Board invasion history

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Darth Wong
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Board invasion history

Post by Darth Wong »

Over the history of this board, we have been "invaded" (by which I mean that a large group of users signed up over a short period, all of whom knew each other and had an agenda to deliberately annoy us) several times. This is the history, which may be useful information in case you ever run across any of the people responsible in some other venue.

World Church of the Creator

This is a white-supremacist group. They invaded for unknown reasons; no one knows how they came to know of our board or why they chose to invade. Of course, they spewed white-supremacist propaganda during their incursion. Among other things, they claimed that all non-whites (who they termed "muds") should be ejected from America. They also called me the "nigger-king" of the board, apparently because I run the board and I'm not white.

After arguing with them and eventually flaming them to oblivion, they became petulant and began spamming the forums with race-hate slogans, at which they were banned. Their most prolific member was "Arminius". They ranted that we mindlessly think as one and oppose any different opinion because we all agreed that racism is bad, and they used this claim to justify their behaviour.

Their board has since gone down, and the leader of the WCOTC was arrested for soliciting murder (I'm not kidding; look it up). During the invasion, they ruthlessly silenced our attempt to counter-invade by deleting posts and banning members at the drop of a hat.

EliteFitness.Com

This is a board which bills itself as "The Most Controversial Fitness Site On The Net", by which they mean that they encourage the use of steroids.

They invaded after being incited to do so by an unknown person (although a banned user named "Azeron" is a likely suspect, given the timeframe of their invasion). Their modus operandi was to randomly post in all forums that we're a bunch of pencil-necked geeks (since every steroid user knows that sci-fi fans are geeks).

The whole incident had a sort of sophomoric high school "nerds vs jocks" aura to it (the subtext, of course, being that high-school nerds usually mature into successful adults, while high school jocks usually spend the rest of their lives being nostalgic for high school). They ranted that we are all ignorant, we mindlessly think as one, and we oppose any different opinion because we all agreed that steroids are bad, and they used this claim to justify their behaviour.

Elitefitness.com is still around; in fact, it is a VERY large board, with tens of thousands of members. We never attempted to counter-invade their forum because they have a mandatory payment policy; you MUST pay to sign up on their boards.

TrekBBS.Com, "The Neutral Zone" (TNZ)

TNZ is a troll faction on a Trek board, and they're seemingly big on pro-religion and pro-Trek sentiment, not to mention homophobia (a curiously common combination, given Roddenberry's blatant atheism and humanism, both of which were very obvious in TNG). They are naturally opposed to us on ideological grounds, they seem to hate me personally although I've never even tried to sign up there or do anything directly to them, and of course, they rant that we mindlessly think as one, and we oppose any different opinion because we all agree that a turbolaser is more powerful than a phaser and that creationism is ignorant and irrational, and they used this claim to justify their behaviour.

TNZ@TrekBBS is unusual because they have taken the "Hall of Shame" concept to great extremes: not only do they have their own Hall of Shame called TNZ, but you can't post in it even if you're registered, until you have a lot of posts. Then they go one step further after that: their "TNZ" contingent bans anyone who offends them and then they go to an entirely separate board called TrollKingdom.com, where there are basically no rules (it was apparently set up by disgruntled TrekBBS members and now largely serves as their "venting" outlet). They use this place to flame their enemies and try to incite others to join them in their attacks.

TNZ@TrekBBS is still around (their invasion was very recent). They made a weak attempt at debate which only lasted for a few hours and then largely retreated, but our attempt at counter-invasion was bounced completely by their admins, who clamped down hard and banned people before they had even made a single post. Naturally, they claimed (and continue to claim) moral victory when we started banning them in return, and snickered that we're always free to sign up on the other board, even though their own home board is clamped shut. For their part, some of the TK people went along with them because they seem to think it's a civil liberties issue if we ban people who do things like post "waaaaaaazup" on every forum or hurl pointless flames without trying to discuss anything (most likely a case of adolecent "tough guy in cyberspace" syndrome).

In any case, the TNZ@TrekBBS invasion was the most innovative so far in terms of tactics; their use of a third-party board from which they can engage in unrestricted hostility while trying to incite others to join them (and insulating TrekBBS itself from counterattack) is really quite a clever tactic. They have taken extraordinary measures to redirect attention away from their "home turf" while remaining free to conduct any offensive operations they wish. I have actually toyed with the idea of emulating it, although I'm reluctant to employ such methods on principle.

Update: in a move that was unexpected, but not surprising in retrospect considering their obviously limited intellectual abilities, their next move was not to try to debate the issues they supposedly wanted to debate (even though several of them still had accounts here, including their leader Storm Rucker), but to attack the board. They made a "formal declaration of war", cracked a moderator password, and defaced the site. The passwords were scrambled and we restored from backup so there was little damage, but they've revealed their true colours quite clearly. Their motto seems to be that if you can't beat 'em in debate, just try to destroy their web board :roll:

Who's Next?

Who knows?



*Edited to clarify relationship between TrekBBS and Trollkingdom based on a message from one of their members
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