1. What is your name?
I have used a series of pen names and pseudonyms. Haqiqat was one, and it will do for here and now.
2. What is your quest?
To make peace with everyone who deserves it, and quit worrying about the rest. I don't know what category to put myself in yet.
3. What is your favorite color?
The green of fresh growth after a long winter.
4. How did you discover Everything, and how did you become a noder?
Honestly, I no longer remember how I found the place. I lurked for a long time, too. I became a noder by pooping out some really trifling wangsty stuff about a girl and having it summarily nuked.
5. What do you see as the most significant changes that have happened to Everything over the past decade?
E2 was a huge black train full of violin players, barreling down unmapped tracks under care of sheer momentum and the hard will of the conductor. Then the conductor quit caring and the train caught on fire. Sensible people bailed out, and the diehards with more to give stayed on, reasoning that a burning violin was better than none at all. It was either play or put out fires, and they played on.
6. What are your favorite writeups -- both your own and from other noders?
Holy shit, no contest, go read Happy Birthday from Planet Motherfucker. I have a laminated hard copy of that bad boy, no joke. It gives my will to live a hardon you could drive nails with.
7. What are your favorite and least favorite memories from E2's history?
THIS SPACE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK
8. What keeps you coming back?
An interview and some material I hadn't backed up before stomping off in a fit and scrambling my own account. Thankfully there are still some people playing violin-shaped ashes and I was able to get some help climbing back in to look around.
9. What do you hope for E2's future?
Someone clever needs to decide what part of the community is worth saving, what parts need to go, what parts need to be modified, and pull the place up out of the annals of "Web 2.0". There's a very strong feeling of ownership among users and staff that is sometimes misplaced and often overvalued by decision makers.
10. What does E2 mean to you?
E2 is a landmark in my personal travelogue. It was what I needed it to be, when I needed it to be. It's like a first car or a first girlfriend or a first house, something to give you confidence and prove that if you put in the work, it's possible to get something back. It was also a lesson on when to let go.
11. Is E2 a writing site, a community site, an online encyclopedia, or something else? What should it be?
E2 could be an absolute monster. There's nothing like it for writers out there at all. It could be the YouTube of writing. I'm not talking about movie trailers and Hindi-dubbed kung fu movies and corporate sponsored advertainment shaped like a video game player - I'm talking about a bunch of amateurs doing cool stuff for other people who are interested in the same cool stuff. YouTube is absolutely teeming with amateur chemists, engineers, woodworkers, farmsteaders, alien conspiracy theorists, all of them with a unique niche and an audience that revels in that niche. E2 could be that for writers and readers.
12. Who are your favorite noders? Which ones do you miss the most?
Let me see if I can waterboard this metaphor some more before my conscience kicks in: My favorite noders were and are the ones who get on with the music and don't stop for applause, and especially the ones who had the grace to walk off the stage when they were done playing.
13. Who would play you in the Everything2 movie?
Old me would be an elderly Al Pacino doing scornful rage with occasional sharp moments of horrible insight. In the flashback scenes, it would be an undiscovered young talent who looks good in the trailers but performs like a three legged dog trying to hide a turd on a frozen pond.
14. Any questions that I didn't ask that I should've?
Yes.
Everything2 Decaversary Interviews
If you have questions or comments, please contact haqiqat or Jet-Poop.