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      CommentAuthorSoupnazi
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011
     

    I’ve been reading through the archives of the Anti-shur’tugal Livejournal, and I finally came to the point I reached going backwards (I was most recently going from the very first post forward)—and yet, I haven’t seen anything about the actual site’s demise, which I believe happened sometime around 2008 (which is where I’m at). So my question: what happened to the original site? Why did it go offline?

    (Sorry if this is sort of a random topic; I don’t really have anywhere else to ask this, not having a Livejournal account.)

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      CommentAuthorFalling
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011
     
    The original creators of the website had moved on and weren't going to renew the domain name. There was some talk on the forums that someone else might pay for the domain name, but the day it expired a website squatter bought up the domain name effectively killing any chance of continuing an anti-shurtugal website.

    For the longest time the dead link was the only thing that would pop up when you googled anti-shurtugal. That effectively orphaned the Dog-Eared forum from the rest of the internet because you actually needed to know the address of the forum to find it- later on the search engine picked up the live journal and to some extent the forum.

    Thor Axegrinder, the last main contributer temporarily attached Dog-Eared forums to her own writing website. However, when Thor moved on and shut down her website, Dog-Eared was orphaned again to the point where the entire forum community is dead and gone.

    I've managed to save a bunch of the really old school articles (first gen website), but it's a shame all those articles are no longer posted anywhere's but I guess that's the way the authors want it? (I know the Epistler, didn't want any of his stuff reposted.)
    •  
      CommentAuthorSoupnazi
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011
     

    Ah, okay—thank you for the information. I was pretty late to the critique game…

  1.  
    I linked to the archived site on the Book 4 thread.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFalling
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011 edited
     
    You're welcome. Ever heard of Flame Warriors? I think I'd be the archivist- although not really for forum debates.

    I wasn't very involved in the early years- a massive lurker.

    There's another thing. I think naturally interests change, people get busy. However, I think one thing that hastened the demise of anti-shurtugal was the handling of a giant forum split. We wound up with 2 seperate forums, a lot of angry people and a couple of the original contributers never were that involved after that. I had stopped lurking for awhile, but when I came back Dog Eared had 3 tiers of forum posters based on posting numbers. This allowed the mods to see what a poster is like before they can post everywhere in the forum (or even to see parts of the forum.)

    I was never involved in the forums at the time, but from what I gather- I think the culture of criticism on anti-Shurtugal had attracted some rather combative people the forums and gotten out of control (and possibly bled into IF in active trolling.) The creators wanted to dissassociate themselves with it all. However, it really was VERY poorly handled- I'm sure Rocky and a couple others on Impish could tell you better. But the entire old forum was nuked with no possibility of copying any content from it. I don't think Way Back Machine had anything either.

    The split communities carried on in their own way, but to me this seems the beginning of the end.
    • CommentAuthorSen
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011
     

    If you want something really detailed, there’s a thread somewhere here titled: The Backstory of II. I don’t know if it addresses exactly what you’re looking for, but on page 2 of the thread, SlyShy provides something called ImpishIdea: a History. It’s quite long. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for there.

    •  
      CommentAuthorFalling
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011 edited
     
    Ah here is that thread:

    http://impishidea.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=484

    So many familiar names are mentioned there. SgtBravo. Dang, I miss having a resident military historian (albiet snarky).

    I came from the Dog-Eared strain and after the schism so I didn't see DE in a negative light as a couple in that thread. Even still, I don't know why they wouldn't just banhammer like crazy rather than abandon ship. Maybe it was too little too late. I've since come across a couple virulent forum communities where I don't even know how you'd turn things around.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSoupnazi
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011
     

    Oh, wow, thanks! I’m insanely glad I’ve missed all the drama—goodness knows I might have actually gotten involved, and I can be a huge idiot when I want to be.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2011 edited
     

    I sort of left not too long after the schism, although to be honest it was more just wandering away because I didn’t care that much any more (and I’d done some stupid stuff and just wanted to leave it all behind me). I ended up on the “old forums” side of the split (Uru’baen Forums) and yeah, I remember a lot of bitterness toward the AS staff, feeling like we got abandoned or something. So I’m kind of the opposite of you—I never really got too involved on DE, and for the short period of time thereafter when I still was on UB, I had a lot of negative feelings toward DE. (feelings that I should point out I no longer have. I just don’t really care any more. But that was how I felt at the time.)

    In retrospect, I understand why they wanted to remake the forums. It’s a large part of the reason I left, too—things were getting really vicious and nasty and poisonous, at least from certain parties. (I don’t say “certain parties” to protect them, it’s been so long I genuinely don’t remember specifics!) Dog-Eared was the attempt to tone things down and start over, but unfortunately it led to a lot of anger/bitterness. I’m not sure whether or not UB could have been saved. I feel like maybe it could’ve been, but maybe things were worse than I remember behind the scenes or something—viewing something as a casual member can be very different from viewing it as a mod/admin/long-term member.

    Anyway, the point is, I feel like that was kinda the beginning of the end of AS. Not that the specific splitting was the catalyst, but that it was indicative of the underlying problem with AS—when you have a community entirely centered around disliking something, you’re going to end up with nasty people, and you can’t live forever on anger and hatred anyway. By contrast, those things that have endured (such as II!) aren’t focused on disliking something. II is focused on liking something—specifically, liking writing. And while yes, we criticize stuff out the wazoo here, we don’t just do that, and we don’t just do it to one thing. We spread our dislike around, we’re willing to admit when we genuinely like something (or when an unliked author gets something right for once…), and we also have a lot of articles and conversations about good writing.

    I guess the important part of all that is the “can’t live on anger” part of it. Eventually, you’re going to get to the point where you just don’t care about something anymore, and then what do you do? And trying to base everything around negativity isn’t going to help either.

    EDIT: Apologies if this came out kinda ranty. Ever since I left UB, I’ve had a very strong aversion to “anti-fans” and all that. It just seems like… you can be critical of something without being nasty, and in the experiences I’ve had, the whole “anti-fan” thing went way beyond “critical” to just plain nasty. I guess I just don’t like anything that is constantly negative, you know? You’ve got to be positive about something eventually.

    •  
      CommentAuthorBlueMask
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2011
     

    swneson- yes, that’s kind of my angle. I’m much too nice to seriously hate on a book, although if it has prejudiced undertones I normally can rant a bit. It’s not that I don’t care, I just hate thinking that there’s anything that isn’t the slightest bit redeemable.
    Of course, rules are made to be broken, and I always break mine.
    This whole schism stuff is kind of interesting. It kind of reminds me of Lemony Snicket, for some reason.

    •  
      CommentAuthorFalling
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2011 edited
     
    @swenson.

    I think the anti-fandom thing is a natural reaction to something that has been overhyped. I don't know if anti-Shurtugal would've necessarily formed had the been the original admins of IF been more open to criticism. (Which all changed with Arthene and her successors.) A lot of criticisms were building up in people, but didn't really have an outlet. Of course with the imdb thing, perhaps it would've formed anyways.

    But I think you're right. While anti-fandom might bring people together in mutual dislike, I don't think it's sustainable. And certainly anti-fandom can attract some very combative people if not outright trolls. But being for something and content creation, I think are extremely important for keeping a community healthy- whether articles, book critiques, or podcasts. Both DE and DEM lacked content creation (or at least DE did after Axegrinder left) and didn't really have much to rally behind except a mutual dislike of Eragon. But eventually all the arguments have been said, so you move on or your community turns on itself.

    I posted a little in DEM, but quite frankly I don't know how Jeni, Rocky, and a couple other had the patience for it. Whereas DE just sort of dried up, DEM seemed to be distilled down to some decent people, but also some very antagonistic individuals that delighted in trolling and counter-trolling each other. Maybe its just I didn't understand what was going on, but I was seriously confused by some of the individuals in DEM.

    But yeah, holding to something postive/ creating content is much more sustainable over time.
    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2011
     

    While anti-fandom might bring people together in mutual dislike, I don’t think it’s sustainable.

    True dat.

    Eventually, you’re going to get to the point where you just don’t care about something anymore, and then what do you do? And trying to base everything around negativity isn’t going to help either.

    Also dat.

    I think the reason the LJ group has survived as long is because we’re not entirely and only about anti-fando many more, and certainly not exclusively about Paolini. We “discovered” miss Tesch, we have dissected Mr. Stanek and ‘Big Dog’ Jones, and we have even formed a related comm for discussion of our original works. And the atmosphere is rarely entirely about negativity at the LJ group, either. A lot of the time it’s about “what can we learn from this?” and “how could this have been improved?”.

    •  
      CommentAuthorClibanarius
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2011 edited
     
    bq. Dang, I miss having a resident military historian (albiet snarky).

    *Raises hand* I can fit that bill very easily.

    bq. I think the reason the LJ group has survived as long is because we’re not entirely and only about anti-fando many more, and certainly not exclusively about Paolini. We “discovered” miss Tesch, we have dissected Mr. Stanek and ‘Big Dog’ Jones, and we have even formed a related comm for discussion of our original works. And the atmosphere is rarely entirely about negativity at the LJ group, either. A lot of the time it’s about “what can we learn from this?” and “how could this have been improved?”.

    Exactly, instead of collapsing like so many others, it's managed to evolve.
    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2011
     

    Haha, yeah, even coming from my position, I must admit that IF’s… stringent policies didn’t exactly encourage open dialogue regarding the books. Likely one of the contributing factors.

    • CommentAuthorDanielle
    • CommentTimeDec 5th 2011
     

    I was on that forum for about three days. I left when my first thread got a single, very angry, response, and a PM from Axegrinder that warned me about spamming. In case you’re wondering, it was about fights between literary characters—nothing more frivolous than what was being posted at that time. It wasn’t until I left in disgust that I realized the problem: I had been using the screen name TwiLyght, which I had been using since two years before the Twilight books were published.

    •  
      CommentAuthorFalling
    • CommentTimeDec 5th 2011
     
    Axegrinder... that would have been DE not IF. Huh, funny. Because I remember Axegrinder being pretty chill. Now mind you I don't remember what the policy was for starting threads. After being on Team Liquid for so long with its stringent policy on high content op's, I'm always surprised on how different the standards are on different forums.

    But typically one can get a feel for what sort of standards a forum has and they were trying to clean up the forum discourse. But I have no idea because I'm not Axegrinder. I do know Axegrinder wasn't personally involved in the big schism.