Sluggite Zone

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The Sluggite Zone, or Sluggy.net, is the the primary hub for the Sluggy Freelance fan community.

Overview

Pete established the permanent home for his fanbase in 2000. The Sluggite Zone has had many different facets over the years, but primarily consists of a web forum where fans discuss Sluggy Freelance or whatever else comes to mind. The forums are divided into On Topic, Off Topic and RPG sub forums, which all have multiple divisions.

History

The following is the culmination of a collaborative attempt by forum going sluggites to document the history of the Sluggite Zone.

Introduction

The effort to document the history of the Sluggite Zone began in February of 2006 with a thread where people were reminiscing about the past. That thread, in turn, spawned another thread where Sluggites attempted to carve up Sluggy.net's history into distinct "ages". It was felt at the time that it would be preferable for sluggites to associate themselves with an age and its historical context as opposed to the artificial categories of "Old Timer", "Middler", and "Newbie" which were in limited usage at the time.

Each age will be divided into several subsections. A Moderators section which will contain a list of people who were or became mods during that age, a Timeline section which will consist of a list of events in best-fit chronological order, and a Notes section which contains tid bits of information felt to be important, but not belonging to any one event.

199X-2001: The 0th Age (a.k.a. The -1st Age, a.k.a Sluggy.net Pre-History)

"Well, I don't remember seeing your name on the Mailing List, so you get to sit in the young'un's camp with everyone else. ;)" --FreakyBoy, to Thyla

Moderators

Inigima/Rob, Pete, Tom Ricket, Colombo, Terry Austin, Mindcurser

Timeline

Sluggy Mailing List: Before the forums at sluggy.net became popular, the Sluggy mailing list allowed Sluggites to communicate with each other via e-mail.

Introductory Email: This is the text of the email you'd get when you first signed up for the mailing list.

"Hello, and welcome to our no-longer pathetically small (310 members at last count! Woohoo!) list of losers who have nothing better to do than read comics all day (or at least for the minute or so it takes to read Sluggy). I'm sure you'll fit right in.

If you know about this list, you probably already enjoy Sluggy Freelance. If not, check out the main site at http://www.sluggy.com!

Or possibly you hate Sluggy Freelance and joined the list to track all of us who like it so you can keep an eye on us until you're ready to drop the knife. Each to (his/her) own.

To post to this list and give us your two cents, send your post to <redacted> or go to <redacted> and log in at the Member Center. If you find yourself flooded with Sluggy mail, remember that you can receive this list in "Digest" form (cuts down on the number of messages by combining 25 or so at once). Or you can sit back like a lazy little punk and watch the rest of us make fools of ourselves. But we're all lazy little punks too, so we're probably going to do the same. If anything's gonna happen, SOMEBODY'S going to have to post something. It might as well be you.

To unsubscribe from this list, go to the <redacted> web site, at <redacted>, and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. This menu will also let you change your subscription between digest and normal mode.

Your Sluggy Moderators are:

Inigima/Rob - <redacted>

Pete Abrams - pete@sluggy.com

Tom Ricket - <redacted>

Colombo - <redacted>

Terry Austin - <redacted>

Mindcurser - <redacted>

Any questions about the list which the list itself cannot answer should be directed to one of us. Questions about the mechanics of <redacted> should be directed to myself (Rob) or, if I cannot help, <redacted>.

[Editor's note: I don't think I ever told Terry he was a moderator, so if he responds with some surprise to questions, that's why. And besides, it's much more fun to see what will happen should he get a question and not know why.]

Thanks,

- Rob, Pete & Gang"

Carried Over Traditions: The sluggy.net forums owe a lot to the mailing list. For example, Sluggy.net does not allow you to discuss Gun Control, Abortion, or Operating Systems (the 'net was different back then, OS discussions could get very violent) and the reason Sluggy.net bans these topics is because they were banned on the mailing list. Pete also used to read the mailing list, but had to stop beacuse he didn't want people to accuse him of stealing ideas from his fans. This is similar to the reactions forums at sluggy.net. There are very strict anti-speculation rules because Pete reads that part of the forum. In fact, it is the only part of the forum that Pete reads.

Prominent Mailing List Members: Drea : First member, mistress of thwarting, eternal nemesis of the fat-bottomed penguin

Paul : aka Freaky Boy, founder, sidekick, and misplacer of names beginning with "B"

Dave : Provider of Sluggy on dead trees, Debate Master #1

Katharine : Baker of cakes, destroyer of worlds

Karen : aka the Dread Suhaka, mistress of mayhem, friend of all virtual ducks

Terry : Keeper of the car keys, Debate Master #2

Tom : Maker of the nifty shirts, liason to his Niftyness

Jeffry : Underground member, White Wolf poster child

Barb : hereto known as Beth and any other B-name with four letters, synopsizer

zacman: Ziggy, man of amusing .sigs

Robin: Queen of something new every post, she of the raven hair, nemisis of Super Goth

Eviliza: who is evil, nemisis and foil of Freaky Boy

"Dave, Debatemaster #1, was David of Plan 9. Terry was a (mostly) reformed troll. The two were responsible for much of the list's longest posts. They were also the list's elder members, in terms of physical age.

A lot of the list's traffic can be gleamed from the list of members I provided. There was a lot of bantering between the "super team" - Drea and myself - and the "villain team" - Robin and Eviliza. A lot of kibitzing on that as well. Discussing the comic happened infrequently; perhaps once a week, at most.

Drea was an aspiring comic artist herself; she graced us with probably half a dozen "Super Goth" comics, many of which involved Freaky Boy, her sidekick, messing up some household chore, like washing her socks without turning them pink.

There was, at the same time as the Mailing List, a Sluggy MU*. It's not the MARE that exists now - I think it was a MUX codebase, and it was peopled by Mailing List people who were given fairly free reign to wander around doing whatever. The Dread Suhaka was (in)famous for her coded duck that lived in the hot tub and randomly harassed visitors. The fellow that set up the MU* may have been involved with the creation of the MARE - I'm not sure on that. (I also briefly worked as a contractor with Suhaka. Just FYI.)

Katharine joined the list after baking a Bun-Bun cake whose picture Pete posted on the site.

Barb became famous by summing up the content of the often long mailing list digests for those without much free time.

zacman would change his .sig every week or so, and they were always full of humourous anecdotes and quotations.

I don't really remember Jeffry, sadly."

Notes

According to the Wayback Machine, the first incarnation of the sluggy forums began in May of 2000. This wasn't the beginning of the on-line sluggite community though. There was a sluggy newsgroup (this may or may not have predated the first forum) and the mailing list which predates both.

2000-2002: The First Age

"Praise Thyla from whom all things flow. Vartinits, and Gimilets, and Rumrunners, and Vodka shooters, and Jello shots, and everynow and then a Coke. And all that sluggy.net stuff you do too. Praise Thyla from whom all things flow" --Arial

Moderators

Caesar Salad, David L. Watkins, Grace, Inspiration, Mr. Dragon, Chica, Azrael, Dirk, FearTheMullet.

Timeline

Threaded Boards: Sluggy.net's first forum, before moving to a php bulletin board. The threaded boards were unmodded, which meant it had lots and lots of tangents, super-enormous threads, sexual innuendo and role-play, and lots of really emotional political discussion.

Attack of the Troll J.Grant: Sluggites fought him off by roasting marshmallows in his flames.

Freelance Keep Founded: Freelance Keep was the precursor to the current RPG forums

Sluggy.Net moves to php boards: The boards officially got started on February 14th, 2002.

Famous Firsts: Pikey holds the distinction of making the Ultimate first post. Beating out David L. Watkins by a slim margin.However, David L. Watkins was the first to join and had the first PM.

Sluggite Auctions: "And remember back in the first age, when we had the Sluggite auctions? And there were so few women in :comparison to men at the time that the girls were ending up with huge harems of guys. I won David L. Watkins and Azrael and Krail, off the top of my head."

Blowing Up The Closet: "And blowing up the closet! One of the beta posters, Aphrodite, had a closet that she used for naughty time. One of our other posters, bloodsong, frequently made use of it. Two of our posters, Poinging Ferret and Penguin ofDeath, were dating at the time, and bloodsong put them in the closet. Then we blew it up."

Llefser's Sonnet Cycle: "Llefser started doing a sonnet cycle for all the women on the forums, starting the lines with the letters that spelled out their names. All I have saved are mine and David's (because, you see, he was the Girly Man of DOOM!)"

SheWhoMustNotBeNamed: (abbreviated SWMNBN)

"We stopped using her real name because she was straight up crazy. SWMNBN also had an ongoing crush on another poster (can't remember who it was...Pseudonym, maybe??) and an even bigger feud with the poster, Saffron who claimed her avatar was a picture of her. Llefser later found that same picture as an advertisement for a dating website. Azrael and I found the same picture in an ad in a Vietnamese restaurant in Plano."

"I actually remember and befriended SWMNBN, and stood up for her a couple of times when she pissed people off, especially when, being from a large North American country where lots of words end in vowels, she said something like "God Bless America and #$%^ the US" around when the bombs started falling on Afghanistan. They're still a bit bitter about Zachary Taylor.

Maybe my own needs to nurture and protect complemented her need for attention and blinded me, but I don't believe she struck anyone as being as deranged as she later became.

One incident I found very worrisome was in early 2002, when TobyBartels, who had been flirting with her and was at least 10 years her senior, talked her into letting him visit her. I don't know what happened, but he did visit and they didn't talk as much after that. If my suspicions are correct, it may have had a role in the girl's apparent breakdown later that year.

Thyla's Snow Globe o' Souls: Unbeknownst to most new sluggites, when you signed up for an account here (at sluggy.net), Thyla got your SOUL! Don't worry, you can get it back, if you can accumulate 6000 posts that is. Yes, if post counts are reset you have to start over. Only a handful of people succeeded. Inspiration came agonizingly close before a post count reset. Wile E has confirmed that she is in possession of the globe, but has not yet decided what to do with all of those souls.

Cid: A wily admin (gnome) who was very fond of pranks, and the father of the word replacement prank. His "title" was coined by David L. Watkins, and is a Buffy reference.

"For those who don't know, "Cid" was intended to be a mischevious spirit of the boards. He functioned as a way for Thyla, the board admin, to play jokes that would have been inappropriate for her main persona.

By the time I joined, late in the second age, Cid was rarely seen, probably because the mods now knew who he was --presumably due to Chica's detective work --and didn't appreciate his ability to flaunt the rules.

If I recall, Cid was unmasked publicly by Azrael right before he left."

FRPG and GRPG open: "FRPG, and GRPG were actually made as the result of a 40 page frpg thread that started based on the concept of taking over the world... Only it soon spread to the introduction forums where people were being recruited for which army they would be a part of. I think it had something to do with RISK.

So we got the FRPG and GRPG threads as a result, and all FRPG'ing was banned to the FRPG forum so newbie's wouldn't be frightened back into the darkness after their first post.I was a RPG Dungeon Master in GRPG for roughly... a day? Before I passed on it due to a lack of interest in enforcing a lack of chaos, I believe Morthum was a co-moderator.

First GRPG Threads: Run by David L. Watkins. Before the boards were wiped, there was a really old stickied thread in one of the RPG forums. It was kind of amusing because David had posted that he would start something new on "Monday" but he never got around to it. Sluggites were making bets when, if ever, David would make good on his promise.

Sluggy Pics: "ok, in I guess the "2nd age" of the forums, a user created SluggyPics for the users to all share pictures of themselves (after a brief stint of us all trying to use yahoo to do so.) He later abandoned the project, and I volunteered to take over. Sluggy Pics's software was an offshoot of phpbb, so I had to learn the forum software, and once I got comfortable with it, I didcided to found my own set of forums [Misc Debris], seperate from the Sluggy Forums, with a greater imphasis on my intrests (and those of the users obviously) and invited a number of my friends to participate there. Many of which were from the Sluggy boards."

Origins of Random Silliness: "a poster named Morthum started a thread in WGARS called "The Insanity Thread," where posters would just post silly gibberish about whatever happened to pop into their heads. It was quite amusing, so a second one was started shortly thereafter. I believe once the third one was started, it was locked for repetitiveness, but soon after, sometime in the Second Age, was when Random Silliness was really recognized and the one giant thread was started."

Kahzmick: Another infamous sluggite. His story is shrouded in rumors, half truths, and inside jokes. I'm sure someone knows the truth, but they're not saying anything.

Art and Soapbox Forums: Old forums that were removed. The Soapbox was a place where people could post rants, and the art forum was, well, an art forum.

Chica-lords and Booty Pirate threads:

Speculation Scandal: Someone accused Pete of stealing their ideas from a post they made in the on topic forums. After that, On Topic was split into the Reactions and SRC forums we know and love today. This is why you cannot spec in reactions, because Pete reads reactions and we don't want to go through something like this again.

"Hi, I'm Dirk!": An inside joke of sorts. ""Hi, I'm Dirk!" came about because that's all Dirk said when he welcomed people in the Introductions forum. IIRC, he was filling in for me when I went on vacation."

Departure of Chica: "Chica was a moderator and a new poster named Spark started a thread called something like "Spark's Store", a perfectly good thread for FRPG... except he started it in EVERY forum. We knew right then he'd be a problem, and in the next 3 days he racked up about 160-170ish posts (which was later matched by ZeDevilishFrenchy). Eventually, he was post-whoring so badly that Chica threatened him with banning. Thyla took great exception to this and demodded her immediately. That's why she left."

End of the First Age: "Shortly after that, without warning, the boards in their entirety were reset. All threads, posts, EVERYTHING were gone with no possibility of recovery, which was horrible due to the loss of threads like the Booty Pirates and such. Many people left because of this, and I remember very clearly all the goodbyes... and then AngrySunbird took the initiative and made an "I'm not Leaving" thread, which I think showed a lot of people that there was still a community here, and they stayed."

Notes

Caesar Salad was the first moderator, because David L. Watkins was away from his computer when Thyla invited both of them to be moderators. The above timeline section is very scrambled, assume that none of the events listed are in proper chronological order.

April 1st tradtions (Put here in honor of Cid): Lots of sluggites either use a prominent personal avatar of another member, or modify their own avatars to make it look like they are moderators or even admins. Word replacements are when an admin modifies forum code to automatically change certain words or phrases into different words or phrases. For example the term "first post" might be replaced with "dust bunny".

2002-2003: The Second Age

"Sluggy.net is like the 60s. If you remember most of it, you probably weren't there." --Various

Moderators

Llefser.

Timeline

Debate Forum and Master Debaters: (Not to be confused with Debate Masters)

"Anyway, I also remember the Master Debaters debacle. Basically, it was the original solution to the political problem, which has been replaced by POOP. Only certain people were invited there, and you pretty much had to be a good, as well as cordial, debater to be in that list. I actually enjoyed it a lot - I thought the environment was better than POOP. Whether it was because the people in it were better, or because the "you're here because you're good" feel led to people being more conscientious, I can't say.

Anyway, though, the secret got out, and the people who weren't in, naturally, were rather upset. Non-MD POOPish threads were basically getting anemic, and, of course, people not invited feel like they're being shunned. In the end, it was eliminated, and some time later, the publically visible POOP was crafted."

1,000 Post Parties Banned: A 1,000 post party was when People would start party threads to commemorate their 1,000th post. They were quite popular, but somewhat counter productive in a forum that tried to discourage using post counts as a status symbol.

Pikey's 10 Commandments/ Sin Questions: "The 10 Commandments was a wagering game wherein I put forth the question of how many commandments has Pikey broken, said wagers being for pixy sticks. (9, surprized?) The Deadly Sins was to guess my favorite of the 7, same basic set up as the commandments. I posted something to the effect of Sloth being my second fave, and this started speculation as to what was my first. In fact, this quiz may have come before the commandments - I wanna say I kicked it off with post #666... (Lust, duh)"

Link Threads: Threads dedicated to reporting goings on in the world abroad. Usually run by Weremensh, but others have been known to do their own versions.

Exquisite Corpse: Exquisite Corpse is a very long running artistic WGARS game. I won't explain how it's played here, but there is a sticky in WGARS where you can find a very excellent explanation (and sign up to play if you want.)

Filks Written: First the Sluggy Freelance and the Padlock of DOOM! Written by Squeakymewmew, and then Llefser's The Pirates of Slugzance. I think both filks were preserved on sluggy pics, but for some reason, Booty Pirates of Slugzance was lost. Sluggy Freelance and the Padlock of DOOM can be found here. (Thorog)

Karaoke: A popular game, but the rules involved doing something with song lyrics. The game was banned because the mods thought there was a risk that corporate types might get mad at us for using their copyrighted material. There were several attempts to try and get the game unbanned, but to no avail.

SkullX reaches 100 Avatars: Skullx is one of the Sluggite.Zone's most well known avatar makers. To date he has made more than 165 avatars. Traditionally, he took it upon himself to make a new avatar for new mods, but he would also make an avatar for pretty much anyone who asked him. He may still come around, but he's not as active as he used to be. You can view most of the avs he made right here.

ASB does NOT clone the Mods:Pretty self explanatory. I don't know why he keeps bringing it up really :-P.

Azrael unmasks Cid: As mentioned earlier, Cid was merely Thyla's puppet account. It was around this time that Azrael revealed that fact to the forum-going public. There is some contention as to whether or not it was Azrael or not who unmasked Cid. Several people seem to recall that he did it, but he himself does not remember doing so. The only thing we know for certain is that it definitely wasn't Grace. According to FTM Chica attempted to out Thyla as Cid, but was thwarted. Dasphios is believed to have registered the user name "Thyla is Cid" however. (Inspiration)

Thyla cracks down on drive-by posting: The boards were having trouble with people spamming threads to raise their post counts. So Thyla would periodically reset them, and eventually, removed them entirely. It should be noted however, that post counts were sometimes reinstated after new board software was installed, but they were usually removed again shortly thereafter.

"This had been a problem since the beginning of the boards, kinda brought to the forefront by a poster named Omega (a kickass Scottish dude) who, when you went into a forum, would see his name as having the last post in every single active thread. We started cracking down back then, but didn't take the harder stance until this time. "

Departure of Grace and Azrael

End of the Second Age

Notes

Once again, assume all of the events in the above timeline are out of order.

2003-2004: The Third Age

"We middlers are the finest posters around. We've been around long enough to be well-established, not like those N00bs, but we're not old, crusty and set in our ways like the Old Skoolers." --AxelFendersson

Moderators

Wile E, dotwarner, Jade Phoenix, Jugwine, Dom/SlimKop and Kitten.

Timeline

Sluggy MARE: "For a long time, when we had the old .net frontpage up, there was a mention of the SluggyMUX but no link. Being a MUDer at the time (dial-up does that to you), I asked around about it several times, but got no response. Eventually Frost approached me and asked if I wanted to help make a new SluggyMU* using the MARE codebase. I said that was great idea, and so we started making the MARE."

Sluggy.net Survivor (featuring Lobstersquash): Sluggy.Net survivor was a series of games where two teams compete against each other. The teams are slowly wittled down until there is only one person is left on each team, and ultimately, one winner. The winner was given a choice between several things, including a title. The first one was won by Juggernaut Penguin.

phpnuke: The boards, which were up until this point a simple php bulletin board, are migrated to phpnuke, a php based community management system. The old archive of posts was migrated to the new board, but post counts were not saved...

Negative Post Counts (And Parties?): After the migration of the old archive, the powers that be decided to purge the RPG forums. At the time, the RPG forums did not auto-prune old threads like the rest of the forums so all the RPG threads had to be manually deleted. Due to a quirk in the board software, auto-pruned threads have no effect on post counts, but threads manually deleted by mods DO affect post counts. So after the migration, post counts were reset, and a lot of RPG threads had to be manually deleted which caused a lot of RPG regulars to have HUGE negative post counts.

Weekly Random Silliness: RS threads were now opened once a week, as opposed to being one huge thread.

WGARS Revolution/Counter-Revolution: Two factions one led by the newly elected mod, and self-styled Queen of Blade-err WGARS, dotwarner and the other led by the noble Skullx. This was at least one of the earliest battle threads, if not the first. In the aftermath, Skullx and Plangkye (who had fought on Dot's side) faced off in an avatar making contest. They each made one avatar for five volunteers. The winners of course were those for whom the avatars were made :-).

Themed Random Silliness: Another innovation of the Queen, Some RS threads were given themes to make them a tad more coherent and less spammy. They fell out of style, but were later tried again in an attempt to breathe new life into RS after it had been phased out.

Sluggy Squad: A chat community based around the comic that was started by Squeakymewmew. Squad had humble beginnings on AIM before finding a permanent home on IRC.

WGARS Decathlon: A game run by BLAMM!, this was similar to Sluggy.Net survivor, except sluggites competed as individuals, rather then as a team. Sadly, BLAMM! did not finish running it.

Mod History Thread: This was a thread that started out in Important Threads, but was immediately locked so the mods could post to it uninterrupted. The then proceeded to write a rather bizzare "history" for themselves. How they met eachother and stuff like that. It was all posted in colored text to boot. I can only assume copious amounts of alcohol were involved. But then again, where Sluggy.net mods are concerned, when ISN'T that the case?

Sluggy.Net Survivor 2: Won by quesoLoco27

Werewolves: A game which was first started in WGARS by Sorceress. It is very similar to the game Mafia, but with a werewolf theme. Several other people ran version of the game in F/GRPG as well. "I was also the second runner of the werewolves game. I took it over after it was locked for the 3rd time in WGARS, and moved it into frpg, where it appears to still have a home. During that time lots of new roles were added, including the false seer and asassin, plus I was Baron Von Goose and thats always cool."

Klepto's Pirate Invasion: Klepto-Man led a band of sluggites who planned and launched an "invasion" of Sluggy.Net wherein threads were hijacked, pants (and wallets, I assume) were stolen, and RS was pushed to 15 pages.

WBUN founded: An internet radio station for Sluggites, founded by SqueakyMewMew. Currently, it is no longer running. But Woozle, a member of Sluggysquad, may restart it at some point in the future.

The Great GC parody: A thread started by Anaea in WGARS that parodied the quirks and foibles of the GC regulars at the time. One of the gags was that dotwarner was killed because the sky fell.

Misc Debris Implodes

Cult of the Parrot: The first WGARS cult. It sprang up around Anaea, who is a parrot (by virtue of always having a parrot in her avatar) and nothing will convince us otherwise.

Battle threads: Usually a WGARS staple, sometimes kicked over to FRPG, where they died most of the time. This once led to a lot of animosity between battle threaders and Kullervo. These threads usually have one main villain whose goal is to conquer WGARS or "WGARSia" as it is sometimes referred.

"Yes, I was controlling the Trump-Bot. It was the creation of a mad scientists from the Church of Akilinos that got out of control. Crake eventually destroyed it with a post of questionable legality.

The Church of Akilinos was a remnent of the Idolatry game, created by Kullervo. The idea was that a few people would create religions and the rest of the players would pledge allegence to these religions and try and convert their followers (of course, this quickly devolved into a religious war themed fight thread). At the end, a vote was held to determine who would become sluggy.net's dominant religion. By popular vote, the Great Sky Basset/Church of Akilinos (science) block, run by Gojira and myself, respectively, won."

Battle Thread Chronology: (Based on the history of WGARSia, not the order in which they happened on the boards)

"K-Bob's Time Travelling Battlethread (The 1,000 Battlethread Bonanza)

The Sluggy Fanfic to end all sluggy Fanfic (Capture of Lady Dot)

Robin Hood and the Silly Sluggites (A RS thread in which I played Evil Sheriff of Rottenham, also I think it was the first time I use Sparkling Bishis as Minions. X-Roads Evil Battlethread (when My evil clone took over and where K-Bob got so many Wizz-Bangs... The thief :P The Giant Robot War of DOOM (technically the second one, but the first one isn't really worth mentioning) Invasion of Donald TrumBot (not sure how many people remember this, but The Trumpbot conquered WGARSia in a ruthless corporate take over and actually tried a hostile takeover of the CCC Tower. Arial Airship Attack Battlethread I didn't really conquer WGARSia in this one, just kinda muscled in a bit. This one really got out of hand and actually slipped into Seriousness a bit, at which point everyone gave up and threw a pizza party on page 10."

WGARS Olympics: WGARS very own version of the Olympics, complete with it's own Opening Ceremonies.

April Fools Bonanza: Chaos engulfs the Sluggite Zone. Along with most of the regular April 1st traditions, there were several major pranks pulled on the general membership. The most famous prank was probably the "Mod for a Day" contest, where the first few people to post to a thread got to be a moderator. The "winners" were all new members, and were later revealed to be puppet accounts of current moderators. There was also several Cid-like word replacement pranks. In the aftermath of the April 1st festivities, there were several contests related to the pranks. One contest was to try and figure out which puppet account belonged to which moderator. Another contest was to see who could figure out all of the word replacements. Kullervo won at least one of the competitions, and was supposed to get a title, but sadly (for us, anyway :-P), he never got to receive his prize.

Book of Sluggy: This was a thread where people had assumed that sometime in the distant future, the archives of sluggy freelance would be found and a religion would spring up around them. People posted the main tenants, and excerpts from the holy books of this religion. It began in SRC I believe and was moved over to Important Threads when it hit the ol' padlock. This thread was preserved in Important Threads until the Boards were reset.

Kitoba vs. Raahul da man (RDM) Debate: I believe their topic was whether religion had saved or killed more people in the history of the United States, or possibly the world, something like that. "If memory serves me, RDM was trying to prove that Christianity makes people more immoral. I let him pick his own thesis which turned out to be a good idea, because he definitely didn't make things easy on himself with that one. "

Non-Fanficcy Sluggite Story to End All Sluggite Stories: Sort of a battle thread, except it was all narrated by the sluggites, about the sluggites, for the sluggites [/Lincoln]. It mostly had a sword and sorcery type setting, with sprinklings of sci-fi and pop culture references. This thread was preserved in Important Threads for a little while. Dodger77 saved a copy of this thread shortly before the phpnuke CMS was abandoned.

Departure of RDM and JuggernautPenguin: RDM was sort of a controversial figure. He could be quite insensitive towards others and their beliefs, but mostly to their beliefs. Some people accused him of being a troll, and Thyla was considering banning him. Both he and Juggernaut Penguin (the two eventually got married (Thorog)) left voluntarily. The Don't Be a Jerk rules in the Community Standards were added in part because of his behavior.

"Older posters will remember me as raahul_da_man's closest friend on the boards, though today a good title might be "Bride of Raahul." ; ) We both left around the same time... I think some people were saying he "took me with," so for the record, I'll explain how it was actually the opposite.

RDM and I were both in a semi-lurker state at the time. He had recently debated kitoba, but didn't check the boards much, only on the weekends. He was actually blissfully unaware one week of the debate going on about community standards and him in particular. As for me, RDM's debate had only contributed to my feeling of being worn out on the boards. I'd been slowly posting less over time already, and when he'd ask me for feedback or contributions during his debate, my heart just wasn't in it. And both of us were more concerned with the real-life issues of how we would work out our long-distance relationship. I was, however, looking forward to my own debate with kitoba. The idea of having a personal arena where I was guaranteed attention and response to my own posts was quite appealing at the time, since I'd been feeling rather ignored by the boards at large.

But barely after our debate had started, I found not only the community standards debate, but the Livejournal rampage going on behind the scenes. Most specifically, it was when I found Llefser's own LJ entry, titled "Raahul da man is a stupid (farking) troll" that it all just snapped. That was IT. No more boards, no dramatic goodbye, no bothering to even finish the debate first, just BAM, screw you guys, I'm going home. I cut off the debate with a goodbye post that not everyone even realized was my goodbye post, and never posted again until now. I told RDM about it afterwards and he decided he might as well leave too.'"

Community Standards Amended: The "Don't be a Jerk" rule is added, and a stricter policy for dealing with CS violators is spelled out.

TheNewAuk leaves: TheNewAuk( frequently shortened TNA), was a poster famous for posting long, almost rantish, posts in RS threads. People generally use the term "angsty" to describe him. His posts were always an interesting read though, if you had the time that is :-), Officially, he left the boards, but he occasionally pops in from time to time. He does have a habit of deleting his posts though.

Departure of Squeakymewmew

End of the Third Age

Notes

Originally, the sluggites considered naming each age. For example, "Age of Karaoke" for the Second Age, "Golden Age of WGARS" for the Third Age, etc. However, this idea proved to be unpopular.

2005-2006: The Fourth Age

"I dunno, nothing in POOP seems to count. I don't even think anything that happens there is canon. Nobody gives a crap about POOP. *sniff*" --Kea

Moderators

drummer_dude, Kullervo.

Timeline

Weekly Random Silliness is Phased Out: Sluggites had noticed that the mods had stopped opening up RS threads. (Any RS thread started by a non-mod was locked). It was announced that weekly RS threads would no longer be opened because RS was spammy and boring, despite several attempts to keep it fresh. They still occasionally open them up, but only for special occasions.

Summer of Sluggy Wiki: A wiki dedicated to The Comic. There was quite a bit of activity when it first started.

Lovecraft Alphabet: A thread started in WGARS where people wrote small poetic stanzas about people/places/things in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos in the style of a alphabet book (i.e A is for... and B is for... etc). The thread while short, was quite amusing, and preserved in Important Threads before the boards were wiped clean.

Kingdom of Loathing Clan: KoL was an online RPG, spoofing the genre of online RPGS. Several Sluggites joined up and started a clan. "I was the one who introduced the boards to Kingdom of Loathing and ran the clan for a bit before getting bored of it and leaving."

Plangkye's RS Thread: An RS thread started by Plangkye that was NOT locked. OMG! (A feat later repeated by Crossroads Inc. I guess they're just better than the rest of us ;-)

TWR Spec Threads: Massive threads dedicated to figuring out the story before Pete revealed it!

PDLR and Jiznohnson (a.k.a. The KFC guys) Return: Pimp de la Resident and Jiznohnson are two people who come around every once in a blue moon and start a thread in GC where they talk like rappers. This time PDLR announced his intention to run for president with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken as his running mate (Kullervo). Some people think it's hilarious, some are confused, and some just translate their posts in to normal (although usually somewhat formal) English. In my memory, they showed up twice, although this was the last time they were here. Here are some sample quotes courtesy of the WayBack Machine:

"China could bring its game, and i'd give 'em the only man-made pimpslap visible from space. Suckaz."

"Would you consider deploying your new pimpslap techniques against North Korea or Al Qaeda? Would these be unilateral or multilateral pimpslaps? "

"It'll be tha viznice-priznesidential debates, and these chump suckaz in suits be all: "What is the C.O.P.s position on prostitution laws?" an mah bucket a chickin be sitting there like: "Hoopty-hoop, ah be EXTRA LARGE, bishes! Debate THAT!" Sheeeeit, how coudl we NOT lose?"

" Last I heard, all da telephone poles in a 2 block radius fell ova an da underground lines spiznontaneously done combusted."

Founding of POOP: At first POOP was a temporary forum to accomidate the large number of political threads that sprang up as a result of the U.S Presidential Election. Due to popular demand, the temp forum became permanent and thanks to Wile E, was renamed POOP!

Boards Wiped: A bitter sweet event. Sweet in that sluggy.net could finally leave the horrible nuke software behind, but bitter because some cool threads were lost. There was talk of restoring the archives at a later date, but there has been no word on that, and it does not seem likely to happen in the near future.

Attack of the Script Kiddie: Sluggy.Net was hacked by a script kiddie who really didn't know what he was getting in to. He tried impersonationg Pete and was saying that he was going to stop writing Sluggy Freelance, amongst other things. There is a thread in S&C filled with poetry commemorating the event.

"Kahzmick's" April 1st Cameo: It wasn't (but at the same time was) actually Kahzmick. [See what we mean about him?]

Squeakymewmew Takes Control of Sluggy Pics: The change over actually occured April 1st, but as Naraht says, you can't really announce things like that on April 1st.

Minor Reset: There was a minor reset in June of 2005, which caused a loss of a few days worth of posts. This minor reset ended the brown default color scheme and reinstated subsilver as the sluggy.net default colors.

Hosts: Hosts were supposed to be sluggites who would help the mods, but not actually be moderators. Sadly, the Host system is still un implemented. The nominations were fun though, because Kahzmick (Probably, another gag, but you never know...) applied to be a Host.

Cult of the Eggo: A cult that sprang up around Waffle. I believe the cause was his description of how he messed with door-to-door evangelizers. "Yes, that's how it started. I've still got the post and its follow ups. Poing started it, describing a friend's difficulties with Jehova's Witnesses, then announcing I was her new god. fthg42 seconded it. Crake announced he was joining the Cult of Ego to 'learn how to baffle people with physics'. kaclickpoing renamed it the Cult of Eggo and declared he would join if Judaism doesn't pan out."

iBandwagon: The most recent large scale avatar bandwagon. In fact it is generally considered the largest bandwagon ever. Entire pages were filled with people who were a part of the bandwagon. The bandwagon was started by gregnier.

Best DB thread *ever*: "3 pages past the limit? on a banned topic???? GOOD GRAVY MAN!!!! STOP THE INSANITY!!!!!"

POOP Thread on Religion: Reached 40 (!!!) pages.

Short handed mods: Wile E, dotwarner, drummer_dude and Dom/SlimKop promoted to Senior Community Staff so that they could moderate boards which they did not have official access to.

Departure of Thyla: "[The massive Religion Thread and Thyla's departure] are pretty much related. Thyla was not around much and at the time she was the only one able to moderate POOP. "

End of the Fourth age.

Notes

Avatars (Put here in honor of the iAvatar bandwagon): Avatars are used for a variety of different reasons. Some people become very fond of one avatar and never change. Then again, some people are known to change very frequently. Some people use multiple avatars with a distinct running theme between all or most of them. Some people take pride in NOT having an avatar. Some times people change their avatar to something that is related to a game they're running/playing in F/GRPG.

2006-2008: The Fifth Age

"By appointment of me, and ratification of our Benevolent Dictator For Life, Pete, Wile E is hereby promoted to Community Manager. This means she'll be keeping things running a little tighter, as Thyla's attentions are elsewhere and I don't do the whole 'forums' thing. And anyone who gives her trouble will find their entire netblock banned from sluggy.com" --rit

Moderators

Kaintukee_Bob, Kea, Gregnier, Weremensh, AxelFendersson, SaveTheGreyHounds, angrysunbird

Timeline

Promotion of Wile E to Community Manager: Pretty self-explanatory.

Avatar Drought: For quite sometime avatars were completely disabled. Avatars were eventually re-instated, but loading an image directly from your hard drive is now no longer allowed. Duration: May-August of 2006.

Spam-vasion: (Non-Silent) Spam seems to be occurring with alarming frequency nowadays. Thank God for the Mods! "We had a lot of silent spammers before I was promoted, one of my first things to do was delete them. I could have cleaned out their profiles and left them but I didn't feel we needed to pad our numbers and I really hated all those jjjkkkllufhhh type names."

Departure of Kitoba: (He ended up coming back to Sluggy.Net, but the thread is still a good read ;-)

Community Standards Updated: "The most recent CS update was in the works for a while and the additions detailing trolling were more due to the other poster, although trolling always fell under the Don't Be A Jerk rule. "

STUDMUFFIN banned: Notable in that it was the first time a ban was publically announced.

Sluggy.Net Tournament Threads: Tournament threads attempt to determine the best [something]. The first stage in a tournament thread is to take nominations. Then people vote to eliminate and sustain the nominations. The last one standing is declared the winner, and therefore the best. (Voting rules vary. I don't think any tournament thread used an identical set of rules) Best Band Artis: Louis Armstrong Best Movie: Casablanca Best Book: Farenheit 451 Best Sluggy Strip: November 21, 2004.

Sluggy Freelance 10th Anniversary Celebration! A thread commemorating Sluggy Freelance's 10th Anniversary.

Thylas Word Replacement: A WR was discovered that changes the name of the designated despot to the phrase "I seem to have misplaced my pants!" Coinciding with this WR was the revelation that discussing her current whereabouts was a banned topic.

Spamvasion Ends: Sluggy.Net recieves new anti-spammer modifications which effectively puts an end to the spamvasion. Hooray!

Avatar Size Increase: The allowable size of avatars increases from 10 kb to 40 kb.

New Comic Search Engine: David Rhodes needs you! To help transcribe sluggy comics.

Inspiration and Kea are promoted to Senior Community Staff.

Project Emergency Pants Sub forum Closed: The Project Emergency Pants sub forum was opened by rit for no immediately discernible reason. There were a couple of cryptic threads, but toher. All posts within the sub forum were removed in or around July 24, 2008.

Niftypedia: It replaces the long lost SluggyWiki of 2004.

Forums Upgraded: The new default skin puts avatars on the right. New posters must prove they are not spammers in introductions before they gain access to the rest of the boards. To prevent the task of human approval for new posters from overwhelming the mods, a new group, The Gatekeepers of Niftiness, was created. The Gatekeepers have the power to grant a new poster full posting rights.

Notes

Bans for non-spammers are not used frequently, but there has been a few full and near bans over the years.

Regarding bans:

"... [T]here was another poster going through the warning process who outed himself as a troll and was banned. No point in finishing the warning process at that point. There were a couple other posters banned before I became admin and I can't say for sure if it was before or after the Community Standards. The only thing noteworthy about Studmuffin's ban was that it was announced. I believe MagKnightX was only banned from POOP. K'Z'K was a problem for a while but I believe he left of his own accord and was not actually banned. Or, they were both actually banned and the bans were lost with the board move/reset or were only temporary, however I think Thyla did keep a few IP bans intact so I think she would have rebanned them if they were indeed perma-banned at one point."

2009-Present: The Sixth Age

"I don't miss anybody. Partly because I'm new here, but mostly because I hate all of you." -- Grillick

Moderators

Zillatain

Timeline

Werewolf Resurgence: quesoLOCO27 revives the Werewolf games in FRPG. A spinoff (hosted by AlternateTorg) was also started, which takes place in Feudal Japan.

April Fools 2009: Similar to April Fools 2004, but somewhat smaller in scope. The primary prank was making Llefser WGARS mod for a day. He changed the title of every thread on WGARS' first page (including the global announcements) as well as edited lots of posts. Special guest appearances from Artery and Kahzmick. Furthermore, there were three word replacements: "the" became "teh", "Pete" became "PeTe isAwSumM!!1!" "complaint" became "hairy back" and "moderators" became "My moderators breath smells like cat food." The word replacements caused some controversy with the RPG regulars because replacing the with teh was such a common replacement, and they felt it made posts unreadable.

Sluggy launches its new site upgrade: There was a brief beta test period shortly before the upgrades went live. Those who participated in the beta test were granted the rank, "Member of the Fraternal Order of the Emergency Pants."

Return of Tournament Threads: Funniest Movie: The Princess Bride Best Sci-Fi Movie: The Day The Earth Stood Still

Year of Random Silliness: A Random Silliness thread takes an entire year to get to 10 pages.

End of Sluggy Pics: Squeakymewmew announces that at the end of 2010 she will discontinue hosting sluggy pics.

Notes

Unlike the other Ages, the Sluggites coudln't really pinpoint one event that felt like the definitive barrier between the fifth and sixth ages. It was felt, however, that the fifth age was indeed over.

External Links

The Sluggite Zone

Sluggy Pics

Inspiration's Magic Cards

Magic Cards at SluggyPics

Sluggy NiftySearch