What is it about this forum that attracts so many lunatics?

[SignOfZeta]

I'm not sure how many posts I've started in the Chit Chat section. Possibly none. I prefer to stick to the games, mainly. You guys are better at that. This is a serious question though, and I guess PCEFX people are the only ones who will want to talk about it. Why is it this forum has so many crazy people on it?

Every few months or so, when the sign up approvals go through, we get a batch of new people. You get, maybe one normal guy, and the rest of them are people wanting to dump US games us at eBay prices, crazy people, and 4 guys from New Jersey who are actually all Nintenga 16, or whatever the f*ck his name is.

After a few weeks...the craziness of these people comes out. They start threatening physical violence, they scam some people, they attempt to scam some people, they are furies, or, usually, just MASSIVE attention whores that inevitably start a thread explaining why they are leaving, but then never do, until they are eventually banned. Then they come back when the new accounts are approved.

Its really f*cking weird, IMO. Are the NES forums like this? I mean, Neo-geo.com is full of The Drama, but I don't quite see the constant flow of new people who %80 of the time just turn out to be complete nut jobs. a$$holes, wannabe players, sure, but not so f*cked up that Michael Helgeson is normal by comparison.

Theories?

One thing I've noticed is that the regulars, the guys that have been here of years, are pretty normal...or at least they can put up a pretty good front. Its the new people who are cuckoo in the cocoanut.

[HercTNT]

I think it also depends on your definition of normal. Every forum I have been in has its drama. Some people just want to take advantage of what the forum has to offer, but may not be dedicated to the forums theme.  Some just want to find new people to argue with. Others are curious weekend warriors dropping in from time to time.  Except for the ones that just wanna watch the world burn, everyone should be welcome regardless of their level of dedication.  With the exception of the last two weeks craziness, I would have to disagree with your assessment of recent sign ups. Most I have seen have been polite, and a few have held raffles. Why your letting a few rotten eggs marginalize the rest of us i'm not sure. Thats your opinion and your entitled to it, but i see alot of good stuff going on.
Please don't take my post personally, you asked a question and I gave my opinion. I can also see how the recent flame wars and the fact you have been here much longer than me would influence your point of view. You have seniority over me due to your time here and I respect that. I just think that the number of good things going on and good people coming in outweigh a handful of crap now and then.

[blueraven]

Having one repeat troll of this magnitude certainly puts things in perspective. From my experience, other forums dedicated to consoles (with the massive exception of neo-geo.com) have been anywhere from relatively lightweight like sega-16 to downright stupid like risingstuff.com. The funny thing is, there are trolls everywhere, but I haven't seen a situation other than Ninny comes by with a repeat vendetta against the same members over and over again. It's the same rinse cycle over and over again. The other forums, I guess have spats where people come in and spam and troll briefly, or pass off bootlegs, and then they usually get chased off due to a massive outcry of forumites who are so incredibly pissed, that it results in a ban.

With the exception of Kitsunexis and Validius who dematerialized a few years ago, and RegalSin who has thus far proven that if you type enough while on shrooms that people will eventually respond to your downright wackiness, there really is no comparison.

I know that you're addressing the ninny thing directly, Zeta, so I'll just say that we are unique that we have a total f*cking psycho that just keeps coming back to bask in the attention that he gets from everyone.

I have absolutely no clue. I'm here for teh PC Engine.

[SignOfZeta]

RegalSin is unique. I literally cannot understand WTF that guy is, is on, whatever. I think he's pretty awesome though. For now. We'll see.

[Tatsujin]

I'm here for teh PC Engine.

And for periodically lulzes 'n' rolfs.

[bartre]

personally, I think that it has something to do with the growing appeal of the system.
i'm curious as to when the n00b influx and the crazy prices are going to crash...

[Retrocool]

i am fairly new to the forum and I have to say I seem some silly poop going around, but I know I joined this particular forum
because of the love I have for my tg16/Duo and wanting to learn more and share with like minded folks.

Normally, I would just ignore the silly folks on here and just move on to whats more important these days.

[Joe Redifer]

My hypothesis is that since this particular community is so damned small, the crazies stick out like sore thumbs.  They're almost impossible to miss and that in turn is probably attractive to them.  Better chance on getting noticed.  Sega-16 is full of drama, but it gets drowned out pretty well because the community is gigantic.  Reported posts come in almost every day (often multiple posts per day).  People go apeshit over there but it is harder for the crazy people to get the attention that they so desperately need unless they are professionals at being crazy.  Bannings do happen but usually they just go away because there is so much else going on on the forum.  One of the ones banned at Sega-16 (not by me) was RegalSin nearly 4 years ago.  The reason given was "We like stupid people we can laugh at, but patience has a limit."  We'll see if that happens here.

Oddly, another forum I frequent (www.the-magicbox.com) has a similar-sized community as this, maybe a touch smaller or bigger, hard to say.  Drama there is fairly rare.  Some heated arguments take place but it's been a while since we dealt with the crazies.  Though there was one guy who kept promising to change the world.  He said the world would change by such-and-such a date because he was a super celebrity.  I told him that I would ban him if the world did not change by that day and he agreed to it.  The date came and went with no change and I banned him for not changing the world.

[SignOfZeta]

...f*cking A.

[soop]

Zeta, you've just described every forum I've ever been to.  Welcome to the internet.  Even RegalSin isn't unique, I'll try and find some crap by Chocobops...

Aww, it's all been archived.  This is probably him: www.myspace.com/chocobops2

He was literally uninteligable.

[guyjin]

There's another forum I frequent where we have a troll with a similar profile as ninny. Attention whoring, enemy list, keeps trying to come back under other aliases, etc. I'm afraid to say they've been dealing with him since before we started dealing with ninny, and he still keeps coming back.

Such a person probably doesn't have any social outlets other than internet forums.

[Arkhan]

The problem is that other forums have an immediate approval system.  The jackoffs get themselves banned within a week and are quickly forgotten. 

Here, we get them occasionally, out of nowhere, and then go WTF WAS THAT.  We're not used to it because it happens irregularly.

If we had a faster (immediate) approval system, the idiots would show up immediately, be idiots, piss people off, and be lolb& before you know it.

Plus most other forums blow and the people on them are idiots anyways, so, f*ck em.

[Senshi]

I think we're all nutz  

Oddly, another forum I frequent (www.the-magicbox.com) has a similar-sized community as this, maybe a touch smaller or bigger, hard to say.  Drama there is fairly rare.  Some heated arguments take place but it's been a while since we dealt with the crazies.  Though there was one guy who kept promising to change the world.  He said the world would change by such-and-such a date because he was a super celebrity.  I told him that I would ban him if the world did not change by that day and he agreed to it.  The date came and went with no change and I banned him for not changing the world.

Charlie Sheen?  

I think it also depends on your definition of normal. Every forum I have been in has its drama. Some people just want to take advantage of what the forum has to offer, but may not be dedicated to the forums theme.  Some just want to find new people to argue with. Others are curious weekend warriors dropping in from time to time.  Except for the ones that just wanna watch the world burn, everyone should be welcome regardless of their level of dedication.  With the exception of the last two weeks craziness, I would have to disagree with your assessment of recent sign ups. Most I have seen have been polite, and a few have held raffles. Why your letting a few rotten eggs marginalize the rest of us i'm not sure. Thats your opinion and your entitled to it, but i see alot of good stuff going on.
Please don't take my post personally, you asked a question and I gave my opinion. I can also see how the recent flame wars and the fact you have been here much longer than me would influence your point of view. You have seniority over me due to your time here and I respect that. I just think that the number of good things going on and good people coming in outweigh a handful of crap now and then.

+1

[Necromancer]

RegalSin is unique. I literally cannot understand WTF that guy is, is on, whatever. I think he's pretty awesome though. For now. We'll see.

He's a troll, pure and simple.  His posts are intentionally trying to drive people up the wall.

[Joe Redifer]

If we had a faster (immediate) approval system, the idiots would show up immediately, be idiots, piss people off, and be lolb& before you know it.

I've been approving new members every day for weeks now.  I probably even approved frozenintears.  The only ones I don't approve are the obvious ones like PS3repair@ps3repair.com or some such.  Otherwise there's not much to go by so we're going to be getting them kind of regularly now (it can still take me nearly a day to approve when I'm lazy).  Ninny may already be back or have 2 or 3 accounts already approved, who knows?  In fact I'm gonna go approve whoever is in the cue right now.