I had been thinking about drastically changing or shutting down the Stripcreator chat for a while now and the four or five dopey issues that came up last night that needed my attention while I had other work to do made me finally decide to pull the plug on it.

I liked the chat when it was lighthearted and fun but it seemed to have changed over the past while into drama central for Stripcreator. Fights, sex junk, death threats, suicide threats, floods, hack attempts and just general negative stupidity. Some of which I just found annoying, others I worried might land me in actual legal trouble if a police officer were ever to wander through.

I also noticed that a lot of the drama and bad behavior seemed to be spilling over into the rest of the site and the easiest way to put a lid on that seemed to be to kill the chat.

I may bring it back if I can figure out an easy way to control it a bit better, but it's not really a big priority. Sorry to whoever this disappoints or inconveniences.

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Fights, sex junk, death threats, suicide threats, floods, hack attempts and just general negative stupidity.

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This is a shame, because I find that there's still a lot of fun to be had there. But then again, I don't actually have to deal with any of the crap that comes up. I can just ignore it.

Perhaps we could set up an unofficial stripcreator chat somewhere, which Brad can visit or ignore as he pleases. Or program Tobor to be really, really mean to troublemakers.

I was going to ask brad about that. I can set up a server, or at least a channel on another until I can get it working. But I need to know if brad actually wants us interacting more than the forums first.

I think Strip Creator would be alot worse without IRC. The reason is since I am a newbie I got to know a lot of people better in IRC and visa versa. IRC is really one of the only ways for users on strip creator to communicate, and get to know eachother. It seems that like before IRC I knew only a few people on strip creator and werent liked by alot of people. Now that I went on IRC people seem to like me better. I think that if Brad really wants people to like eachother not only for their comics then IRC should definitly come back.

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Fights, sex junk, death threats, suicide threats, floods, hack attempts and just general negative stupidity.

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Scroe, I've done all of that except death threats and hack attempts.

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And I had only gone once! I was starting to learn how to become a better stripper, too. :(

With IRC gone, wherever will I stroll around, clucking my tongue, stroking my beard, asking, "What's to be done with this Stripcreator?"

I remember one time I just typed death threats to boorite for about 45 min. while he was afk. Oh, the memories!

I hope we can still all find a way to eet up for literati.

I am never one to admit any kind of defeat, let anyone get to me, or admit that I am wrong. But since I had to do pretty much all three this week to get my girlfriend to talk to me I may aswell change my views.

This week, my usual 5 star rating dropped to 4. I'm quite an egotist and although people may not agree with my posts, I have had nothing but positive feedback on my comics. At first I was quite shocked that I had suddenly dropped in the public rating, since I hadn't made any comics in a while. Then I heard that MaxPayne, who apparently has some kind of issue with me, had been using other donor accounts to give me a bad rating. Max is entitled to his opinion, but since he hasn't so much as slipped brad a penny, I took offense.

Why should this guy have any say on anyone's comics if he isn't willing to contribute to the site? This brought forth the issue of the mutlitple donor accounts. Now, I am not innocent in this area, I have 2 donor accounts, granted I have donated more than once to brad, but that doesn't make me better than anyone else. Someone had openend his accounts to the public and let them say what they wanted, this annoid me, and my rantings on IRC had alerted brad.

This explains the first of brad's recent complaints, the multiple voting issue.

The second and more important one stemmed from the needless fighting and bitching that was occuring on IRC.

The forums were shut down a few months ago because brad was sick of having to babysit every single thread. He eventually shut them down, then appointed a few moderators to look after the forums for him, lightening his already heavy load. This seems to work for him now and we're all greatfull.

IRC, however, is still only monitored by him, so he has to deal with every whiney piss-ass complaint (I'm including myself in this) and make sure newbies and regulars alike don't act like complete dick-holes.

This is the reason he has grown tired of IRC.

That's what makes it fun.

Ivy sad.

Ivytopia declares war on Brad until a replacement is found.

*goes to get a fresh supply of live carp*

Now, more than ever, I must definately say ...

*POOP!*

I admit I was wondering about this myself, since I'm not a big IRC regular nowadays. I lost a lot of interest in logging onto IRC when I stopped having time to chat with lots of people, and haven't really gotten the passion back since then, so there is like this whole other dimension of stripcreator that I have felt seperate from for a long time.

Strangely, my feelings aren't very hurt by the loss of the channel. I suppose that's a natural extention of feeling left out of the development of the community because I lacked the time to devote to the new, more popular method of interaction. I think my lack of exposure to the IRC channel, and as a result, my lack of closeness to the new face of SC culture also gave me less reason to post to the forums. they began to fill up with a lot of IRC in-jokes that I can't relate to, and indeed I too have seen the drama and tensions that developed elsewhere (assumedly the channel) spill over into the forums. LuminousIce, anyone? I actually DID see some of that in the channel when I was hanging out there a while back.

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You are a figment of my imagination. -- Ivy's user quote

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I once said this to eponine on IRC. Notice how little she posts anymore.

Coincidence?

Dun-dun-Daaaaaaaaaah!!!

The double voting thing was definitely a big time-wasting annoyance last night, but it really wasn't the issue that made me kill IRC.

I had noticed dcomposed and other users double voting for a while and I thought it might eventually be a problem but it hadn't freaked me out enough yet to get me to do anything about it.

Kajun mentioned to me that he heard MaxPayne used dcom's account to vote him down. I looked into it and found that he had. This opened up the bigger issue of dcomposed not just voting twice, but deciding to allow non-donors to register votes on the site, which I didn't like the idea of at all.

I took action on that right away, limiting people to one voting donor account, killing the multiple votes and also killing MaxPayne's vote.

Anyhow, that's what happened with that.

I tried IRC a few times. It didn't seem like such a much. It was like having 3 or 6 conversations all at once in an elevator.

eponine... sigh.

Where is she these days? Her comics had more funnny per letter typed than most folks.

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I tried IRC a few times. It didn't seem like such a much. It was like having 3 or 6 conversations all at once in an elevator.

eponine... sigh.

Where is she these days? Her comics had more funnny per letter typed than most folks.

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And on the subject of new unofficial Stripcreator chats, I don't like the idea. It may get me off the hook legally but I don't want it as a part of the site unless I'm running it.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm sorry for any trouble I may have contributed to the chat. Though it doesn't excuse it, I was just "returning fire" to insults tossed at me. They started on the board, and moved to IRC where they became an even bigger annoyance. I think (hope) all the grammar school idiocy has stopped completely in my case. In any case, if you ever do start up another server/channel, brad, perhaps the designation of a few IRCops would be in order?

I must have been on IRC at all the wrong times. Occasionally I got distracted away from IRC by shinier objects, but I never was annoyed or offended by it.

The SC chat was a haven for me. I mentioned once before that compared to every other chat I've been in, it was the most polite, interesting, and respectful. I spent a few years in the invisibleman chat on scifi and by the end I couldn't even open IRCle without feeling sick to my stomach. It took me a week to make the leap into the SC chat because I didn't want to deal with that crap anymore. Imagine my surprise when I found a chatroom filled with non-stupid people.

So I guess it's off IRC again for me. The only sane chatroom left on the net is gone. Guess I can go back to doing things like reading books, sorting rocks, and watching the linoleum curl rather than wasting time on frivolous things like online amusements.

Now where did I put that book on making doilies?

ivy

P.S. Yes, I do sound pessimistic, but that's pretty much my nature. And there are no decent chatrooms left on the net. If there are, they keep themselves well hidden so freaks and nuisances won't show up. I just don't have the energy to go through the whole process of getting to know a new IRC community and deal with the probation crap of people trying to decide how much of a nuisance I am.

I dunno, maybe I was in there during the wrong times, too. Fighting, bickering, squabbling are inevitable when dealing with humans. Its in their nature. It's something I would like to change, but until I change my argumentativeness in myself, it's hard to tell anyone else what to do.

But what exactly was done that made it a legal issue? Pornographic language? I mean, nobody better have been cybering in there or anything. That would be narsty. Other than that, the only thing that would have been needed for content was a warning on the IRC load-up page that says 'This content may not be suitable for people under the age of such-and-such'.

I was not always in IRC like some other people, but I went there every so often and I liked it. Usually there were one or two people around in there and I got to know a lot more people on this site. I gave people a chance on here and read their comics because of IRC, and I would not have given them that chance if their IRC personas had not interested me.

I am really, really sad to see it go. Truly. I for one would offer my meager intellect towards brainstorming a solution for this.

This kind of reminds me what it was like to graduate from high school. Sure, we'll all see each other around and stuff, in comics and things, but it won't be the same. I'm sorry that it all came to this but I understand completely. Take care everyone and I'll see you around the campus.

I'm accepting my percent of the fault. I was childish, I was disagreeable. I was on there all the freaking time, it was hard not to be annoying to someone. But I'm going to miss it. I have a lot of respect for brad, and always will. I respect his decisions because he puts up with a lot of crap from everyone, especially me. When he gets annoyed, you know it's been building up for a while, so I'm trying not to bitch, moan, and complain about this. I have no idea how hard it is for brad, I can only imagine.

I loved that channel but understand Brad's viewpoint. When you bust your ass putting up free entertainment, and sometimes it feels like all you hear about it is a bunch of shit, well, it's discouraging. Bleev it or don't, that channel was a big part of my life. Pathetic, eh? So I'm going to be giving some thought to filling the hole it's left.

I have to ultimately respect everything brad does with this site. Until censorship comes down heavy-handedly on this site, brad's idea is a haven for my creativity. I want IRC back, but I'm looking forward to everyone once again paying attention to the forums. Ever since IRC has been down, people who used to rarely post there are coming back.

It's all my fault, I know it.

/me whips himself in a dark cell

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emoting just isn't the same anymore.

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I tried IRC a few times. It didn't seem like such a much. It was like having 3 or 6 conversations all at once in an elevator.

eponine... sigh.

Where is she these days? Her comics had more funnny per letter typed than most folks.

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Same place evil_d is, I assume.

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I tried IRC a few times. It didn't seem like such a much. It was like having 3 or 6 conversations all at once in an elevator.

eponine... sigh.

Where is she these days? Her comics had more funnny per letter typed than most folks.

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Same place evil_d is, I assume.

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You mean Buttonmen.com?

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I remember one time I just typed death threats to boorite for about 45 min. while he was afk. Oh, the memories!

mAAk, please start a literati game organization thread.

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man, i want the chat back :(. maybe i was always there at the wrong times, but ive seen maybe one fight in the sc chat. and that was a stupid one that ended about 15 minutes later with us playing the porno game. and ivy's right, this is the only chat i've seen that hasn't been totally infected with lols and rofls and bbqs and complete idiots. oh well. shit happens. and this is the shittiest thing i've seen all day. and i've had a pretty bad day.

Hey, sometimes you gotta know when to quit. Maybe the best thing to do would be to be able to give people warnings and crap, like on aim, and when they have a certain number of offenses they get kicked off or are on probation or something. It seems like a lot of people enjoy irc, and maybe if specific guidelines were created stripcreator members would now pay more attention. I dunno, maybe i'm just a loser.

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Maybe the best thing to do would be to be able to give people warnings and crap, like on aim, and when they have a certain number of offenses they get kicked off or are on probation or something.

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I don't know if any of you guys saw "Equilibrium", it was a film that was out last year sometime, I personally consider it to be an under-rated classic.

Anyway, if you saw that, you'll understand the kind of crazy fascist policies that Brad would have to enforce to make sure IRC stayed (using the term very loosely) fun.

I liked the IRC chat. Yes, it was a little hairy at times, but it's served as inspiration for more than one comic (my entire "Pr0n Business" series was based on a game from there). I got to know a few of the regs and had fun. I think it ought to come back, maybe hosted on a pre-existing server so Brad doesn't have to maintain the box, just the channel?

What ever happened with IRC it was still a really good chat. I mean there was no spam no stupid "wanna see me naked click here" and all the kind of stuff that is in the Aim chat rooms. Im sure that something could be done to bring it back. And Brad just wondering what was the thing that really made you shut it down. Was there a rectent fight or something? You might of answerd this before but if you did I missed it. It seems like to all ended so sudden.

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So I'm going to be giving some thought to filling the hole it's left.

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There was no one particular issue, IRC just gradually drifted from being fun and games mixed with a few emotional outburts and arguments, to a complete catalogue of outburts and argument mixed with no fun or games.

The thing about the forums is, it's mostly opinion, you can set some simple rules and limits on what posts or threads you deem wrong for this site, some things are irrelevant or anti-social and others are just plain rude.

The thing about a live chat is you've got people's personalities on display, not just their opinions. In the forums, if someone says something disagreeable, you can delete it and it should be forgotten about, if they make a habit of posting fights or flames you can ban them.

You cannot do this with personalities, what if I logged on and I was feeling particularly depressed, say someone died or whatever shit is going on personally in my life, perhaps I log on because I have several friends on IRC and hope that chatting to them will somehow cheer me up. I enter the chat and I'm greeted by:

dcomposed: Hello Kajun, you cunting faggot
BigEvilDan: KAJUN!
boorite: hey Kajun, you mass pile of twat maggots!

Now, personally, I know these are affectionate names, but let's say I don't, or let's say it goes like this:

Kajun: Hey guys.
Chicka: How's it going?
Kajun: I think I'm going to kill myself.
Boinky33: LOL
boorite: Yay! More beer for the rest of us!

I'm certainly cynical enough to take a suicidal threat on IRC to be a joke, or at least assume it's a joke, but who knows what's going through someone elses head? What if it isn't me? What if it's some other user who would actually log on to #stripcreator as some kind of last cry for help?

Sure, these are risks that are being taken in millions of chat rooms around the world every night, brad may be worrying over nothing, but if he's worrying at all, he has justification to stop the chat.

All I know is that Howard Stern, and actually a few people I have HEARD of have talked people OUT of suicide attempts in chat rooms. I miss IRC already. It was the only way I got to talk to areallystupidguy and choadwarrior.

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I don't know if any of you guys saw "Equilibrium", it was a film that was out last year sometime, I personally consider it to be an under-rated classic.

Anyway, if you saw that, you'll understand the kind of crazy fascist policies that Brad would have to enforce to make sure IRC stayed (using the term very loosely) fun.

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All I know is that Howard Stern, and actually a few people I have HEARD of have talked people OUT of suicide attempts in chat rooms.

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Why don't you just let them commit suicide? Then you don't have to worry about their kvetching in IRC anymore.

But it they don't disconnect first they'd just be idle forever. Like boorite. OMG BOORITE'S DEAD!

by that token knxk must have commited suicide a long time ago

i died? NOT AGAIN!

DAMN PANASONIC BATTERIES!

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DAMN PANASONIC BATTERIES!

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i died? NOT AGAIN!

DAMN PANASONIC BATTERIES!

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You guys realize this was his third post, ever, right?

He doesn't post 3000000 times a night like you.

Always take suicide threats seriously.

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I'd really like to keep people's possible suicides as far away from my little hobby comic strip making website as humanly possible. Maybe if I was getting paid Howard Stern money it'd be worth it for the ratings, but I don't need to add suicide prevention counselor to my list of webmaster duties.

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