single user, but since all of these accounts posted independently we had to manually ban them in order to make the messages disappear. While tame in content and severity, the sheer amount of work involved with cleaning up afterwards makes the Fuck Raid probably one of the most infamous cases we've ever had to deal with. We've since had Ceru design a bot function that can only be called by moderators, which automatically bans all accounts that have joined in the last however many minutes, and deletes their messages. We haven't had to use this command yet thankfully, and there is hope that we won't ever have to. Admittedly though, the novelty and relative tameness of the Fuck Raid has solidified it in our memories forever.
The last thing I shall describe today was when Makin put up the first ad advertising the HSD, and arguably the beginning of the end for the Golden Age. It led to a severe restructuring of the server's channels, with many informing me that the current forms of #general, #altgen, and #mspa-lit all exist as a direct result of the advertisement. I can only imagine how many people were involved, but according to Toast, “the server population went up like 400%”. Since then advertisements have gone up periodically and we always see a noticeable increase in members on the server, but nothing quite so dramatic obviously. I wonder if the severe increase was similar to what we experience now and it was simply higher in proportions because there were less people on the server back then, or if the increase was significantly greater than we experience now. If the latter, then what's the difference between then and now? Questions for another time perhaps.
It's important to note that, while I've described these events as all running within the Golden Age of the server, it has been explained to me that some of these events such as THE PHYSICAL RETURN OF CHRIST and the first ad Makin put up actually occurred outside of the time frame of February to June 2016. They are lumped in with the Golden Age because the general feeling of these events are all similar to each other, and are indicative of a newly formed community.
I'll ask around for more past events at a later time, especially on a slow day. As it is, nothing more for today.
19th of September
A more or less slow day. Jacksepticeye released his second Hiveswap video, and the first one has (as of this writing probably) surpassed one million views. The figures for Hiveswap sales updated as well, and it looks like they finally broke 40,000 owners. This is a fairly positive trend, and we all hope that it continues of course. There have also been other notable figures streaming/playing it, such as Rev from Vinesauce. While I'm sure there's a degree of overlap between people who already own the game and watch each of these people, there will be people in each section of these communities who have never heard of or experienced these things, which is what we're banking on.
There was one review about Hiveswap today that I watched and thought was fairly cogent and well written, by a person named HippoCrit. However, in addition to Hiveswap as a stand alone game, the reviewer talked about its position in relation to Homestuck. Obviously due to their inextricable nature this is to be expected, but I find myself wanting Hiveswap to develop a reputation and success that is independent of Homestuck in as many facets as possible. Part of this is because Homestuck has its own very well established history and fanbase, and while it would be helpful if that base was shared with Hiveswap there is an extraordinary amount of baggage associated with Homestuck fans for a plethora of reasons. Prematurely connoting the two with each other will automatically alienate people from Hiveswap, precluding any chance that they will play it by mere association alone. This kind of occurrence bothers me significantly—I've never thought that solely judging a work by its fans is appropriate.
Funnily, in his playthrough today jacksepticeye wanted to make a correction of a statement he made in the first Hiveswap video, where he credited Toby Fox as the composer of the game and drew the link between his involvement and Undertale. While it's true of course that Toby Fox is composing music for Hiveswap, so is James Roach; jacksepticeye wanted to point this out today, but he flat out forgot James' name in the video when he went to give the shout out. The exact comment, transcribed by I assume Minish, was:
oh, and i also said, i wanna-i wanna correct it here and now as well because i feel bad, i said that toby fox made the music for the game. but toby fox only had a hand in it, somebody else as well - oh i forget their name, im so sorry, i talked to them on twitter, there was a lot of names - they, they also made, the music, as well, in fact i think they made most of the music, so i-i, i gave all the credit to toby fox and im sorry about that, i didn't mean to do that, i didn't know...
While obviously humorous, this is actually pretty unfortunate. I don't care for James personally, but it would be unfair leaning solidly towards unethical to deprive him of due credit; the soundtrack and general audio design for Hiveswap is excellent, and I feel like James deserves a chance to shine for it. However, Toby's presence on Hiveswap has kind of ruined that in a sense—the nature of Undertale's success and the type of fans it boasts are such that all people see in the music credit is “Toby Fox”, which means that Roach has fallen by the wayside. As this progresses further, I sincerely hope that we get to play witness to James becoming more successful and recognized as an artist for his contributions to this game. His skills are very impressive and I simply find it a shame that he's not being recognized appropriately for his part in all of this.
More specifically to the HSD, I would like to bring attention to a very strange tendency that's been occurring for some time. For reasons that I cannot even begin to understand, Sea Hitler has this uncanny ability to attract socially awkward members of the server to him. There has been a long string of these people, and more striking is the severity with which some of these people interface with Shitler—Pep was the last such individual, and their interactions with Shitler are almost legendary.
Pep was a regular in altgen who I never had the misfortune of being an object of attention from, but Shitler seemed to be solicited by them on a regular basis. Sea Hitler has provided screenshots of some messages he received from Pep, most of which are an overt attempt to gain his attention—Pep would often say nothing but “sea hitler” dozens of times, and then when he would finally respond then the conversation (or whatever it may be called) would begin in earnest. I think there was some exchange of art or general declarations of affection, the exact details are lost on me. The overall point here is that Pep managed to sew an incredible amount of discomfort into their interactions with Shitler, and even with other mods like Anervaria.
Pep was finally banned from the server a few weeks ago, I believe due to inciting raids. They had developed a small cult of personality in altgen, but thankfully this action did not prove to be too controversial. After they were banned, they began messaging other members of the mod team, once even myself; we advised everyone to avoid responding at all costs, a move which seemed to work. I have not since been contacted by them, and aside from Anervaria and Sea Hitler I think Pep has left us alone.
The larger idea here is that Pep is only one such instance of people seeking out Sea Hitler. The frequency with which this happens is truly bewildering—I earnestly wish I knew why it happens so often (I surmise it has something to do with the character that Sea Hitler utilizes in his profile, but that's not strictly important). The latest version of this is through a user that has proven difficult for us for some time, a fellow named Maxmikester.
Maxmikester has been around for a long time in the HSD, and is a particular nuisance for Tensei as they hang out in art-music frequently. They habitually request that people draw them with another character from Homestuck, an act that has drawn some attention from us in the past. With most people we would dismiss this, as it's honestly not that strange. However, the earnestness of these requests has proven unsettling; whereas we would typically chalk up this behavior to some obscure irony, it seems as if Max is being completely sincere about their desire to be portrayed alongside the character. To put it mildly, their affection for this character is strikingly deep and genuine. I've heard stranger things and am not terribly fazed by this personally, but others can find it off-putting or even disturbing.
All of this is to say that Max is only the latest person I'm aware of to engage in this song and dance of private messages with Sea Hitler. We've suggested that he turn these people down, but he cites the fact that he “doesn't want to be rude”. It speaks well to his character, but there will be no end to suitors like this if he does not learn to firmly (and tactfully) deny them.
Part of Max's involvement in art-music was a subset of a larger collection of behavior that had to be handled a few months ago. The graphical nature of Homestuck is such that it is extremely easy to make a template or take existing art from the comic and edit it to suit the artists' whims and design. Unfortunately, this leads to an unwieldy amount of frankly shitty contributions to the channel. These so called sprite-edits were eventually unallowed from the channel because it clogged the place up and made it harder for people to discuss other forms of art. It was mandated that sprite-edits belong in altgen, a declaration that thoroughly pissed off a variety of users. The backlash, while short-lived, was actually pretty fierce. Tensei had his hands full with trying to keep the channel from rioting under the new rule, but things have since then calmed down and people accept the rule (albeit with some grumbling on occasion). There is still protests against their relegation to altgen, but we're not sure where else they can go that would be appropriate. Maybe something to be revisited in the future.
On occasion, people will try to exploit the sprite edits for their own gain. Just today this happened, where someone—no doubt working from a template—crafted sprite edits for Maxmikester based on the Hiveswap character design. They then posted an “example set” of edits and listed prices for making them for people! Not only was it being advertised in art-music, which is actually bannable, but the price this person was asking for the quality of work was insanely exorbitant. We had a good laugh about it in modchat after Tensei posted screenshots—it was almost offensive on principle alone. I think that, for this person, it may have actually just been a simple misunderstanding, as when they were confronted they acquiesced and went elsewhere immediately. I wonder about people like that, but at least it's a smooth process when they bother to listen.
Less HSD-centric but still notable, it seems as if Discord had a severe array of server outtages earlier today. I received DMs from no less than 6 people total asking me if the server had been deleted suddenly because they could not see it. If it's as I suspect and the outtages were due to the load on the system caused by the number of people, then I have to worry. Discord has already progressed heavily into monetizing themselves in order to adequately pay for server costs, actions which have earned them condemnations from some. Many feel as if the extra features you can pay for are unfair and shouldn't exist, but I personally don't see the issue—Discord must pay for its servers somehow, and if you enjoy the service and use it enough it makes intuitive sense to me that you would financially support them (especially considering all of the little benefits you get from doing so). Indeed I would prefer that most people do this, because if they cannot afford hosting for their servers then we could start running into a variety of problems—I'm no expert in this area but the ramifications could be disastrous for us. That's a topic for when it becomes an actual problem though.
Aside from all this, there's a curious effect that I've repeatedly noticed or played victim to myself, which is that time seems to flow differently here. Things that happen in real life pass with regularity and an easily trackable flow, but on the HSD things that happened only a few days or a week ago feel like they occurred in some other year. Events that happened months ago feel like they occurred in an entirely different lifetime; it's quite unnerving to be speaking about something in the distant past-tense, on a scale of months, to be reminded that it happened four days ago. I guess that's also a motivating factor for myself in writing this journal; it makes it much easier to recall events with certainty when I need to. I don't enjoy forgetting the facts and details associated with any of these events, and having a definite record on hand alleviates that problem substantially.
The sensation of time slipping away from us is not entirely unpleasant to me though—it gives this place an air of relaxation and comfort, where I can feel loose and distant from things that make the days drag on. There's a significant degree of satisfaction for me in coming onto the HSD every day and talking with people, where even the negative experiences are arguably enjoyable in their own perverse way. As time goes by the collective experience leaves this indelible effect on me; every day I feel like the impressions I get of this place and its people are cemented further into my mind, and I'm comforted in the fact that I may never forget what I have experienced here, be it good or bad.
I wonder where I'll be in relation to this place in the future; a year, five years, ten years, and so on. Will we still be around? If so, what will the community be like? Will the same people use it? What will have happened to us all as life goes by? While I greatly fear its eventual loss, I am also eager to see what the future holds for us. I'm sure that many others are like myself, and have been left with these permanent etchings of a community that can never be forgotten. As time goes by, perhaps those of us who are dedicated to its perseverance will grow closer together, and we will never actually leave?
I'm sure I could be happy with that.
20th of September
Today hasn't been terribly eventful; we did reach 8,500 members as of 9:16 AM, which is astonishing. However, it's felt a bit slow around here lately. I attribute this to school starting back up for a lot of people around this time, and I'm sure other reasons exist as well. The slowness in the face of the increased membership is kind of worrying to me personally, but as far as I can tell it's just a natural dip in activity. I'm sure it'll become more active as people adapt to being in school again, a trend that would fit with previous communities I've witnessed or participated in.
Instead I'd like to append some statements to previous stories I've recounted, namely that of the Music Team AMA and the nature of hstanon's ban some time ago. Wheals helpfully provided me with information regarding both, and I'm always happy to more faithfully mark down this information.
I mentioned before that an AMA was formed with members of the Homestuck Music Team, which led to Tensei staying here. As it turns out, the order is a tad different: Tensei joined the HSD first in October last year, following the release of a Hiveswap trailer: “everyone freaked out when they saw it was him, which made a busy chat even busier”. He conducted his own informal AMA, and “then a few days later there was a more formal thing where a bunch of the music team people joined”. This then led to the chat going way too quickly for anyone to talk properly, and the subsequent departure of the Music Team from the HSD. According to Wheals, “he said he did it 'cause i like a bit of chaos'”, a fact that amuses me more than just a little.
As far as the incident with hstanon is concerned, it was a fair bit of a fiasco. Hstanon appeared to lose his mind somewhere in the beginning of January this year, to the point that his behavior was becoming a real problem. He made a bet with Tensei, saying that if the latter “called Makin a nigger”, then hstanon would give him $50. This proposition alone was enough to warrant a ban since the intended goal was to get Tensei in trouble for using the slur. Additionally, I was under the impression that hstanon ping spammed the moderators and called Makin the racial epithet repeatedly as well, but upon further review I actually can't find any instance of this on the HSD. In this case there are two possibilities: either this did actually happen and the messages were just deleted afterwards, or I imagined the entire scenario up, which is not inconceivable. Even disregarding this, hst's ban was long overdue anyway, and he was removed on about the 13th of January.
More concurrently, when I distributed the latest copy of the journal, Olki brought up a rather interesting point about the historicity of the server. I took Toast's word on what constitutes the Golden Age of this place for granted, since he's been around for a while. However, his assessment is not universally agreed upon; there are others who would extend the period of the Golden Age until the end of October, or move it entirely. It is generally agreed upon that this period lasted for about four months to half a year, beginning shortly after the server began. More interesting than the past even is the consideration of where we might be now; I've mentioned that server activity appears to be down, but we have way more members than ever before. Additionally, the channels that do experience activity, mostly mspa-lit, altgen, and possibly general and social, have been experiencing a sort of cultural Renaissance. Old members coming back, new members joining in spades, and new content is bringing us back to our roots as a community; with all of these factors in mind, it is has been generally agreed upon that we are perhaps entering a Silver Age. The glory is not as pronounced as it was before, but this is still a prosperous time for our community. I sincerely hope that the positive trends continue and that the community flourishes in the future.
Seeing as it's Wednesday, there was also another interview from WP set to come out, which it did; James Roach and Toby Fox did a joint interview about what they thought of the music they've made. It was actually quite humorous and enjoyable, but then only a few minutes after the interview went up, it was taken back down. The URL now leads to a blank page, and people are greatly confused as to why this has happened. Serendipitously, Toast had loaded the interview in the brief amount of time that it was up, so he had a copy of the text available. After making a textbin for it, he distributed links so people could read it anyway.
By all means, we could find nothing in the interview that would have necessitated the recall, at least according to our inexperienced eyes. There might have been some kind of comment they wished not to distribute or something along those lines, maybe even something of a legal nature, but the truth eludes us. I'm extremely curious as to why this occurred, although it could simply be a mistake. No way to tell unless an official statement is given on the matter in the near future.
Nothing more for today.
22nd of September
Discord updated and finally released channel categories, which allows us to organize the channels of a server so that it's more refined. In order to capitalize on this, Makin rejuvenated the survey channel and requested suggestions on how exactly to organize the server.
After some discussion, it was decided that there would be five public categories: one dedicated to announcement channels; one to general chats, including general itself, social, serious, altgen, and bot-spam radio; one to Homestuck related content, including homestuck, hiveswap, and hiveswap-spoilers; one to special interests, including gaming, art-music, tv-cartoon, anime, mspa-lit, and coding-tech; and one dedicated to the voice channels, which includes the actual text channel and then all of the voice channels. Not visible to the public are the mod related channels and then all of the archived channels.
All in all, the new organization is actually pretty aesthetically appealing. I recall that being able to organize the server channel list in this manner has been something Makin or the mod team in general has looked forward to for a while. In order to usher in this new era of organization, Makin also officially instated the #welcome channel, which has been localized in the same category as #news and #announcements. This is probably the closest to a #rules channel as we will ever get; any closer and I'll start to suspect that Makin has been compromised somehow.
The archive list has also had previously unseen channels to it, such as the #8000-party channel. Being previously unseen by moderators, it is a relief to know that we have access to it as well now. However, it begs the question of whether there are more hidden archived channels that only Makin can see. I either can't recall or have never known about these channels in the first place, so in all honesty there's not much point for me to dwell on the possibility.
At any rate, I hope that the current organization of the channels remains in place for some time, I find it quite appealing. Nothing more for today.
23rd of September
The slowness continues. Today in #mspa-lit we talked about a number of things, but the first of note for me personally was a conversation between myself, Tensei, and occasionally a few others, about RPGs.
Classically I'm not very well versed in pop culture, so sometimes I feel left out in these discussions. Usually I'll refrain from saying anything unless I have a specific thing I can actually add, in which this conversation I did. I made a comment detailing my very limited exposure to RPGs, and Tensei and Makin managed to pick up on the fact that I haven't actually played that many. Instead of making fun of me for this, like some of my previous communities would have, Tensei was pretty understanding of this and talked it out with me. When I pressed for more information, he was actually very helpful and provided answers that made the experience a rather positive one.
All of this is to say that I really appreciate Tensei's presence here. His status as a member of the Music Team for Homestuck, and the exact nature of his contributions to key elements of the story, elevate him above the rest of us in a way that is indisputable. Despite this, he associates more or less freely with people and to date I don't think I've ever seen him bring up the Music Team thing in any context, even jokingly. Additionally, whenever he contributes to a topic it's almost always well-founded or at least amusing. I guess I'm just consistently pleased with talking to him.
To top it off, he's a fairly enigmatic guy. He's not paranoid like Makin, but retains a degree of mystery surrounding his actual self. I think it's been established that you can figure out information about him easily if you bother to put any effort in, but he doesn't volunteer it either. I think it's a fair balance between people who wear their heart on their sleeves and ultra-secretive people like Makin.
Speaking of, what we strongly believe is a reference to Tensei was found in Hiveswap; there's a poster with contributing musicians to Homestuck, four in total, but one of them is ripped so that you can't see their face. The other details that are still visible are strikingly similar to the one picture we've seen of him floating around. If this is indeed a reference to Tensei, the exact reason he's been ripped out is not clear to us, although we're certain it wasn't meant as a snub. Just a neat detail for us.
Mspa-lit has a new name, a detail that I've failed to touch on for a number of days, or even weeks now. Its current iteration of read-x is “read-modern-cannibals”, Modern Cannibals being a rather interesting meta-fiction for the Homestuck fandom. Without going into too much detail, it seems to be an overt call back to the hey-day of the fandom; while it takes place in the time it was written, about 2015, the strength of the fandom as its portrayed in the story is reminiscent of 2011 or 2012 levels. I didn't personally enjoy the story that much; while it was written interestingly and is almost certainly an engaging read for anyone who can directly sympathize, I was either too late or simply didn't bother to engage with the fandom at the proper point for me to imbibe any of the feeling that this story is attempting to channel.
At any rate, Makin has stated that the channel will only be changed back to read-worm once everyone has read Modern Cannibals, a mandate that has led to plenty of grumbling from some of us. I would personally prefer a return to simple “mspa-lit”, but apparently that's not acceptable at this point. I wonder where the exact turning point was where it was established that that name would no longer be valid, but it hasn't been used in some time. The tradition now is to rename the channel in whatever work that Makin has decided to espouse most recently, with a return to read-worm when no work is currently being shilled.
Speaking of things being shilled, we were alerted to the presence of a game that came out just yesterday called Doki Doki Literature Club, which is a visual novel. I'm not really a fan of these types of games; they're overtly marketed towards the type of person that I don't like to imagine myself as being, and they usually end up being kind of trite or cliché anyway. After we were told about it, though, other users wouldn't stop remarking on it, citing some rather interesting developments. Because of the buzz it was generating I decided to pick it up myself and see what was going on.
This turned out to be a bad idea. Far from being cliché, the game was simply horrifying. I don't have any tolerance for horror genre material, so I quickly abandoned the game. I was curious about the story, though, I decided to look up some more information. This brought me to the world of 4chan, which at the risk of discussing for too long made me think about the HSD.
The 4chan communities I went to see more about this were /v/ and /vg/. I used to use 4chan more often but never found it that enticing, and quickly abandoned it in favor of other platforms. However, my encounter with it tonight was strange and vaguely illuminating. I didn't spend very much time sifting through the available threads on the topic, but there were some interesting things that were indicative of a very real and thriving subculture concerning the topic at hand. It's a level of dedication and specialization that reminds me distinctly of the HSD itself, with layers that are no doubt only obvious or even visible to people who actively engage in these discussions regularly. Despite being completely unfamiliar and concerning a topic that I'm not terribly fond of personally, it kind of reinvigorated my passion for this documentative effort. The sheer level of complexity and mystery associated with various internet subcultures is fascinating; I hope that this document will serve as an adequate preservation of the HSD's subculture in the future, should such a thing be necessary.
Nothing more for today.
24th of September
The conversation with $trider about instrumentation in the voicechannels took on new form today. Last time this was brought up, I mentioned that $trider was seeking a custom role that would allow him to DJ in the radio voice channel, which we were explicitly not going to do. However, it's not just him that's perpetrating this now; others have come forward expressing a desire to play instruments in voicechannel, which is not suitable for any of the discussion related channels we have. The only other available option is the radio channel, which no one is allowed to speak in by default.
In order to build on this in a more constructive fashion I suggested an alternative, where a new and privileged voicechannel is created for people specifically to put on their “concerts”; it would be reserved in such a way that only users with good behavior and a clear talent or willingness to perform for others would be allowed to voice themselves.
We have all manner of people who wish to do things like this; Squarewave has played the piano on occasion and numerous others do so; $trider of course with his DJing; Rune has infrequently provided an ocarina concert for people to listen to them play. The precedent for such a channel is very clearly present, it's just not been capitalized on. With $trider's recent discussion about being allowed to DJ, we hastily implemented a rule that blanket banned all instrumentation in the channels, but it doesn't feel like a good end point. I don't personally see the harm in making a new channel, but it's not my place to do so; I've presented the idea in mod chat, and we'll have to see what Makin says about it.
Another idea being brought forth concerning the voicechannels is that we need a new pseudo-mod to watch over them specifically. Anervaria has been doing this almost completely by herself for ages, and when the channels get full it is no doubt an extremely agonizing task to deal with. She has apparently already spoken to TS, who has proven themselves a reliable and responsible person for the task. I talked with Aner about it for a little and we brought up the possibility in mod chat, to which Makin has agreed as long as TS “doesn't belong to any splinter servers”, which is a reasonable expectation. Going to confront TS about this the next time I get a chance and ask how they feel about becoming a member of the team.
As far as pseudo-status is concerned, WoC expressed some frustration to me today about his position on the HSD. He has total and complete dominion over #gaming but is explicitly not allowed to moderate anywhere else. This is all well and good, but part of his attempt to “make gaming great again” is to advertise it in other channels, like #general. When this happens, occasionally he notices someone acting out of line and impulsively goes to mete out punishment, but then remembers that it's outside of his jurisdiction. This frustrates him, and he has described it as “having a bucket of water and watching a fire you're not allowed to put out”. While Makin was fairly clear about WoC's position on the HSD from here on out, part of me has to wonder if the decision truly is final. As I said to WoC, Makin's tendency towards being capricious works in both directions, so there's no telling what the future may hold. I obviously wouldn't or couldn't say that WoC will definitely be allowed back onto the team in full, but the possibility exists in my mind if nothing else.
Finally, I've been considering my treatment in describing the HSD and related places' cultures. I'm not sure if I'm doing fair justice in my portrayal of these matters, and am actively seeking ways to improve how I do so. One thing in particular that I've personally noticed is that I have not gone into as great of detail as I would have liked on some occasions. I feel as if this is at least partially due to my now releasing the material of this journal on a regular basis, which prompts me to censor myself in various ways. I do this to avoid causing problems in whatever fashion they may arise, but it also compromises the integrity of what I'm writing, and especially the accuracy. If possible, I think I will try to return to that original ideal of faithful and complete representation here. I don't want to skip out on any details simply because they seem unsavory; there are limits, especially those dictated by privacy, but otherwise what would the point be if I decided to omit details for convenience?
I'll reflect more on this later. No more for today.
25th of September
Today was quite eventful. First and foremost is one of the most miraculous things I've witnessed on here since joining, a rather lengthy ordeal that started completely by accident when we were talking about the MSPaint Fan Adventures, or MSPFA.
MSPFA is a repository for stories and fan fiction about Homestuck or other Hussie stories. The term was actually coined during Hussie's previous tale, Problem Sleuth; the history behind the forums of the website is actually its own complete story, which I will cover another time. MSPFA is another important website, short for MS Paint Fan Adventures, and eventually became a centralized location for people to post their fan stories, a topic I will cover more in depth eventually as well. More to the point, MSPFA went through a massive overhaul lately, thanks to the efforts of a user named Miroware, and sometime in the last few months attained its current form. Of more immediate importance is that the owners of the website accept donations in order to keep it running; to this end they a website called Patreon, which allows users to pledge a certain amount to donate each month; this website is popular with artists or content developers who rely on direct support from their consumers to make a living, because it makes it easy to promise certain content to people who pledge so much money to you in the form of reward tiers and the like.
To bring this back to the current day, all of this is relevant because MSPFA's usage of Patreon was brought up in casual discussion, and suddenly Makin was struck with an idea to end all ideas. With a characteristic “OH SHIT”, he rushed off and created a Patreon for the HSD itself. As the reality of this idea set in, the implications became all too clear to me and others watching at the time. There are an insane amount of things that the HSD has or does that would be applicable to a reward tier system of some kind. The most understandable and accessible one is simply custom roles, which were actually done previously; for $1, you gain access to the lowest tier: a custom color role and access to an exclusive channel for donors only. The reward tiers only increase in nonsensicality: for $5 a month you get to officially shill your work once a day; for $8 Makin will personally review your work or projects that you send to him and offer criticism or praise as he deems fit; for $10 you can rename the server or change its icon for a day; for $30 you get your own personal channel that you moderate and can make about whatever you want; my personal favorite, the “Holy Shit” tier, is a one time deal where if you pay $1,000 you become a full mod of the entire server with an added benefit of, I quote, “You can delete altgen if you want.”
The idea is that the money would go towards purchasing adspace for the server, which would attract more people to us and thus increase the chances of people donating, which would lead to a self sustaining cycle. There are various backer goals, such as reaching $100 or $250 per month, each with their own motivational items. At $250 per month, we would be able to have ads up on MSPA 24/7. At $500, Makin claims he would look into making merchandise for the server, a possibility that actually excites me greatly. There are additional goals that only increase in wacky zany potential, which I will explain in more detail if they become relevant. Suffice to say that the entire notion is hilarity personified.
This idea has of course been insanely controversial, and therefore fun. I have personally gotten more entertainment out of the proceedings from today than I thought humanly possible; people alternatively think this is the best idea ever and that it is the worst idea ever. Makin has been called a sellout by none too few people for this move, the ethics and even legality of it has been called into question; for myself and others, it has only been a fun development so far. I shamelessly signed up to donate one dollar a month for sweet access to that custom color role (I appreciate my old one, but it's not quite the flavor I want). Medixum already coughed up $30 for his own custom channel, which he has christened #iceland and has essentially become a second #altgen. A second backer also signed up for the $30 reward tier, but Makin went to bed before being able to create their channel.
It sounds rather mundane when written here, but the flurry of these activities is not to be understated; it has been a complete romp of a time since Makin put up the Patreon. Others are not so pleased with it, such as Ifnar: “I mean, I'm not worried you desperately need money and if you convince some weirdos to give you money for virtual baubles that's morally grey at worst. I just think it's tacky and unnecessary.” and S, who has condemned the idea in its entirety. There was even talk that this violated Discord ToS, but Patreon already has ties with Discord, so we're not sure what the ramifications of this are yet. By all indications I think it should be fine, but we'll see what the future holds.
As it stands near midnight here, the Patreon is sitting at 9 backers with a total of $71 per month. It's a far cry from the top goal of $5,000, but the fact that it's even made it this far is enough to fill me with mirth; for some reason I can't help but laugh at these proceedings, they're utterly bizarre to me and I hope that they can be played out to their fullest extent. A lot of speculation has gone on about what would happen if the $1,000 tier is satisfied. Aside from “delete altgen probably”, we're not totally sure. To be honest, the idea of anyone actually coughing up the money for that kind of privilege is just unfathomable to me; I can think of literally no one on the server who would bother to do that, or would even be able to. The possibility looms ever present though, which is the important part in my mind.
Aside from all of this incredible nonsense, there were some imminently less pleasant things to deal with. Before I go into all of that, I wanted to follow up on TS's status here as a pseudo. It was discussed at length in #illuminati-not-hangout, where Makin agreed to take on TS as a pseudo-mod provided she was not part of any splinter servers. After relaying this information, TS did specify she was part of some smaller splinter servers unworthy of note, HVSD (a place that other people on the team also visit so it's not a big deal), and then unfortunately Sylandrophol’s splinter server. This last one stuck in Makin's craw and influenced him to say no to her appointment as a new pseudo.
The rest of us vouched for her trustworthiness, although it didn't change his mind; we did manage to reach a decent compromise, wherein TS is now expected to be a janitor for both altgen and voicechat, and if in the future a new pseudo becomes clearly necessary they will probably be promoted. It's a less than elegant solution and I feel as if it's heavily one sided, but I've seen Makin react in worse ways to developments like this. At least this way TS gets a custom color for their trouble.
Along with Sylandrophol, Elvish is also a member of the server, and for reasons that are still murky at best to me they began to conceive of ways to revoke the HSD's partnership with Discord. I mentioned some time ago that Elvish briefly ventured onto the HSD to tell us to stop “sending death threats”, an accusation that was incredibly confusing for almost everyone present at the time. We weren't, to our collective knowledge, responsible for these threats to her, and we still maintain that now. It seems as if the threats have continued since that fateful evening, and now Elvish has decided to contact Discord devs in an attempt to have us ousted.
This sequence of events is confusing to me at best, although the implications of it are certainly vexatious. Elvish claims to have evidence of these threats coming from us or from people on our server, but has failed to procure any of this evidence for us to see at any given time; furthermore it would seem as if most of these threats come in the form of anonymous Tumblr asks, which by nature precludes any chance that she could identify one of us as sending them. The overall point here is that Elvish has literally no case against us, but still wishes to try and frame us for it anyway. The audacity of this move strikes me in a big way; it would be insulting if it wasn't so hare-brained. Over this, TS expressed regret associating with these people and wanting to be their friend: “they just obsess over all the ways they've been wronged it seems”. I don't personally know what to make of it, as I was never intimately involved with anything that Sylandrophol or Elvish had to do with. However, the dubious nature of these claims has put a sour taste in my mouth. I wonder what exactly drives these people to feel the way they do, but I hope they're able to find peace before they end up doing anything egregiously stupid.
Also on the splinter server menu for today, there was a run in with Talons. We've been long overdue for one—it's been several months since the last overt situation involving him. Unfortunately, this occasion was far more insidious than his normal antics, as it involved an alt that he successfully passed off as a new person for months. This gave him ample opportunity to get closer to people with a new persona, and now there is at least one person who has been specifically affected by the events.
I was first alerted to this in the morning, where Olki helpfully asked me for advice about what to do. There was no clear indication that it was a Talons alt at this point in time, only that this person had outed themselves as an alt. While grounds for a ban right away, I didn't press too hard for more details about who this person might be. The possibility that it was a Talons alt was in the back of my mind the entire time, but they had managed to lodge themselves into a few communities and some had grown fond of them. I let Olki look into the situation more, and then after being provided some screenshots of messages they've sent, it was almost disturbingly evident that it was Talons' handiwork. To make matters worse they had used this alt profile to get very close to Twonks, which Olki and I agreed would lead to an incredible amount of discomfort for her.
Unfortunately, at some point the other shoe dropped and their identity was outed to people in general. Bans occurred swiftly thereafter in all places we could find the alt account; while this happened I was personally messaged by Talons begging not to be banned, with some rather disturbing and in depth reasoning as to why. By the time I was able to respond all of these messages had been deleted, but the thing that stuck out in my mind was that he had claimed to turn a new leaf and was actively seeking to improve himself. This is a classic Talons strategy that he employs in every single instance where this has occurred; it is almost certainly not true, but manages to draw people in if they do not have previous experience with him. Perhaps more depressingly, even if were true that he has changed, we cannot reasonably trust him. The damage he has visited upon people is too great for us to ever let him back, and I detailed this to him explicitly before I permanently dismissed him:
talons, i implore you to stop doing this
stop coming back
we will not let you back
go find something else to do with your life
if you have changed, then that's wonderful
but we cannot trust you ever again
you have done too much damage
I sincerely hope that you have changed
but if you truly have, then you must go somewhere else and start anew
there is nothing left for you here
do not come back
These situations always leave me in a foul mood; there's not much else that feels quite as dark. I don't know what compels people like Talons to act the way that they do, but they need help and we cannot reasonably provide it. I hope that he listens to what I've said, but the cynic in me says that he will be back before long. Knowing him, I'm sure he's already transitioned directly into another alt account and is lurking in the HSD as I write this. I wonder if this situation can ever be rectified.
In a similar vein, the problems associated with Pep reached a head today. In the mod chat, Sea Hitler and Anervaria were detailing their various dealings with her, and then during the Patreon discussions $trider lobbied once more for her to be unbanned. For reference's sake, she was banned for threatening to raid another server; $trider said that the server was purportedly for alt-right politics, and implied that us banning a user planning to raid that place was tantamount to supporting neo-nazis. I'm not sensationalizing this, it's almost exactly what he described (in a comment that he since deleted): “its lowkey supporting the neo nazis imo”. This incensed me greatly; such accusations have been levied against us before and they always succeed in irritating me through their sheer awfulness.
These two occurrences in tandem convinced me that the situation with Pep needed to be handled more tightly than it has been thus far. I talked with Anervaria and Sea Hitler to ascertain what it is exactly that Pep is doing to irritate them, and it mostly consists of her messaging them on a regular basis for inane or otherwise disturbing purposes. When I asked why they simply haven't blocked her, they both said they had; Pep just has other people relay the messages for her at that point.
This sort of behavior suggests darker leanings than I really feel like bothering with, perhaps bordering on the obsessive even. In order to address it I decided to Za Warudo altgen and speak with them directly; after an initial warning I froze the place, described to them what was going on, and why it must stop; this talk seemed to go well, with no one outwardly complaining at the time, but it didn't take long for word to reach us of people relaying the information directly to Pep herself.
She has managed to gather a rather significant cult of personality around herself—I don't know how many people it is but it's enough that it's a significant buffer between herself and the rest of the community. I don't know exactly why but they have practically pledged themselves to her at this point, and needless to say their obsequiousness towards her is off-putting and ultimately harmful. When this information reached them, some of the screenshots we received showed this almost tribal reaction; threatened to report me for making “false accusations” against Pep, insulted me for it even. I have to admit a morbid curiosity as to why people like this allow themselves to reach this point, where they must resort to extreme measures to protect their sense of mutual identity.
At any rate, I hope that the speech I made earlier will cut down on the rate of related incidents; I've made it clear that we will ban people who act as her courier since it can be interpreted as a form of ban evasion, which should be enough to keep most people from doing it right off the bat. Additionally, this gives us room to say we provided fair warning and actually ban anyone caught doing this. It is my firm hope that within a couple of weeks, Anervaria and Sea Hitler will no longer be harassed in this way.
Nothing more for today.
26th of September
Today was exhausting. The Patreon has garnered even more people than before, and as of this writing sits at 19 patrons donating a collective of $151. There are more user-created channels including the aforementioned #iceland, a new channel dedicated to original characters called #steel-donut-run (commissioned by LinkedGirafarig), and either one or two that haven't been created yet because Makin went to bed before people asked for them.
I continue to find this situation hilarious. I recognize that the more money garnered through this process the more prone to abuse it potentially is, but I also feel as if there is a definite ceiling we will hit or have already hit in regards to donation amounts; there is almost no chance in my mind that we will approach Makin's second community goal of $250 per month, at which point he has suggested we will be able to keep daily ads up on MSPA 24/7. I just don't think the community support is there; the fact that we made it to $50 was incredible to me, let alone three times that. Of course, this does carry the weight of the fact that I've been wrong about this a couple of times already. Who knows how far we'll be able to go with this?
On the other hand, the farther this goes the more controversial it seems. It's either evident to people that this is more of a lighthearted joke than anything, or it's not evident at all. With people for whom the latter is true, there is a significant degree of tension because of concerns that Makin will misappropriate the funds or commit to otherwise unethical behavior. There are some well founded arguments in this vein, such as: “how do we know that the money will all be dedicated to community relevant/supportive tasks?” “how do we know that running ads on MSPA will actually benefit this community in any way, instead of just feeding into Makin's numbers game frenzy?”3 and so on.
Myself, Toast and Ngame were fielding these questions for over an hour and a half earlier, and at the end of it I think very little progress was made to assuage people's doubts about this. If anything, my own doubts were deepened, even if only by a little bit. I still think that the overall reach of this Patreon business is as a joke, and that it can't be considered anything but a joke until we reach a more significant amount of money. However, there are some legitimate ethical concerns regarding the use of the money; Toast brought this up in the modchat and effectively voiced the concerns of almost all of us in this matter: how do we keep the gathering and allocation of funds above-table and accountable as much as possible?”
We presented some ideas that would be helpful, but at the end of the day the only person with any direct control over the Patreon and all funds that go through it is Makin himself. For people who are mistrustful of him, such as Putnam, this arrangement is suspect at best. MrCheeze in particular was livid about this situation and has been since the start.
I say they were livid about it because tension with them reached a head where I felt it was necessary to intervene. At the start they were simply stating things that we disagreed on; other people were parroting this information and it was hardly a problem. However, even after the discussion shifted, MrCheeze kept repeating their points and became only more unruly as time went by. While I recognize that there are some inherent concerns about this situation, repeating things ad nauseum will earn you no favors. In addition to this, they started resorting to insults; finally I decided to mspa-ban them (an admittedly hasty move), at which MrCheeze immediately left the server again.
This is an extremely disappointing turn of events, but it was not unexpected; before this MrCheeze had even removed themselves as a moderator of the subreddit over the Patreon; I feel as if the depths of their personal distaste for Makin has led to them being unable to accept anything Makin does as anything but bad. I don't wish to completely invalidate their criticisms over this, and naturally Makin has done things that warrant such criticism, but this is not necessarily one of those times. The bias is astounding, and I can't say that I'm fond of the idea of having MrCheeze around if they allow themselves to get so worked up like this. I even asked them explicitly (and as tactfully as I could given the circumstances) why they’re still here, as it seems as if they genuinely dislike almost everything that occurs on the HSD or the subreddit, a question which I think not even they can answer at this point.
Many others criticized these developments, including cait, trip, Mines, wheals a little bit, putnam, and assorted others. I have to admit that I became exhausted trying to defend actions that weren't even my own; I had to withdraw after some time, as I reasoned that Makin can fight his own battles in this way. I don't want this Patreon to be shot down before it has a chance to become something great (and potentially terrible), but it's already causing such a dispute that I fear for the effects it may have on us culturally if allowed to become much more significant than it already is.
The level of discourse we've been going through has been unseen since when sprite edits were banned in art-music. I guess for historicity's sake it's important to point out that rule is still in effect now, so it's difficult to say that these protestations will have any significant effect on the Patreon's existence. Whatever may happen, I only hope that it will not cause too much disharmony or even create rifts among us. As entertaining as the Patreon itself may be, it's not worth it if the net result is destruction of culture here.
Speaking of culture, I'm looking deeper into the matters of the MSPA forums and MSPFA. I thought it would be a relatively straightforward effort to go and find more information about these places, but they're either so old or so esoteric in nature that not many people know about them. Thankfully, serendipity appeared in the form of a user named 3tych, who used to go by “memento vivere” on the MSPA forums and was a moderator there. There are some events that occurred there that were before their time, but they and wheals have very helpfully pointed me in the directions of other sub communities that popped up; once I have a more complete picture of these places and their histories I will be writing about it in full here4.
Nothing more for today.
27th of September
I’m actually writing from the next day, but the 27th was an immensely disappointing experience in almost every conceivable fashion. It started off relatively tame, but then swiftly became more distressing as time went by. I have taken a larger amount of time than usual to assess the situation and determine what must be said.
I’m not exactly why I was put into the position, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to assuage the doubts of people opposed to the Patreon, namely MrCheeze and another user named Duke of Hazard. These concerns are related explicitly to Makin’s organization and handling of the Patreon. Criticism is aimed not just at the Patreon’s existence itself, but the fact that Makin has constructed it in such a way that it “promotes his image”. For people who dislike him this is unacceptable, and it has led to a significant degree of backlash from them. The overall number of people who explicitly dislike this development isn’t even that high, but the fact that it was organized by Makin and serves to aggrandize him has drawn out fierce opposition from these people. To them, the Patreon’s very existence is an aberration and threatens the integrity of the server.
Talking with them has been an exhausting experience. I have stated numerous times now that I’m not the one in charge of the Patreon, but they continued to argue with me about it for what seemed like hours. I was actually thoroughly upset by the time I cut off the conversation; this event has generated so much discourse that it’s swiftly turning it into one of the very few things I genuinely regret involving myself in since joining this server.
It’s a particularly frustrating problem because some of the complaints that are being levied against the project actually carry some validity, as near as I can tell. Letting my preference get in the way of objective analysis and appraisal goes against what I stand for in these situations; if there is a problem then it must be identified and handled appropriately, regardless of my own feelings on the matter. I find the Patreon to be harmless and even fun, but is it actually prone to abuse? Is there a serious ethical quandary in the making here?
Disregarding the Patreon itself, things came to a head after Makin came back online at some point in the morning. MrCheeze and Duke are the main vocal opponents to the Patreon, and I had thoroughly tired myself out debating with them the various factors involved (particularly aggravating since they wouldn’t actually listen to anything I said about the topic). Eventually I resolved to stop talking to them at all, and with no fuel for a few hours the situation calmed down substantially. As soon as Makin came back though, all hell broke loose.
Duke in particular kept up this infuriating string of questions that were barely coherent, let alone logically sound. Even worse was that the nature of these questions was incredibly hostile, or at least demanding. It was admittedly cathartic to watch the aim of these questions shift to someone other than myself; Makin seemed admirably unflustered dealing with it, and for a time I thought the resolution to this scenario might be an acceptable one. However, just when it seemed things were settling down for good, those hopes were dashed violently: Duke made an errant comment about Makin “bending over backwards”, which is a clear phrase in English that refers to “expending an extreme amount of effort.” However, the language barrier interfered and Makin focused on the section of the phrase “bend over”, which is a shorthand rape joke.
Tensions escalated rapidly from here. After mistakenly admonishing Duke for making a rape joke, Duke claimed that they were in fact a rape victim and that the accusation was extremely insulting. After some time spent discussing the nature of the phrase “bend over backwards,” Makin, to his credit, did apologize for this mistake; normally this would have been the end of the conversation, and yet it only seemed to accelerate into further madness. Duke and others, such as Putnam, were demanding clarifications from Makin that at this point I struggle to remember. The requests they were making, far from being unreasonable or confusing, were actually quite simple in nature and fair to ask about. Instead of answering any of these requests, however, Makin skirted the issue repeatedly; this led to the nature of the conversation becoming much more frenetic and crazed than it should ever have gotten.
The crux of the matter last night was that the situation could have been handled swiftly and without issue, or without nearly as much issue as we suffered through. Instead, for whatever reason he may have done it, Makin decided that the preferred course of action was to dismiss these questions outright, or if he recognized them he did so in such a way that made it clear he was not treating the issue seriously whatsoever! In doing so he stirred the anger of the people involved, and eventually it culminated into some sort of surreal nightmare scenario.
After the initial apology, Makin engaged in this obtuse verbal dance with Duke, to all appearances egging them on. Confusion steadily increased to the point of a fever pitch; the conversation was moving so quickly and had reached a point of such intense rage on the part of Duke that it felt bizarre to watch in real time. Part of the reason I’m writing this a day late is because I felt the need to review the events and get a clearer idea of what happened. Even after doing so I still don’t feel completely certain in my assessment of the situation; Tori, Toast and many others have explicitly agreed with me that the progression of the conversation was too absurd to follow properly.
Again, the overall point of this is that a situation that could and should have taken mere seconds to resolve ended up being protracted over the course of half an hour, and only increased in intensity as time went by. After reflecting on it for a while and asking who should be blamed for it I’ve personally come to the conclusion that both Makin and Duke are responsible for the escalation in their own ways, but the situation in its entirety is an illustration of behavior from Makin that a lot of people find incredibly distasteful.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the event and talking about it with others, and as with similar occurrences in the past, a number of people (who shall remain unnamed) harbor real concerns about Makin’s behavior. The way he went about it suggests a very real problem, one that is disturbing in its implications for people: there is doubt that he is able to respect others if he does not immediately sympathize with them, and some few have gone so far as to call it “sociopathic”. I won’t pretend to know exactly how to describe it, but whatever others may think I was and still am concerned about the incident that took place last night, and especially what it says about Makin’s attitude toward dealing with others.
The first entry I created in this journal described an incident at length where Makin recognized his behavior was causing problems, and he made the unprecedented move of reaching out to us for help. At the time I thought this was an incredible improvement from before, when it seemed he would engage in whatever he cared to with reckless abandon. However, now that sufficient time has passed, it is dismaying to remember other key factors involved with that event. Notably, there were many criticisms and much advice given to Makin from us, but almost all of it was completely dismissed. He would generate some abstract reasoning involving rationalism for his behavior or even completely ignore it. In the interest of fairness, I recognize that it’s valid to dismiss criticism if its basis is inappropriate or misguided, but I am also reasonably certain that the advice we offered and still do offer on occasion is well founded.
The exact reasons he does this elude me completely, and sometimes it is incredibly frustrating to try and comprehend why Makin behaves the way he does. Most of the time it is not such a problem, but in the case of last night, it turns what could be a relatively simple issue into a fiasco of terrible and unneeded proportions! It’s not even to suggest that the long lasting effects of this will be so single-handedly horrible that we are unable to recover, but the events themselves are exhausting for most of us and use up an enormous amount of his already thinly-spread social capital.
Every time something like the Patreon discourse occurs, I fear that it pushes people further away. There are already those who have sworn this server off due to Makin’s behavior; while there are certainly some who leave for strange and unnecessary reasons, I fear for when more reasonable people will feel compelled to leave as well. Putnam, who I consider one of the more well-intentioned and ethically-inclined people here, has already left the server multiple times; he explicitly says each time that the reason he does so is to protest against the kind of behavior I have described in this entry. Of course he rejoins afterwards, which I fear Makin then takes as free-license to continue acting the way he has been. In this way, I worry that he has begun to think he is untouchable. What will happen when such departures become permanent, or when entire schisms begin to occur? Instead of just Putnam, what if people who have never felt the need to do this before suddenly join him? I dread the day that people like Tipsy or Cait feel compelled to leave, because it will be a clear sign that our community has been destroyed.
Just thinking about it is honestly depressing. The situation last night felt like an aberration to witness in real time: Duke expressing actual, explicit discomfort and Makin (while initially apologetic) refusing to back down and keep the conversation from escalating further. I have no idea what could possess him to believe doing such a thing is fine, and yet here we are.
In an attempt to clear my mind I went and talked to Phantos about this for a while. Phantos is a rarity of the HSD. Probably the oldest active member, he is one of the more celebrated people for his unwavering kindness and support of others. I'm personally grateful to him; on two separate occasions, phantos gave me gift cards to Domino's pizza, which actually kept me from going hungry. He has done all manner of things like this for various people, commissioning people for art when he knows they need the money or even just because he wants to see what they can do. His incredible capacity for being nice to others has not gone unnoticed, and he has been branded as the sweetheart of the server by many people.
Phantos’ being who he is, his insight on the matter was honestly very helpful to me. Based on his age and general demeanor I figured he would have valuable input, which he gave me license to write down here:
I'm generally tolerant of Makin because the alternative is pretty pointless, as his behavior is entirely up to him. BUT I'm starting to believe that Makin cares so much about being correct, or being seen as correct, he can't just look at a conversation and go, "Oh holy shit I am under my head here, time to give a half hearted sorry and bail." But he doesn't usually bail, and he even rarely less attempts an apology. Time and time again he could have just feigned some revelation about the topic and gone, "You're right, I'm wrong, ttyl." because that's what I figure any person would do after digging themselves into a hole. Whether or not you believe Makin was right or wrong didn't even matter at the time because he was just blatantly being silly, irreverant and/or cruel depending on who you ask. But it's so, so, so easy to just shut up and say sorry and not mean it, but he doesn't do that. So I figure he is either obsessed with his image in that regard or there's some other outlandish-er reason like the guy just wants people to have a "full" conversation even if it means he runs himself into the ground hosting one.
At this point I am not even talking about that single incident, which is really just one example of Makin being pretty much totes wrong but hey what can you do...
I do believe I excuse him as part of that cult of makin concept, but tending on the side of for fun. It's not always the most helpful response or stance of me to take.
There are just some times when it's so bewildering how much people are willing to forgive because they either really like makin, the community, or both… At several points people just ask makin for basic concessions like, "admit this was a typo" (putnam) or "answer this basic yes or no question about your comment"(duke) and makin just sort of dances around those.”
Conversations like these make me glad that I consult others, because it provides new angles for explaining Makin’s behavior that I would never have considered. “Hosting” a conversation to the point that it may be run into the ground and damage his reputation is indeed something I could see Makin doing, as he has expressed his desire to foster communication people before. If such is the case, then how are we to reconcile this with the fact that the methods he employs are distressing and unpalatable to people? Is it possible for him to do this in any other way, or is he compelled to do these things because he thinks they are the most efficient path to his desired outcome? Is the server able to survive such tendencies in the long run or will they eventually lead to some sort of rift? I don’t think any of these questions are immediately answerable; we will have to wait and see if such things come to pass.
As it is I decided to call it a night once the argument had concluded, and here I am the next day. From my current perspective I really don’t want these sorts of issues to crop up again, because they feel largely unnecessary and are not actually fun to deal with at all for the vast majority of people involved. Most things on this server, even if negative in their own way, are typically still enjoyable in retrospect, or at least things that I don’t mind remembering and discussing. As I said earlier, this occasion is one of the very few I’ve ever been in that has made me feel a distinct sense of regret for being in the position I am.
While I am glad that the effects are relatively minimal at this time, I don’t know if the community could handle many more of these problems. I’ve spent a lot of my time trying to talk with people and assuage their doubts concerning Makin as a leader, but then he goes and fosters situations like this; it is insanely harmful to the image of this place as a whole, and especially to his image specifically.
I wish I could illustrate the danger and destructive potential that these acts possess, but sometimes I doubt that he will ever be willing to listen—not just to hear, but to actually listen to what we are telling him. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if it even matters to him; with as little as I know about the true nature of his intentions and desires, I simply cannot say if this is something he is willing to budge on, or if he’s only engaging in this sort of thing as some sort of joke. I would like to put my faith in him, but these situations only serve to make me wary.
I sincerely hope the server does not fall prey to such events as I have detailed here. As it is, I’ve harped on the topic for far too long. Nothing more for today.
28th of September - Explanation of MSPA Forums
Moving to more positive thoughts, I am delighted to report that my investigations into the past of places like MSPFA or the MSPA forums have been much more successful than I could have hoped for. I’ve been able to question not only 3tych, but a few others as well. I have assembled the raw, unedited information these people supplied me—about ten pages worth—in Appendix C under sections “MS Paint Adventure Forums” and “MS Paint Fan Adventures”, but I will also be writing about them here in a more streamlined fashion.
Chronologically the forums came before MSPFA, so I will write about them first. Historically the MSPA forums have changed around a lot, and their exact beginnings aren’t centric to Homestuck because it’s substantially older than that work actually is, or older than MSPA itself. The original instance of the forums were a personal venture between Hussie and friends before MSPA was even conceived. At this point, Hussie was drawing a collection of webcomics called “Team Special Olympics”, and he spoke regularly with his friends on the Penny Arcade forums, their cadre being referred to at this point as the “Gangbunch forums”. One of the people involved in the Gangbunch forums is a man named Michael Firman, who used to draw his own webcomics on a website called “Firman Productions”. The website is still around, but no updates to his comic have been posted since 2014. He has a Twitter profile where he posts art that is semi-active even in the modern day, so I decided to send him an email. There’s been no response yet, but if I get the opportunity then I will come back and fill this section in with more explicit details regarding the Team Special Olympics days, and how they served as a precursor to the forums.
After some investigation prompted by wheals, I found this description on tvtropes.org: “[MSPA] originated in 2006 as a series of games run on the Gangbunch forums, a small gathering of artists and miscellaneous people from the Penny Arcade forums which later became the current MSPA Forums, and were played by a group of Hussie's online friends; it graduated to its own site and effectively became a webcomic in 2007.” A member of the HSD, 1011686 (who inspired me to ask about these matters in detail) and wheals described a couple of transitions that unfortunately I do not have further knowledge about at this point in time. As quoted above on tvtropes.org, the forums themselves started off as the Gangbunch forums, which were simply a subset of the old Penny Arcade forums. Sometime after this, what I assume is a prototype of the forums’ final structure appeared through the link format phpBB3, which wheals describes thusly: “phpbb3 was the intermediate step when it was the mspa forums but not on mspaforums.com”. It’s hard to confirm the veracity of these claims, as no other information has been provided to me at this point.
The most familiar form of the forums has been a difficult topic to tackle. The very nature of the beast is that the closer you get to its point of origin, the less people were around or know about it. There is no one around, as far as I’m aware, who joined the MSPA forums near the beginning; this makes sense in light of the fact that MSPA itself used to be far more esoteric than it can be considered now. However, the history of the official MSPA forums can be deduced from a basic timeline of MSPA itself.
There are four stories currently up on MSPA, in chronological order: Jailbreak, Bard Quest, Problem Sleuth, and of course Homestuck. I cannot say with certainty when MSPA originally went up, but it had to have occurred at the latest when Jailbreak was started on June 3rd, 2007 (2007 also being the date specified in the tvtropes article). I speculate that the forums were around at this time as well; the reason I say this is because of the very nature in which Andrew Hussie wrote his stories, which utilized input from the readers to determine what the characters would do next (a technique that would be used in all of the other stories as well). To this end, there were dedicated threads on the forums where users would submit “commands” for the characters; usually the first or most entertaining of these suggestions was taken, and Hussie would incorporate it into the story. Jailbreak itself was explicitly an experiment dedicated to figuring out if that was a feasible method of writing stories—barring any other methods of obtaining commands from readers that I may be unaware of, this all suggests that the forums must have been around at least as long as Jailbreak.
Unfortunately, I did not encounter anyone who has been around that long. The earliest information I could glean was from a fellow named Schazer, who used to be a moderator on the forums starting in 2010 and frequented it for some time before then. The forums as they were before Problem Sleuth (3/10/08-4/9/09) are largely unknown at this point in time, but Schazer said “there were various waves of people signing up to the forum but most of them must've happened in like 2008 or so? I remember a link from vgcats was credited by a lot of people as the reason they ended up on the forums”. Subsequently, Homestuck started on 4/13/09: “I'm looking and quite a few people joined the forums april-june 2009, so right after the end of PS/start of homestuck. the forum adventures subforum (sometimes called the fan adventures subforum) must've really got going around that time.”
Some time after Homestuck started, Schazer and 3tych both describe a series of incidents on the part of forum administrators (who were largely Hussie’s personal friends) that led to increased upset:
the Forapocalypse was a big restructuring/reboot of the forums that I wasn't around for but which I think involved some degree of community activities for fun before it happened; the forum games/roleplay subforum(s?) got removed at one point which caused a whole bunch of controversy and upset among the users who valued them; and there also used to be an "Advice Column" subforum that was for serious topics and life advice and stuff, but that was eventually removed because it led to a lot of heavy/problematic/troubling/etc discussions that I guess the administration didn't feel like being responsible/liable for entertaining. (3tych)
… the upgrade happened and most people were unimpressed with how it looked and didn't like how all old links to forum threads broke and this, and that, and the other thing
and what happened was that the admins' attempts to talk directly with the forum adventures subforum kind of blew up in their faces, and I've got two reasons for this
firstly, the admins of the forum… were all Andrew's friends. They had been ok with being administrators while the community was primarily people they knew but all of a sudden their job shifted to managing this big community of Mostly Teens while they were adults, at the time, and I don't think any of htem really got sat down and asked if they were going to sign on to something like that. (Schazer)
As time went by it seems as if the increasing dissonance between administrators and the rest of the community was too much to handle, and eventually huge swaths of people decided to leave, often forming their own subcommunities. Schazer in particular is a prominent member of Eagle Time, its own forum that was created by his friend Pinary soon after relations with the MSPA forum administrators began to deteriorate:
Eagle Time was created primarily as a place for the Grand Battle community to be able to do their stuff without sharing a subforum with innumerable troll sgrub roleplays, and also somewhat as a safeguard for the "original stories" forum adventures community if we were no longer welcome on MSPAF at any point
right now it's kind of the unofficial hub for anyone who was associated with MSPAFA to reconnect with folks. We also host a bunch of forum adventures and like to shitpost. The Eagle Time discord channel is also a pretty central gathering point for the community so it's almost more like, the forum's there as a platform for projects which were first aired on the discord channel? (Schazer)
There are a plethora of other communities like Eagle Time that have sprung up, such as Hiddenlevel and Chocolatepi, which Schazer provided some brief details on and are included in the independent text document.
Eventually, the forums were hacked sometime in April 2016, after which they were shut down. Makin (after explicitly confirming that he was being serious and truthful on the matter) said: “allegedly hacked by syrians who proceeded to delete pages manually instead of putting up anything, and we got this info from an admin that was no longer into homestuck”. There have been a series of statements regarding their status, namely that it is under maintenance. If you visit the forums through MSPA itself, you are directed to a page that only says they are “temporarily offline for maintenance work.” Sometime after this there was a statement by a member of a subforum called “Omegaupdate”—set up by a forum mod shortly after they went down—known simply as “Phillip”, who said: “I've pinged WP a couple times since my internship ended, and each time the response is basically that they're not ready yet but will be soon. I'm almost certain it's only going to be a priority after Hiveswap part 1 launches. I'm not really affiliated with the company anymore, but I'll finish the job here once they're ready.”5
At any rate, the future of the forums is not clear. They may remain down forever, which would be an utter shame. However, the quote from Phillip and other factors involved indicate that, hopefully, the forums will return some day. At this point, I wonder if the fandom will be able to collect itself enough to make them worthwhile again. And even if that were to be the case, would it be a positive development? These subcommunities are dedicated in their own way, and are undoubtedly a significant portion of the rich tapestry of culture that constitutes our corner of the internet.
Before their untimely and perhaps temporary end, the forums were also host to a wide variety of activities that people enjoyed massively. Schazer describes a phenomenon that, slow at first, heralded a shift in the dynamics of the place: “I remember a bunch of non-admins (myself included) had fun leading up to this by roleplaying the rush of getting into ‘sessions’ as well”, sessions being another word for “fan adventures”. After a particular section of Homestuck came out introducing a whole swath of new characters, the comic positively exploded in popularity, as did the forums. The aforementioned “Forapocalypse” that 3tych spoke of was a direct result of so many people joining the forums, which forced them to transition the software in order to accommodate all of the new members. As time went by, fan sessions or adventures swiftly rose to the fore as one of the most popular aspects of roleplaying or storytelling on the forums.
People enjoyed fanventures immensely (and still do—creating a fanventure is arguably one of the most popular things for people to do after reading Homestuck), but the way the forums were structured made it exceedingly inelegant to read them there. To this end, MSPFA was created as a place for people to host their fanventures in a more accessible fashion, and also offered storytellers a great degree of structural control.
I was exceedingly fortunate to be pointed in the direction of nixshadow, who was responsible for creating and organizing MSPFA, turning it into the website that is still so commonly utilized to this day:
MSPFA started off when an adventure called Roomland (ID 1 on mspfa) was posted on
front page of MSPA new sections
A bunch of people offered to host roomland on its own site so it was easier to read
Because back then they were called forum adventure, you'd have to wade through tons of pages of suggestions before actual panels
I was one of the people making it a site when a user called Lolzorine was like HA SUPRISE, mspfanventures
a place where anyone can editor their own adventure (nixshadow)
The structure for Lolzorine’s website was apparently badly mishandled, and people clamored for a more well organized website. To this end, nixshadow took over and gradually transformed it (over a series of server changes and restructurings) into the website that we have today. I think it’s safe to say that, without their efforts, the fandom would be in a completely different place from what it is now; MSPFA is the place for people to post their adventures, with literally every story I can think of related to the fandom being hosted there. As things go, the site has gone through an intense change recently, around the end of 2016:
A young fellow known as Miroware messages me letting me know the site is basically insecure as all hellnixshadow expressed dislike for Miroware, and intense regret over giving him MSPFA, although nix didn’t go into great detail about why6 (edit as of 2/16/18: nix has stated that they don’t actually dislike Miro, and that all indications otherwise were jokes. Please disregard this particular detail).
I ask for his help recreating the site and he does, which is the current version of the site, at this point we finally buy the shorter http://mspfa.com/ domain
He convinces me to open up the discord channel, and some point later I decide I'm not doing enough with MSPFA and decide to give him ownership. (nixshadow)
As it is, that is the state of things for the forums and MSPFA. If the status for either of these places changes, I will be sure to record it here. Both of them have been responsible for the vast majority of the fandom’s formative years, and much of its current cultural structure can be traced directly back to them. Hopefully the information I’ve provided has been sufficient to give understanding to people who are not intimately familiar with these places already.
30th of September
It has been a couple of days since the larger Patreon discourse, and things seem more or less the same as they were even before that. This is kind of striking to me, but in holding with a pattern of behavior that has been in place here for as long as I can remember: even when incredibly disruptive events happen, things typically go back to normal within a few days. This is not to suggest that those events may happen without consequence: even if no one is actively discussing it, the memory of the event lingers in peoples’ minds for some time. Additionally, if such a disruption is great enough then it leads to people leaving permanently, as has happened with Revlar and Thellere, among others7.
My concern is that, with each subsequent ordeal that we go through, the chances of more people leaving becomes greater. I can only imagine that there is some sort of threshold in place that defines the limit where people will finally say “this isn’t worth the trouble”. There is no telling exactly where this threshold may be, but naturally I am not eager to discover that.
At any rate, while there is still a decent amount of rabblerousing over the Patreon, especially from S, it has provided some ample entertainment for those of us not imminently concerned with its destruction. Makin promised us a treat at some point soon, and this morning he delivered: he commissioned some internet persona to create a video advertising the HSD. It was honestly very amusing: this fellow portrays himself as Jesus Christ, and for $11 or some such money you can write a script for him to follow and he will record himself saying it. Makin did just that, and the video went up some hours ago. The script was written in such a way that Jesus speaks from Makin’s perspective, espousing the Patreon and shilling Griever’s Jojostuck, as well as injecting a number of other assorted memes.
The video, entitled “Patreon Theory: Why I Gave the Messiah HIVESWAP!”, is an excellent example of the ability Makin has to stir things in just the right way to achieve this absurd yet enjoyable mix. The video by all means isn’t that funny, but for some reason the exact scenario and our perspective here turns it into this incredibly entertaining nonsense. Community streams are all like this as well, and I find myself consistently impressed at the kind of subtle talent that goes into making such events as enjoyable as they are.
Aside from this, the Patreon itself has experienced an extreme jump in funding. When I went to bed last night, it was standing at $238, but as of 8:00 PM EST it’s at $481. I have no earthly idea how it jumped so dramatically since then, and I’m especially confused because it looks like the number of donors is the same. Regardless, we’re just $19 shy of the $500 stretch goal, which states that merchandise that is HSD centric may be organized. I’m personally very interested in this, although I’m not sure the exact extent to which it would go (it only says that the merchandise would be considered, and that actual creation is simply a possibility).
I’m extremely skeptical that this amount of funding will actually be pulled in; as I said, it seems as if the number of donors has remained unchanged from last night. I could be misremembering but this would indicate one or more people are simply saying they will contribute large quantities of money, but then will pull out at the last moment. This sort of thing happens in fundraisers all the time, and the precedent bothers me. However, if the donations are legitimate in nature, then adspace will be able to be rented on MSPA indefinitely. I’m actually quite excited for the possibilities this holds for us.
I also wanted to provide a significant update on the Pep situation. After I issued that warning in altgen, I kept receiving minor reports from people that certain users from Pep's server were relaying information to her about what we were saying. This served to increase tension, as the people who tended to relay information were also manipulating it in such a way that made it seem we were explicitly bad mouthing Pep at all times. To make matters worse, Pep's behavior was increasing in intensity; at one point she was threatening suicide.
Needless to say, these developments were extremely agitating. I took it upon myself to go and talk with the people involved and see what exactly could be done. This culminated in me eventually joining a group DM with Pep herself and her close friend by the name of megaboy, who arranged the meeting. I took an hour and spoke with them about the situation at hand, and I'm pleased to say it went well. Pep and company are to inform us when people from there are spreading information, and we will cooperate to handle these incidents. They were initially mistrustful of me, I feel, but by the end of the conversation they expressed a deep appreciation for what I was doing, which made it feel very worthwhile. I'm genuinely happy that the discussion went as well as it did.
Of course, I am skeptical of the end result of these talks; there is no telling if Pep can be held accountable, and will actually implement any of the things we discussed. To this end I devised a small test of sorts: shortly before I felt it was necessary to engage in this discussion, Pep joined the Altgenstuck server that Tori manages, and began engaging in serially creepy behavior as she was wont to do. Tori made short work of banning her at the time, but after the discussion tonight I convinced Tori to unban Pep, with the provision that Pep must abandon her previously creepy behavior. The caveat in place, Tori agreed and we can use this as an effective test to see if Pep is actually bent on improving her behavior. If not, Tori may ban her again and things will go back to normal. It is my sincerest hope that things will keep improving, and that Pep will be able to find some inner balance for herself.
Nothing more for today.
Makin
1 :howHigh:
2 important foreshadowing for the #aaaaaa saga
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61OXGvvL0Hc
4 add spongebob card here saying "THREE YEARS LATER"
5 update: phil has said WP is now working with a "big media company" (possibly viz media in my opinion) to bring the forums back and no longer with him. (2/10/18)
6 stay tuned for drama emerging from my going into great detail 5 months later
7 :blobthinking: