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I'm awfy tired, but if anyone wants to sart sticking things up on Tom's Wiki Wiki Wild Wild FAQ board,here's the unformatted story so far, which is all the non-duplicating questions I've found on the FAQ threads so far...
BARBELITH FAQ
(Jack fear)
WHAT IS THE BARBELITH UNDERGROUND ALL ABOUT?
The Underground started in Summer 1998 as an adjunct to The Bomb, a website dedicated to annotating writer Grant Morrison’s comic book series The Invisibles. The conversation expanded to encompass the larger themes of the comic book: freedom, insurrection, drugs, pop culture, sex, magick, and overall fabulousness. And as the conversation expanded, more voices were added, each bringing something to the party.
We agree on almost nothing: there are as many manifestos here as there are individual members. There’s no ideology at work here, and plenty of room to disagree, to debate, to learn. If we can be said to have a common guiding principle, it can be summed up in the single word that was put forth in The Invisibles as “the most important lesson”: disobedience.
(The Haus)
As an adjunct to that; your Barbelith may vary. Some people see it primarily as a place to hang out with their friends, others as a useful information resource, others again, still, to talk about The Invisibles.
It’s probably worth remembering, however, that it is a very long time since Barbelith was a site devoted to Grant Morrison. Likewise, claiming that something is “ Not what Grant would have said” or that you are disgusted that a board named after Barbelith should contain an opinion like x is unlikely to get you much attention or sympathy.
SO IF YOU LOT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE REVOLUTIONARIES, WHY AREN'T YOU OUT CAUSING CIVIL UNREST AND THROWING BOMBS?
(Jack Fear) Life's not a comic book: if and when the hideous trans-spatial overlords swarm down a breach in the reality grid and start devouring our world like so much overripe fruit, I'll be out in the streets chucking Molotov cocktails at their soulless drone-soldiers, driving them back to Dimension X with automatic weapons and boundless love. But almost everyone on the street, even the one you might think of as an "oppressor," is a real human being trying to make a life. I have no desire to blow them up. As for civil unrest: when called-for. If you do it all the time, people will get used to you.
Revolution can be inclusive. And it happens, first of all, in the head. Without that, it's just a punch-up, and the bigger guys are going to win.
(The Haus) That’s one answer. Another is, of course, that some of us are. Others are, like Jack, keeping their powder dry, others can’t be bothered, or don’t believe that civil unrest is a valid method for achieving change. Some are conservative by inclination or by politics. Some are trying to change the world with magic, or letter-writing campaigns, or whatever.
There are many different reasons why people on Barbelith are not throwing bombs; as many as there are reasons why anyone on Barbelith who *is* throwing bombs is probably not going to talk about it much. Best just to think of Barbelith as a Bulletin Board that does not demand either rejection or endorsement of direct action.
BUT WHY AREN'T YOU DISCUSSING ANYTHING IMPORTANT/SERIOUS/COOL?
(Jack Fear) We are. But if you don't see a thread that interests you, please go ahead and start one of your own. Posting interesting questions or ideas will usually get relevant responses. If people start derailing your thread with pointless jokes and sidelines, you can always tell ‘em off for it.
(The Haus) See also “Barbetiquette”, below. In general, people will respect yu far more if you say something interesting than if you complain that nobody else is saying anything interesting.
DOES GRANT MORRISON HANG OUT HERE?
(The Haus) For the full story, check here.
The short version – assume not. He visits on occasion, but from the interview it seems that he is only likely to read posts about his own work, if that; if you want to communicate with him , a better way might be to email him from his own website, , here.
The slightly longer version – he did, and then he didn’t. There was a misunderstanding over glassing his cat. Don’t even ask.
Basically, this is not a great place to go if your aim is to contact or impress Grant Morrison – just contact him directly, or make friends with Mark Millar or something.
If you want to know what something in the Invisibles means, then Barbelith is likely to give you more and more interesting answers than Mr. M., anyway, because there are more of us. If you want to know exactly what Grant Morrison meant by a particular line or scene, just ask Runce.
Basically.
WHAT IS A FICTIONSUIT?
(Jack Fear) We all are.
Grant Morrison (him again!) coined the term “fictionsuit,” and every time it was used in The Invisibles it seemed to have a slightly different meaning. In the context of Barbelith Underground, it’s simply an online name—or more properly, an online persona.
(The Haus) After some problems with multiple suits (see below), it is now generally considered good practice to have only one registered login. So, although you might change your on-screen name, and your personality and method of presentation, you would have the same user number and the same login name and password.
“Burning” a suit, that is asking to have a login name and password deleted, is these days generally seen as a symbol of protest. Most people don’t bother, which is one reason why the numbers of users on Barbelith are far greater tan the apparent number who post
If you have more than two login names and passwords, don’t be surprised or upset if one of them is deleted by Tom (see below); although as long as there seems to be nothing malicious in multiple suits, you will probably be OK.
WHAT DOES “BARBELITH” MEAN, ANYWAY?
(Jack Fear) Another Invisibles reference. In the comic, it’s first explained as a mysterious satellite hidden behind the Moon... but it gets much weirder from there. Grant Morrison claims the word came to him in a dream: depending on which spurious back-formation you care to believe, it means “alien stone” (barb as in barbarian = outlander), or perhaps “bearded stone” (cf. the Gnostic Christ who appears to Dane MacGowan saying “I am the hidden stone and break all hearts...”
In any case, it sounds cool and seems fraught with significance but is ultimately of uncertain meaning—which means it’s up for grabs.
(The Haus) Barbelith is a brand name and a URL. It does not mean that the board universally shares the beliefs or the politics espoused by the Invisibles in the comic book of the same name.
HOW DO THE PAGES RULE OUT? HOW DOES THE SYSTEM DECIDE THAT IT HAS A FULL PAGE?
(The Haus) The BBS software creates a new page after 39 posts, I think.
HOW DO I ADD SMILIES?
(Jack Fear)The software renders standard smilies automatically when you type certain combinations of characters with no space between.
The Haus – QUESTION: IS THIS STILL THE CASE? IS THERE A LIST?
This means that certain combinations of characters, like a colon and brackets, may accidentally be rendered as smilies; putting spaces in between characters will sort this out. Incidentally, although Barbelith has no policies on smilies, some users do dislike them intensely. Like “sigs” (see below), there is no prohibition against them, but they may well lead to a bit of piss-taking. Sorry.
WHY CAN’T I AUTOMATICALLY ADD MY SIGFILE TO MY POSTS?
(Jack Fear) The proprietary software Barbelith uses does not allow the addition of sigfiles, because the general consensus is that this board reads like a conversation, and sigfiles tend to break the flow of that conversation. So if you really want that Harlan Ellison quote at the end of every single post, you’ll have to type it out, every single post. It’s up to you: but sigfiles are at best a distraction and at worst the online equivalent of a “No Fat Chicks” T-shirt.
(The Haus) Yep. If you want to add a sigfile, it’s your choice, but some people dislike them intensely. People signing their names at the end of their posts might be asked pointedly whether they have noticed the table containing their names directly to the left of their posts. People who have a sig advertising their website or their eBay auctions are likely to get slapped down for it at some point. Again, sorry.
WHO MODERATES THIS BOARD?
(The Haus) The moderators, about 4-6 to each forum, moderate the forums. There are also two administrators, plus Tom, who can moderate the entire board. See below.
WHY AREN'T YOU TALKING ABOUT GRANT AND THE INVISIBLES ANY MORE?
(The Haus) We are. Not as much (although the release of the latest trade paperback will always inspire a flurry of topics), but that’s because it has been over for years. If we were still talking abutit al the time, it would be like the Gary Numan fan club in here…depressing and stinking of milk.
Gary Numan milk.
THERE'S ABOUT A KABILLION POSTS ON HERE—HOW DO I FIND MY WAY AROUND?
(The Haus) There’s a list of the topic areas and what they contain below. If yu are looking for something in particular, try using the search function at the bottom of the min page. Or just browse at your leisure. If you get lost, PM a moderator – they’ll be happy to help.
DO ANY OF YOU GUYS WANT TO BUY MY COMICS BACK ISSUES/DRUGS/GUNS/PLUTONIUM?
(Jack Fear) Possibly, but only once we've gotten to know you, and pretty much only in a more private, face-to-face situation. And we prefer barter to outright selling and buying. Random mercantilism will likely be met (like pretty much everything else) with heaped up ridicule and reinterpretation. Anything that threatens the continued existence of the board (i.e., outright illegal information) makes Tom, our Administrator and Grand Exalted Archon, nervous. When The Grand Exalted Archon gets nervous, persons, places, and things tend to disappear.
CAN I START A THREAD TO PLUG MY WEBSITE/COMIC/BAND/WEIGHT-LOSS PROGRAM?
(Jack Fear) See above. Pointers and self-promotion are all right in moderation: using The Underground as an advertising medium for a wholly commercial enterprise—e.g., get-rich-quick schemes—will piss us off. And who knows what a bunch of freaks like us might be capable of, if we get pissed off?
WHY DID MY POST GET FLAMED?
(Jack Fear) Did you start off by bragging about either (a) how much better/smarter/radical than us you are, or (b) a secret of existence that you know but aren't willing to tell us yet? We get those a lot, and they get old very quickly. Alternately, did you call someone a slag or act in a rude/hostile manner? There's a lot of friendly joking around here, but you may want to let us get used to you before you start throwing the insults around. Good manners are golden, even for anarchists—in fact especially for anarchists: a Collective can only hang together as long as the goodwill lasts.
WHY DO YOU LOT MAKE SO MANY IN-JOKES? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THEM AT ALL.
(Jack Fear) Because we are a twisted bunch of muppets.
You’re absolutely correct—we are constantly struggling with ourselves to keep our signal-to-noise ratio lean. In-jokes happen any time a large group of people hang out together, even virtually. At one point we thought we might use this FAQ to explain the in-jokes, until we realized that such a FAQ would be (a) 200 pages long, and (b) out-of-date the moment it was posted.
If you want to understand something, try searching in the archives or asking someone directly. Otherwise, what you'll find is that hanging around here for not very long at all will enable you to pick up on the gags and feel like one of the inner circle. Alternatively, bluff; or just ignore it. That's what most of us did.
(The Haus) Tom’s latest bright idea for thee FAQ actually makes it possible to coverall of these, but that seems almost like it would ruin the fun. Mount the face.
WHAT'S THIS "NEXUS" THAT PEOPLE KEEP TALKING ABOUT? I THOUGHT THE NAME OF THE BOARD WAS THE BARBELITH UNDERGROUND...
It is: but for a while it operated under the name The Nexus, and some of the old-timers have a hard time remembering. Senility’s an awful thing.
WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY "GRANT"? IS THAT GRANT MORRISON?
(Jack Fear) Nope. He's some American dimwit with too much time on his hands. Has his own webpage at www.mp3.com/grant with pathetic pop songs on it. Best to ignore him, too.
(The Haus) However, if you are looking for the skinny on weird tabloid shit, sightings of Jesus, etc. Grant is the man to go to.
WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS SECTIONS OF THE SITE FOR?
The Conversation is for stuff that fits nowhere else; idle chit-chat, comedy links, bewailings of thewretched, glad singing of thejoyful, calls for huggles and for personal advice….the sort of stuff that constitutes “chat”. Think of it as the Barbelith saloon bar. Conversation posts are often frivolous, and threadrot is far more tolerated than elsewhere.
The Policy s for requests for information on Barbelith, suggestions for changing how the board is built or run, highlighting technical problems, and highlighting or complaining about moderator actions
The Head Shop is for “Philosophy and Cultural Studies: Postmodernity, Deconstruction, Marxism, Queer Theory, Feminism - analysing the 21st Century”. Basically, discussions about philosophy, gender, ideology…stuff like that. The Head Shop is one of the most “serious” bits of Barbelith; a throwaway gag that would be laughed at in the Conversation might get requests not to rot the thread in the Head Shop (although as a general rule one one-liner in a thread is rarely resented).
The Head Shop, despite its name, is *not* for discussions about where to get drugs, or what effects drugs have, although a thread on the ethics of legalizing narcotics would be perfectly at home. These go in the Conversation, or occasionally the Magic or the Laboratory.
The Laboratory is for “Science, technology and medicine: biotech & genetics, nanotech and computing, from cyberculture to space-travel...” Essentially, any science or maths stuff will fit here. Often threads are started with an article or news story, and a discussion proposal.
The Magick is for “Ritual, religion and mysticism - from Christianity to chaos magick, transformation and change, from Crowley to Phil Hine”, pretty self-explanatory, really. Anything magical – revelations, discussions, requests for assistance, servitor breeding tips – goes in here.
The Switchboard is for “Politics. activism and current affairs: summits and resistance, politics and privacy, adbusting, echelon and international affairs”. These days it is mainly used to discuss politics and stories in the news, but is also the place for discussing direct action and civil disobedience (unless you are inviting people along to some specific civil disobedience, in which case try the Gathering).
These four together make up “The Revolution”, the most po-faced bit of the site, and the area where the strictest adherence to subject is requested. The next four, “The Spectacle”, or also taken very seriously, but devoted instead to entertainment. You can probably work out pretty easily what goes in “Art, Fashion and Design”, what in “Comic Books” and what in “Film, TV and theatre”. “Books” is devoted primarily to fiction; although there is no ban on non-fiction, it is frequently discussed in the relevant section of the Revolution. That’s a judgement call, really – “Michael Moore’s approach to corporate justice” would perhaps be a Switchboard topic, but the actual book “Stupid White Men”, and specifically the problems getting it published, were discussed in Books.
Finally – The Creation is for the creative endeavors of Barbelith members,and discussion thereof. This is where you would begin a collaborative creative exercise, share your poetry, put an excerpt from your novel or ask for tips on getting published. Please be sure to specify whether or not you would like criticism, and don’t mind if Billy Corgan tells you he hates it; as one fo the dominant musical figures of the last century, he’s very picky.
The Gathering is for planning meetings, almost always “in the flesh”….if you are planning to travel to another city and would like to meet people from Barbelith while there, you would post here. Or if you were Flyboy and were beginning to dry out.
HOW DO I JOIN BARBELITH?
Just click on the “join” option in the top right hand corner, and give Tom yur email address and username. He will email you a password.
ARE THERE ANY RULES OF CONDUCT ON BARBELITH?
Good sense will usually see you through. Politeness is good, as is a bit of circumspection before posting. There arer almost no hard-and-fast rules, but:
1) Trolling is pretty much the only thing that you are really likely to get into shit over (see above).
2) If you say something which is or which sounds racist, sexist, homophobic, or any number of other “-isms”, you will be flamed. From there, it is very easy to slide into trolling. If you then complain of “Political Correctness gone mad” or “the PC brigade”, you will win the enduring love of the other half-dozen people who do that, and everyone else will giggle.
3) Don’t be surprised if people ask you to support whatever contention you have just made with evidence, and don’t try to conceal any absence thereof with obfuscation or insult; it is unlikely to work.
4) Threadrot, outside the Conversation and at times within the Conversation, is frequently looked upon askance.
They're also profoundly useful for people who use applications (as I do) like NetNewsWire (see here for more details) or any RSS feed thingy.
5) There are various bits of general Barbetiquette, which are not formal rules but are considered polite, and will lead to criticism if you fail to uphold them. Some ideas:
1) When posting in a thread outside of Conversation, stay on topic. W/the exception of some of the fora under the Revolution banner, there is at least a little leeway given as to what constitutes on-topic-ness. Make the attempt to stick at least tangentially to the topic at hand and you will most likely be given the benefit of the doubt.
2) Before starting a new thread, make sure to do a search w/in the forum of your choice for a pre-existing thread pertaining to your topic. This cuts down on needless double threads. Double threads can be fused together, but only by Tom (i.e. the head cheese, the guy that runs the board, who puts a roof over our virtual heads). Let's try to cut down any unnecessary workload on his part, shall we?
2a) If your search comes up empty and you decide to start a new topic, remember: always fill in the summary field. The summary (as is stated on the screen that is displayed when one is starting a new topic) helps to keep the thread on topic. It is displayed whenever a poster replies to the thread. It also has some other strange and mysterious features that I'm not entirely clear on (and that, perhaps, Tom can enlighten us to in this thread). Regardless, Tom wants a summary in each thread. So make sure it's there.
(the Haus) The search function on Barbelith goes by title and topic abstract (also known as summary), which is the other field to fill in on the “New Topic” page. Therefore, the more information is contained within the thread title and topic abstract, the easier it is for your thread to be found, and the less likely it will be that wasteful and confusing double threads are set up. The topic abstract also provides a guideline to the course of the discussion, and when necessary also helps the writer to consider whether their post is coherent. Tom did indeed reveal its other purposes, thus:
(Tom Coates) Topic abstracts are not the simplest or clearest thing that I've ever suggested be put on Barbelith, but they are at the moment the only searchable aspect and they can be profoundly useful - for example we can (although we haven't yet), put them as description meta tags on each page.
They're also profoundly useful for people who use applications (as I do) like NetNewsWire (see here for more details) or any RSS feed thingy.
3) If you have something to say to a poster, don't derail a thread to do so. Use the private messaging system. The message box is located at the upper left of the screen. Alternately, you can, w/in a thread, click on the member name of the poster w/whom you would like to have words and send a private message to them by clicking on the appropriate link (you'll know it when you see it) w/in that member's profile.
(E Randy) Thread starters. It's been said a hundred times now, but threads should not be started with a one-sentence post. Far too many examples to pick any one out of the pile. The worst offenders? One-sentence thread starters that consist of a URL or link and nothing more. What happens if the link goes down? You've got a thread that's completely meaningless. Example here. Utterly incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't already know what it's about if CNN move the story.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I BREAK THESE RULES?
(The Haus) Not much, really. People will take the piss. Moderators will get sick of you fucking up threads. Eventually, people won’t bother to talk to you. That’s about it, really. It’s very rare that anything worse happens.
However, there is precedent. People whose conduct is negatively impacting the function of Barbelith could have their threads or posts deleted. Ultimately, their username could be taken away from them, or, in extremity, their IP address blocked, so they cannot log in to Barbelith.
This has happened so infrequently that there is no set procedure. Be assured, however, that you will receive lengthy and stern warnings before any of these later possibles are employed.
WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP TALKING ABOUT ELOI AND THE GREENLANDERS?
(The Haus)Rare example of Barbelith sabotage, the Eloi (could someone else fill in the details) basically led to the Night of a Thousand Eloi, in which Barbelith was besieged by multiple Eloi suits, trying to bankrupt Tom with bandwidth charges. The resulting whip-round was one of the defining moments of the early community. Apparently. I just saw the TV Movie.
The Greenlanders were altogether more benign, and one of them (not, alas, the beautiful bisexual ex-model) is still on the board. Basically, they believed that the world was under threat from a worldwide conspiracy of paedophiles, and that our modern diets were leaving us too weak, both physically and morally, to resist them. Fortunately, they (the Greenlanders) had both the psychic ability to smell paedophiles and a wheat-free diet, and if people would only give them guns and badges rather than putting them in secure housing then they could save the world.
Although not in fact much further out there than a fair few Barbeloids, the Greenlanders ruffled feathers with their tendency to post very (v-e-r-y) long quotes from online conspiracy sites, their general supposition that the Jews had something to hide, and the fact that they never quite understood that “well, you would say that, you’re a paedophile” is not a particularly useful response. Also suffered from some boundary issues that were to be shown in far sharper relief in a later, unrelated episode that nearly shut Barbelith down for good.
HOW CAN I MAKE DONATIONS TO BARBELITH?
(The Haus)There are two buttons at the bottom of the main Barbelith Underground page, for donations of $2.50 and $5.00 per month You’ll need PayPal – www.paypal.com – to donate, unfortunately, but if you don’t have or can’t get an account somebody else with an account will be happy to accept payment and donate on your behalf, no doubt – just start a thread in the Policy asking for PayPal buddies.
If you want to help but don’t have the sort of financial regularity that lends itself to monthly donations, why not drop Tom a private message, or start a thread in the Policy when you have some cash to spare? We’re bound to be able to work something out.
IF I DO DONATE TO BARBELITH, IS IT OUT OF THE KINDNESS OF MY OWN HEART OR DO I GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT?
(The Haus)Well, you get the knowledge that you are helping to offset Tom’s bandwidth bills (and he makes a loss on Barbelith, true believers, so no cries of “sell-out”, if you please), and thus help to continue the existence and development of Barbelith. If you mean a certificate or a decoder ring or special moderator powers, then no, sorry. Contributing is a totally voluntary thing- nobody has to feel obliged to do it, nobody has to feel bad that they don’t.
IS THIS SITE ONLY FOR OR CAN ANYONE JOIN?
(The Haus)Anyone can join, and anyone’s welcome, with a very few exceptions.
WHAT CATCHPHRASES AND BUZZWORDS SHOULD I INCORPORATE INTO MY POSTS TO MAKE IT SOUND LIKE I'VE ACTUALLY READ A FEW THREADS BEFORE POSTING?
(The Haus)“Huggles”
“Grown-up juice”
“Gnostic Paradigm”
“Einstein-Rosen Bridge”
“Electric Parmesan”
“Cat Power”
“Time Machine Go”
“Coldwater Suplex records”
“Mount the face”
Should do you for starters.
But seriously, my advice? Read a few threads before posting, especially in the Revolution. Because Barbelith is full of inveterate piss-takers, a bad first impression can become the source of a lengthy running joke.
I TRIED TO POST AND GOT AN ERROR MESSAGE. IS THIS BECAUSE I SAID SOMETHING YOU FOLKS DISAGREED WITH?
(SMatthewStolte)No, it's a computer glitch. It happens to all of us. If you are locked out of Barbelith, you will be informed.
It seems like a silly question, I know, but it has been asked on more than one occasion.
(the Haus)Likewise, if you are told that your IP address has been blocked, this is usually a temporary glitch, unless your IP address actually *has* been blocked. Try again a minute later.
WHAT QUALIFICATIONS DO I NEED TO POST IN THE HEAD SHOP?
(SMatthewStolte)
You need:
1. An open mind
2. Questions, opinions you can back up, or both.
I REALLY LIKE MUSIC/FILMS/COMICS/BOOKS etc, BUT NONE OF THE THREADS IN THOSE RESPECTIVE FORUMS REFLECT MY INTERESTS. SHOULD I JUST NOT POST IN THESE FORUMS?
(Flux) No! You should try starting threads about your interests, and the chances of other people on the board sharing your interests could be quite high and/or you could influence other people to check out what you're writing about.
If you're writing about something that other people might not be aware of; it's a good idea to express enthusiasm about it, because that enthusiasm can be contagious or arouse curiosity in the subject matter. Be descriptive in your writing - a thread in which you simply state the name of something or someone isn't as effective as adding a description of your feelings and ideas about it.
WHAT IS A "HUGGLE"?
(The Haus)It’s barbeslang, sometimes accompanied by a scary picture of Tom Baker. Essentially, a huggle is just a way to say hello or goodbye, or to express sympathy or affection. It’s a self-consciously ironic appropriation of bfhugglesaby talk. Or something.
WHAT IS A "TROLL"?
(The Haus)From the Jargon Dictionary :
troll
1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group
alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet
designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the
post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies"
which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of
fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a
bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of
newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than
they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and
experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't
fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT. 2.
n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts
specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup,
discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy
someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the
fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at
hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly
creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming
characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form
of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll."
Compare kook. 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular
campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and
ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because
it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.
Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category
than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing
some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See
also Troll-O-Meter.
The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily
produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not
infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part
of a followup to troll postings.
Essentially, a troll is somebody who posts controversially and/or offensively, but without any real interest in discussion or exchanging ideas. A devoted troll can carry on doing this for a long time, and in some cases somebody may be replicating the activities of a troll without noticing (see below). Trolls want ether to generate lengthy and pointless threads for their own gratification, or rot existing threads in the same way. It is sometimes hard to tell when somebody is trolling and when they are just very dim, but the need for attention, frequently continuing to post after everyone else has given up or changed the subject, is often a dead giveaway.
Barbelith has had very few trolls of any serious duration or devotion, and as such response to trolling is generally surprise followed by contempt. It is rare for any action to be taken directly by the PTBs, such as banning the suit or deleting the posts of the alleged troll (but see elsewhere).
If you are going to accuse somebody of being a troll, be absolutely sure that you are not just very pissed off with them; trolling describes a specific set of behaviours, and undeserved accusation will get you something of a reputation.
Barbelith also has subsets of trolls, who are not malicious but just tend to rot threads by adhering to and frequently restating their own idiosyncratic beliefs on certain topics, like sextrolls or queertrolls, or PCtrolls or hiphoptrolls. The general form here is to remonstrate briefly then ignore, but of course it’s a lot harder than it sounds.
WHAT IS THE JOB OF THE MODERATORS?
Janitorial, mainly. Moderators correct HTML, delete multiple posts, and so on. They won’t change the content of your post, except in extraordinary circumstances (and bear in mind that Barbelith is not a censorious environment, so uninvited mod changes are usually to faulty HTML), until you submit a moderator request. The moderators of that forum then receive a message asking if they want to agree or disagree with that suggested change. A change to text requires only two votes (yours and a moderator), and is usually a formality. The more effect a proposal would have on a thread, the more votes are reqired – it takes three votes to delete a post, for example.
Moderators can also delete threads (to keep the thread numbers in the Conversation down, usually, or because two threads are asking the same question), move threads (f they are better suited to another forum), or add topic summaries (also known as topic abstracts). All of these require the approval of other moderators.
A subsidiary function of moderators is to keep things in their forum moving, by introducing new topics or asking pertinent questions in existing ones. This is more important in low-traffic areas, obviously, than in somewhere like the Conversation, and is generally seem as an extension of the interest the moderator would take in their forum anyway. As such, although they may occasionally put on their “moderator hat”, to tell somebody that they are off-topic or share some bit of admin info, they are essentially just like other posters.
Basically, mods are here to serve. If you have a question or request, PM one and ask them.
HOW WERE THE MODERATORS CHOSEN?
Fiat – when moderation was introduced to Barbelith (for a number of reasons, but mainly to encourage people to think about the contents of their posts by removing the ability to edit them immediately), Tom appointed moderators to each forum, based basically on who he knew – people who were involved with that forum a lot and so would not be put out by keeping an eye on it, and had been around the board long enough to have an idea of how it works.
Subsequently, moderators have been added whenever it looked like a forum needed a couple of extra hands, by the same system. There are also two administrators, who are able to respond to moderation requests in any thread, and Tom himself, who can do that also. They help to keep the gap between request and response down.
DID GANESH REALLY DRINK PEE?
No. This was a confused allegation by one of the Greenlanders (see below), who tended to assume that anyone who disagreed was either a paedophile or had been turned into a zombie by too much dairy.
No, really. Drinking pee was a pretty mild reproach.
HOW DO I MAKE A LINK OVER TO A SPECIFIC BOOK AT AMAZON.COM AND/OR AMAZON.CO.UK SO TOM WILL GET A CUT?
(the Return of Rothkoid) It involves chopping out everything after the numbers following the ASIN bit
ie: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345344219/
not
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345344219/qid=965147622/sr=1-3/103-7747708-4879842
And appending a four-character code afterwards. Which Tom has to tell us in order to use. That's it.
(The Haus) So, I guess message Tom if you are planning to do this…
THERE REALLY WERE BARBELITH WARS? WHAT WERE THEY ABOUT?
(The Haus) Search me – anyone got an answer for this one?
WHAT WAS THE TANNHAUSER CUP?
(The Haus) Slightly embarrassingly, I’m drawing a blank. Anyone?
WHAT DOES IT SIGNIFY WHEN THE THREAD TOPIC IS COLORED GOLD VS. BLUE?
(The Haus) It shows which X-Men team they belong to. Ok, not really. These should show whether a thread has been added to since you last logged on, but seem to have varying accuracy. Probably somethingtodo with caches or cookies or cakes.
Can you PM more than one person at a time, like regular email?
(The Haus) No idea – anyone?
4. The threads in a forum are organized by the most recent post, right?
Yep
WHAT'S THE HTML CODE FOR BOLD, ITALIC, LINK, AND IMAGE?
(Mordant Carnival
<b>Whatever you want in bold type</b>
Creates bold text
<i>Whatever you want in italics</i>
Creates italic text
<a href="http://www.whatever the URL of the website is">Whatever you're calling the link</a>
Makes a link
(The Haus) Also, to make the link open in a new window, use <a href=http://www.barbelith.com” target=”_blank”>this </a>
<img src="http://www.Whatever the URL of the image is">
Inserts an image in your post
NB: Some sites, especially free websites such as Geocities, don't allow you to do this. You may have to buy web space or use a free image hosting service.
If your image is large, then you can make it fit on the page by inserting width="500" into the code, like this:-
<img src="http://www.Whatever the URL of the image is" width="500">
Webmonkey is a useful resource. It has a searchable database and a cheat-sheet detailing commonly used HTML tags, although not all the tags work on the 'Lith. |
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