Was the General forum EVER non-controversial?

[RiderSyl]

Seeing that the General forum is near-reaching 8 million posts in its lifetime, the second-closest mark being PttM with around half that total... It occurs to me that maybe early in its infancy, or maybe more recent than that, the General forum was more discussion-oriented and less... well, constant screaming.

Am I looking for innocence that was never there?

[Lyras]

I don't recall it ever being uncontroversial, at least on some level. It has generally been quite hostile to 'conservative' (I use the phrase loosely) positions in all their forms, but there has been considerable fire in some of the threads even outside that area.

[Literallystalin]

You do not like General. General does not like you. (This not a personal attack, merely an observation. The fact it is not a very nice sounding conclusion is not something that I am in control of.) We get it. That does not mean you need to come in and post about how bad you think General is and remind us that you do not like it every so often. Are you perhaps legitimately unaware that almost every post you make in General comes off as an insult?

[Kauthar]

depends
you're not allowed an opinion if you aren't a certified member of the PC Police and facts, statistics and sources are meaningless if they offend PoC.

[Benomia 3]

There were arguments even when it was only Max Barry and his dozen puppet nations.

[United States of Conner]

depends
you're not allowed an opinion if you aren't a certified member of the PC Police and facts, statistics and sources are meaningless if they offend PoC.

I dunno, people like this have been around as long as I can remember, and I remember the founding of General (that's a lie, I couldn't tell you when it was made, but I know I was there).

That should tell you something about General. That's where a lot of the screaming comes from.

[RiderSyl]

depends
you're not allowed an opinion if you aren't a certified member of the PC Police and facts, statistics and sources are meaningless if they offend PoC.

I dunno, people like this have been around as long as I can remember, and I remember the founding of General (that's a lie, I couldn't tell you when it was made, but I know I was there).

That should tell you something about General. That's where a lot of the screaming comes from.

So General wasn't one of the original forums on this board?

[Reploid Productions]

Seeing that the General forum is near-reaching 8 million posts in its lifetime, the second-closest mark being PttM with around half that total... It occurs to me that maybe early in its infancy, or maybe more recent than that, the General forum was more discussion-oriented and less... well, constant screaming.

Am I looking for innocence that was never there?

The only time NSG wasn't controversial was the Dark Ages before the addition of mods in early/mid 2003.

Because people weren't posting there. Everything, roleplaying, WA (well, back then, UN) debates, general debates and so on was posted in one great big clusterfuck in the Nationstates forum up at the top of the list.

[United Dependencies]

Constant screaming?

I have no idea what you're talking about. The general forum has had it's scandals and to-dos, but it has always been more about discussion (maybe not the most enlightened or polite discussion but it still counts) than anything else.

[United States of Conner]

I dunno, people like this have been around as long as I can remember, and I remember the founding of General (that's a lie, I couldn't tell you when it was made, but I know I was there).

That should tell you something about General. That's where a lot of the screaming comes from.

So General wasn't one of the original forums on this board?

You see my point.

[Reploid Productions]

I dunno, people like this have been around as long as I can remember, and I remember the founding of General (that's a lie, I couldn't tell you when it was made, but I know I was there).

That should tell you something about General. That's where a lot of the screaming comes from.

So General wasn't one of the original forums on this board?

General was in existence when I joined in March 2003, it just saw very little use.

[RiderSyl]

<snip everything Reppy is saying>

Mother. of. God.

[RiderSyl]

I literally cannot imagine what the NationStates forum must have been like during that clusterfuck.

[United States of Conner]

I literally cannot imagine what the NationStates forum must have been like during that clusterfuck.

Basically II on steroids. Lots of 'em.

[Luziyca]

I literally cannot imagine what the NationStates forum must have been like during that clusterfuck.

Goatse. Lots and lots of Goatse.

[Reploid Productions]

I literally cannot imagine what the NationStates forum must have been like during that clusterfuck.

A bloody mess, when you could actually access it. Which was pretty much only when the US was sleeping, because the original server got murdered pretty hardcore when the site took off well in excess of Max's expectations.

[Reploid Productions]

A bloody mess, when you could actually access it. Which was pretty much only when the US was sleeping, because the original server got murdered pretty hardcore when the site took off well in excess of Max's expectations.

Out of curiosity, did the forums use the same software (phpBB) back then?

The original-original forum before the move to Jolt was phpBB... I want to say 2? Pretty sure it was phpBB2. The original Eternal Thread alone damned near choked it to death before we had to cull it in the ongoing triage efforts to keep the forum hobbling along until the move to Jolt.

[Luziyca]

Out of curiosity, did the forums use the same software (phpBB) back then?

The original-original forum before the move to Jolt was phpBB... I want to say 2? Pretty sure it was phpBB2. The original Eternal Thread alone damned near choked it to death before we had to cull it in the ongoing triage efforts to keep the forum hobbling along until the move to Jolt.

So that was why there was no chat thread on NSG until very recently?

[Hurdegaryp]

I don't recall it ever being uncontroversial, at least on some level. It has generally been quite hostile to 'conservative' (I use the phrase loosely) positions in all their forms, but there has been considerable fire in some of the threads even outside that area.

If there ever was this hypothetical period of non-controversy, it died screaming real fast. It must not have been pretty.

[Luziyca]

I don't recall it ever being uncontroversial, at least on some level. It has generally been quite hostile to 'conservative' (I use the phrase loosely) positions in all their forms, but there has been considerable fire in some of the threads even outside that area.

If there ever was this hypothetical period of non-controversy, it died screaming real fast. It must not have been pretty.

It wasn't. I'm sure the most controversial topic in 2003 or 2004 was "Should we block 80% of New Zealand from this site to stop a Goatse spammer?"

[The Corparation]

Seeing that the General forum is near-reaching 8 million posts in its lifetime, the second-closest mark being PttM with around half that total... It occurs to me that maybe early in its infancy, or maybe more recent than that, the General forum was more discussion-oriented and less... well, constant screaming.

Am I looking for innocence that was never there?

Innocence. On NSG. That's a good one.

The original-original forum before the move to Jolt was phpBB... I want to say 2? Pretty sure it was phpBB2. The original Eternal Thread alone damned near choked it to death before we had to cull it in the ongoing triage efforts to keep the forum hobbling along until the move to Jolt.

So that was why there was no chat thread on NSG until very recently?

In my time being active on this forum (2010 - present) there has always been some form of chat thread. I mean until TET none of them were called chat threads, but the old "What have you learned today?" and "That Moment When" were in practice chat threads.

[United Dependencies]

I don't recall it ever being uncontroversial, at least on some level. It has generally been quite hostile to 'conservative' (I use the phrase loosely) positions in all their forms, but there has been considerable fire in some of the threads even outside that area.

If there ever was this hypothetical period of non-controversy, it died screaming real fast. It must not have been pretty.

I don't think we're using the same definition of controversy.

[The Corparation]

If there ever was this hypothetical period of non-controversy, it died screaming real fast. It must not have been pretty.

It wasn't. I'm sure the most controversial topic in 2003 or 2004 was "Should we block 80% of New Zealand from this site to stop a Goatse spammer?"

The legend I heard was that they blocked an entire Australian ISP for a decent amount of time.

[Luziyca]

It wasn't. I'm sure the most controversial topic in 2003 or 2004 was "Should we block 80% of New Zealand from this site to stop a Goatse spammer?"

The legend I heard was that they blocked an entire Australian ISP for a decent amount of time.

No. I'm sure it was a New Zealander ISP that covered 80% of New Zealand at the time.

[Reploid Productions]

It wasn't. I'm sure the most controversial topic in 2003 or 2004 was "Should we block 80% of New Zealand from this site to stop a Goatse spammer?"

The legend I heard was that they blocked an entire Australian ISP for a decent amount of time.

Nah, not Australia, it was the #2 ISP for New Zealand, and it took some six months of nightly goatse attacks before we could convince the boss that "Most of New Zealand" was acceptable collateral damage. Back before game mods had the power to IP ban. Fun times!