BackSet

BackSet

The Great Thief Yatagarasu! From Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141
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  • BackSet
    • Law of the Quicksilver Camwhore:
      • On forums with dedicated user photo threads, the sooner a new user posts a photo of themselves, the sooner they will leave forever.
      • First Corollary: If you see a post in such a thread made by someone with a post count of less than one hundred, chances are that you've just about seen the last of them.
      • Second Corollary: Users whose avatars are self-portraits will either be the first ones gone, or go on to become the worst and most persistent kind of attention whore.
    BackSet
    • Moot's Law: As an online community grows in age and size, the odds of the administrator, moderators, or site's founder being called a [bad slang word for gay person] approaches one.
    View previous comments…
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    Spaces, punctuation of all sorts, alternate spellings... we've seen lots of variations, none of which are permitted. :P (The list of disallowed words is a short one, but trying to evade the filter will get the poster in trouble even if it works.)
    BackSet
    BackSet
    Doesn't mean people won't do it.
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    So true.
    BackSet
    Undying Horse Rule:
    • Any conversation an a public forum which has reached a resolution (questions answered, miscommunication or misunderstanding cleared up, etc.) but not locked by a mod will still continue for at least one further page by bystanders rehashing previously made statements thinking they have something new to contribute.
    • First Corollary: As the number of members on the forum and the length of the original conversation increases, the odds of this undead horse conversation recursively spawning yet another one asymptotically approaches 1.
    BackSet
    BackSet
    • Second Corollary: If a clarifying question receives a clear answer, at least 2 other people will still proceed to ask the exact same question again.
    • Third Corollary: If someone uses an argument that has already been disputed earlier in the thread and someone else uses the same dispute, the former will accuse the latter of steering the argument in circles, even if he himself didn't contribute anything new in the argument.
    BackSet
    Undying Argument Rule:
    • In a forum about something which is very divisive that splits the community, the argument will never die once and instead will be brought back to life every once in a while, unless the forum explicitly bans this topic of discussion.
    • Corollary: This law covers topics such as AK-47 versus M-16, Beer versus Wine, Privatization versus Socialization, Ford versus Chevy, Rock versus Rap, Metal Band versus Metal Band, new Doctor Who versus old Doctor Who, Joel versus Mike, Kirk versus Picard, etc.
    BackSet
    BackSet
    • Don't Touch That Button Corollary: The more often the mods remind members not to start or respond to these discussions, the more often members will.
    • No Escape Corollary: If a new forum is developed in (or even next to) a fandom that includes one or more such "religious issues", these arguments will spread to the new forum despite being completely valueless. In extreme cases, they may migrate mid-argument!
    BackSet
    • The Litmus of Utter Simplicity: In a thread devoted to a work or genre of fiction, CTRL+F for the words "simply" and "utter". If both appear on the same page, then a significant portion of the user-base believes all the characters, insane evil clowns and impulsive twelve-year-olds included, should employ flawless strategy at all times. Ignore them if you want to enjoy anything.
    BackSet
    • The Law of Unbreakable Stereotyping: As the fandom of a widely popular show continues to exist, the odds of someone accusing the show of being completely generic approaches 1. For example, the longer My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic remains popular, the more inevitable it becomes that someone will label the show as "just another children's show".
    BackSet
    • Memetic Bash Law: In unmoderated forums, whatever is the newest and most popular will be mercilessly bashed at every possible opportunity, such as Justin Bieber. You will see comments like: "This is real music, unlike Justin Bieber". Alternatively, people will start complaining about people doing this, even if nobody has yet, managing to be just as annoying as the original complainers.
      • Bashing Bandwagon Corollary: At least half of the participants will not have heard the target being bashed, and at least a quarter would not have heard of the target were it not for the relentless bashing.
    BackSet
    • Inherent Savagery Postulate:
      • When a previously unregulated community starts enforcing positive posts, this means it has begun its decline. If it elects to enforce negativity instead, it can burn like a merry hell-pit for years on end.
    BackSet
    • Law of Inverse Enforcement:
      • The more a community complains about the rules imposed by the site, the more vehemently they will insist everyone adheres to their informal rules.
      • Legal Corollary: Any community whose purpose is inherently illegal (ie- file sharing) will border on totalitarianism with regards to enforcing its own rules.
    BackSet
    • Forum Creator Existence: If the person who created the forum leaves and gives the position to someone else, most of the time the forum will become inactive, end up closing or become a spam filled wasteland filled with trolls and flame wars.
    BackSet
    • Anchor Law: A forum has to be founded for a reason. It could be for people who live in your general area, Joseph Merrick enthusiasts, or even rebellion from an already-popular forum. It could be, and most often is, one tiny subforum that people drift away from as they become seasoned users. But if one founds a forum for people to talk about anything and everything, it will be lucky to last a month.
      • Forums attached to popular sites will usually have dozens of subforums for every interest under the sun. Most of them will remain empty because users will have participated in the same discussions on other forums and will not feel like repeating everything they said on each and every site they join.
      • Also, expect that when this type of forum stays open for a long time, 90% of the posts in any given category will be troll posts.
    BackSet
    The Unfortunate Law of Wiki Humor:
    • On a publically editable site, if a joke is absolutely perfect in every way, it will inevitably be outright removed, or edited into an imperfect joke. The only way to prevent this phenomenon is to lock the page.
    • The more prominent a joke is (at the very top of a popular page, for example), the more likely someone will read the joke and simply not get it, compelling them to replace it with their own which they think is actually funny.
    • Some users may like the joke too much and add more of the same making the joke less sharp and snappy. This repeats until the joke is finally driven into the mud and promptly killed by another user.
    • It is also likely to be read by a cranky admin or user who believes the site is "Serious Business", and will be removed on the basis that humor is inappropriate for that particular page.
    BackSet
    BackSet
    • The more awesome a joke is, the more likely it appeals specifically to a particular sense of humor, and so the more likely it will bother or offend someone who does not share that sense of humor.
    • It is also likely that someone will like the joke but will find it too cryptic, and will remove its subtlety, which will lead to the evoking of the previous points by users who previously did not notice the joke there.
    • It is also common that the users could simply grow bored with the joke, in all its perfection, and simply change it to something they find more fresh.
    BackSet
    Smile! But Not Too Much!: In any forum that has emoticons beyond the default ones provided by the site, they will usually be:
    • rips or custom sprites made specifically for the series
    • recolors or restyles of the defaults to either fit the theme or provide a new set
    • random animations or sprites found on the internet that may or may not have been stolen from a nearby adoptable site
    • in-jokes that seem nonsensical to the newbie, which every user is expected to get no matter how recently they signed up.
    • may sometimes include animations seen hundreds of times on several other videos, websites and so forth that may be so big it's pretty clear they weren't meant to be smileys.
    View previous comments…
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    We have custom smileys ^;3^
    BackSet
    BackSet
    I once showed them to some friends on another site (I copy and pasted them because I couldn't think of a good reaction) and they dissed them.
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    Boo >.> Silly people.
    BackSet
    • April First Is The Worst Law:
      • Webmasters tend to love April Fools' Day much, much more than the average user. Average users tend to get exceptionally bitter, even to the point of death threats, over online April Fools pranks.
      • Corollary: Any news article or announcement released within a week of April 1st will be met with extreme skepticism, lest it be yet another April Fool's Day prank.
      • Second Corollary: As the number of users posting April Fool's Day jokes increases, so does the number of moderator retaliations. Naturally, mods and admins posting their own jokes are exempt from this.
      • Third Corollary: None of this will be cleaned up on April 2nd, and forum searches will be disproportionately likely to dig up joke threads.
    This is a callout post for Bulbagarden.
    BackSet
    • The Nostalgia Filter Theory: Chances are, if a thread is started about some sort of media made after the average forum member's childhood, it will eventually devolve into, "Back in the day we had real shows, not this crap they have now." The same philosophy will always be applied to any news story. If there is a story about youth doing something bad and the average age is over 20, expect half the posts to be "All I did when I was little was play Pokemon and watch Power Rangers.
    This is because, due to working soul sucking jobs to pay off college debt, you are incapable of actually enjoying things anymore.
    BackSet
    • The "Get Off My Lawn" Rule: The older the average age of the forum members, the more likely it is that any young person (i.e under the age of 25) will not be able to comment on anything without being dismissed as a "noob" or a "youngster".
    This is an old person callout post.
    BackSet
    • The Justice Rust Theory: The smaller the userbase of a forum, the less the board's nonstandard special features (reputation, merits, etc) will be used.
    BackSet
    • Signature Decay: As a user gets older (and hopefully more mature), the amount of images, titles and quotes in their signature and profile will decrease.
    So, should I feel complemented or insulted.
    LegoLad659
    LegoLad659
    Yes.
    Kaerri
    Kaerri
    I don't think mine has changed since I got here except when I added links for site stuff after becoming staff >.>
    BackSet
    • Second Law of Forum Necromancy: If a poster decides to start a new topic with the same subject rather than dig up an old topic, the first response will typically be a link to the old thread and/or an exhortation to "use the search button". Also see the Search Button Paradox rule.
    BackSet
    • First Law of Forum Necromancy: 50% of attempts at Thread Necromancywill result in a stillborn topic that sinks to the bottom of the forum like a lead stone. The other 50% usually reignite the Flame War that killed the topic the last time. Either way, the chances of rekindling a meaningful discussion from a raised thread are very slim.
    BackSet
    • Thread Resuscitation Rule: If a thread has more than two replies in a row by the same poster (and it's not a double post or posted within a couple of hours of each other), then the topic is officially dead, and no amount of bumping can revive it. It's best to abandon it to the graveyard of the forum archives.
    BackSet
    • Corollary to Blakeyrat's Law: During the discussion of ad-blockers, somebody will invariably reply, "oh, this site has ads? I've never seen them", in the most condescending way possible.
    BackSet
    • Blakeyrat's Law: Any discussion of an ad will quickly devolve into a discussion of the use and/or morality of ad-blockers.
    BackSet
    Hell Hath No Trollbait: Never complain that a person has just callously spoiled a plotline where novices can see it. Trolls will flock in from all the forum, unleashing several missile salvos' worth of game-changing spoilers for everything from Citizen Kane to the eighth Harry Potter book.
    • First Corollary: Most of these spoilers will be true.
    • Application Paradox: Unless you are deliberately doing this in order to invoke the effect and get the entire plot for free. In that c
    BackSet
    • The "Information Wants to be Free" Paradox: On the official forums for any work, the harder the staff tries to censor spoilers and/or secrets, the easier it will be to find the same information on a fansite.
      • This is a corollary to the Streisand Effect, a law of the internet which states that the more effort is put into removing information from the internet, the more attention is called to that information, and the further it will spread.
      • Corollary: The most efficient way to keep a spoiler or secret hidden is to just ask nicely once, within the spoilery section of the work itself if possible.
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