We live in a beautifull catbox.
Asamoth made a brief appearance in the catbox on the evening of 5 March (UK time) under the user name as asaback. His appearance in new writeups was even briefer. He posted one writeup, which accused an old editor (someone who hasn't even logged into E2 for over 5 months) of vendettas against him, perpetrated by using multiple logins to downvote his writeups and of making insulting softlinks.
I have no idea if this particular editor was in fact using multiple logins, and I suspect that Asamoth really doesn't either. Certainly he didn't supply any proof. And who has the time to level up lots of logins? Perhaps he should entertain the possibility that he got lots of downvotes because lots of people downvoted him.
His assertion that this particular person was the source of all the insulting softlinking is even more presumptuous. Softlinks are anonymous so how would he know? And frankly, if the editor in question is long gone, why complain again?
Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity. As spiregrain remarked a day or two earlier: "It's like a martial art. The system is such that by the time you are able to do serious damage, you don't want to."
21:26 ac_hyper oh wow...Asamoth speaks?
21:28 Caliban Wait, I heard about that guy. Isn't he the guy who deleted a bunch of his nodes?
21:29 StrawberryFrog blinks. Wasn't there an asamoth node here a sec ago?
21:29 mirv Yep, he's the one who gave us the term "pulling an asamoth".
21:31 asaback it is i
21:31 ac_hyper Interesting stuff...ghosts and skeletons from the dark days of E2, before my time.
21:32 tdent i don't know why it should have been instanuked - why should we hear only the official POV on issues Asamothic?
21:33 asaback because i really shook things up here perhaps
21:33 QXZ turns the ego knob down a notch or two
21:34 StrawberryFrog asa: still flattering yourself I see
21:34 asaback but that tells me all i need to know about any possible return. bu-bye
21:34 Tlachtga doesn't sound like you shook anything up--sounds more like a dumb idea. Still, yeah, why nuke it.
21:35 Eco Dag nab it! I look away for two seconds, and stuff happens.
21:35 Caliban is impressed. No, really.
21:35 StrawberryFrog asa: it's about the nodes. the data in the 'base. All else is a sideshow
21:58 ac_hyper Why can't somebody cool like zhaus return?
22:01 Eco AC_Hyper: I suspect that if zhaus ever had returned, substantially fewer people would now think of him, her, or them as cool.
22:02 Jet-Poop But hey, all you more recent users, that's the kind of rhetoric and bile that used to be very common around here once upon a time. Losing Asamoth (among others) improved the quality of this site about a billion percent.
Shout out to
Jet-poop for saying it in the catbox better than I could.
... because the site was being sullied by XXX (and other editors of her ilk) who was so unethical as to create several alternative accounts in order to vote up her own woefully pathetic nodes. XXX used to link nasty node names to people's writeups whom she hated. All anonymously, of course, weasel. ... Despite the fact that I protested these and other injustices ... quit dramatically in order to undermine XXX and her cunning commie coterie"
- asaback
I'm sure you could find out who XXX is if you try, I don't care, I just don't want to be party to slander.
In the catbox he claimed that he really shook things up here when he pulled an Asamoth. He wishes. If it's not quality nodes, it's just a sideshow, and not the main event. I think of all the new noders who have shaken things up since then by the quality of their content, as the bar slowly inches upwards. Contribute, correct or spectate, don't pee in the pot.
Take your lumps and node. Move on. If you can't handle criticism without it being an evil plot, then you won't fit in here. Some of the writeups that you treasure will turn out, in the eyes of the discerning audience, to be turds. I don't believe in artists that pander relentlessly to the lowest common denominator, but I don't believe in the isolated genius delivering a singular vision from his ivory tower with no feedback either. George Lucas has no feedback these days, that's why his creative output is so shite. I believe in a dialogue of internal and external criticism.
One Iceowl, one CatherineB is worth 100 carping Asamoths.
Asamoth's paranoid paragraphs prove that he can't let go, and if he has anything to contribute he's hiding it well. His rant was instanuked. It didn't deserve to stay – how would it benefit a naïve reader in a year or two's time, someone using E2 as a encyclopaedia?
Instanuking however smacks of censorship though; as if there was something to hide. I would have left it around "marked for destruction" for a while. Honestly, Asamoth was his own worst enemy in that text.
RalphyK made an appearance in the catbox even later that evening. I haven't seen him in the flesh or online in a while, and I was pleased to see him. The next morning I saw a message from an editor asking me to tone it down, as I had used (++) and fuzzle in rapid succession. I was a bit nonplussed. Why is this an issue? I thought the fuzzle-wars were long over. It's just self-expression, not politics. Sheesh. Catbox etiquette seems to vary depending on which timezone is most active online.
If you have to wash out your dirty laundry, make a daylog.