History of the internet part 3.5- Word-forged.

Well, I said in the last one I'd flesh out the history of Wordforge someday.
The last chapter gave a fairly good overview, but here goes...

But, just to restate, I hung out at TrekBBS for awhile, mostly in the section called "The Neutral zone", (TNZ from now on) and TNZ was largely unmoderated, so it became pretty rowdy, and ultimately, too hot to handle for the mods, so they clamped down, and booted us out.

A poster at the time named "MartoksSweetheart (Cass from now on) started up WF.
Now, it was called "wordforge", because it was supposed to focus on writing, and writers, and the political chunk was supposed to be a side thing.
...so much for that...*laughs*

And so began the WF years, and my adventures on libertarianism.

Not much more to say chronology wise (it would take forever), people came, people went, dramas occurred, lotta board politics, friends were gained and lost, lotta folks I miss, lot I don't.

Wrote all my old stories there, met Margaret and learned a lot about politics, debate, and discourse in general.

Learned a lot, taught a lot.
Hope I helped people.
Fuck knows I tried.

Anyhoo, to you who only know me from RD.net, well, it's where I got my sunny disposition, and debate-fu style. ;)

Well, only other way to flesh it out, is to describe what it was like there, try to paint a mental picture.

Let's say diverse.

Lotta Randism.

Lotta generic libertarianism.

Years worth of religion debates, enough to equal the sum total of Dicky-Pedia.
An argument for every line in that.

Most heated ones involved...well, fuck,they were all heated.
Homophobia, spirituality, nastiness of the Bible, we had a dude who fancied himself a sophisticated theologian, had some "faith in faith", people, I think we covered it all.

In the end, boiled down to this.

Lotta "revolution", types.

Of the best type, and the worst type.

Best type, y'know, dissent, protest, tipping sacred cows, challenging authority...that's how the place got created.

Worst type, well...it's in the rant, wanna see it all come down in flames, bunkers, weapon stockpiles, all that fun stuff.

Lotta politics of fear.

Lotta ex-military guys, lotta pro-war stuff, especially after 9/11.

You want a more comprehensive list of the types, goes back to this rant.

You want a slice of what the day to day is/was like, check this out.

Which boiled down further again, to this.

Yeah, now you RD.net folk start to get a grasp of the source of my prickly disposition in dealing with bullshit.

;)

Round about the elections it got really nasty, and the fear and paranoia got so thick you couldn't breathe, so I took off for awhile to enjoy myself at RD.net more, and to build this place.

Can't say whether it's gotten better, or worse, or just different, over there, but...it ain't my home anymore.
I peek in now and then, but, it's not the WF I helped to build in those old days.
That's the place I miss.
Shit, even Cass got banned.
Banned from her own baby.
*Head shake*
Jayzus, board politics....

...anyway, despite all the bullshit and assholes, I made a lot of friends, and learned a lot there.
There was some diamonds in the rough.
Enough to keep me there for over 5 years, so..I'd be a fool and a hypocrite to say it was all lousy.
It was part of my growth, and I don't regret it.

And it got me to here, so...

Heh, it forged me.
Wordforged.
;)