Jun/24/2002

The closing of the IGN boards to all non-IGN Insiders has had a devastating effect on gaming forums all around the world, particularly Australian ones, with thousands of disillusioned and confused posters flooding any forum that will have them.

The IGN boards were, up until six months ago, the posting place of choice for thousands of readers of the IGN network and its many offshoots including IGN Cube and IGN Pocket. But monetary issues forced the managers of IGN to make the boards subscriber only, locking out "newbies" and longtime members alike.

Ex IGNers flee their desolate homeland and head for greener pastures in Australia

And this was done without any warning whatsoever, no doubt to stop abusive spam on their own boards. Unfortunately this didn't take into account every other forum in the world not part of the IGN network, which where immediately hit with thousands of excommunicated users who each wanted to post their own individual anti-IGN thread and find a new forum to call home.

Planet GameCube's forums were hit particularly bad, with forum heavy Rick Powers saying: "You wouldn't believe the number of IGN threads that went up overnight, I spent most of that morning deleting them." He then added: "And take that god-damn picture out of your signature, I'm not telling you again."

Unfortunately, due to Australia's lax forum moderation, many ex IGNers have been heading to the land down under in the hope of starting a new forum life, apparently via Norway's Tampa ISP service. The strain this has placed on local forums has forced the government into action, passing a bill through Parliament demanding the immediate incarceration of any suspected ex-IGN members in temporary detainment sub-forums while their posting intentions are validated, as well as the closing of our forums to any new users, with them being told to turn around and post in their own country.

One such sub-forum is "Woomera" on the Hyperactive boards, currently holding approximately 450 known or suspected illegal ex-IGNers. The section, named after the aboriginal word for 'prolonged detainment of people who aren't us', has reached critical mass, with many of its detainees taping their fingers together in protest and refusing to post at all, and others rioting and trying to set the forum alight with their many thread "flamings."

When told about this behavior, long time Hyperactive member DJ_Civic commented: "Well, if that's the way they're going to behave when they come to our boards and get detained for an unspecified amount of time, then they deserve to be sent back to their forums of origin!"

To get an idea of what the posting conditions are like at the Woomera forum, I managed to score an interview with one of the forum detainees, SuperPikachu_12, one of the first to be detained:

 

Blake: So Mr. Pikachu_12, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?

SuperPikachu_12: Back in my own country's forum I was a moderator! Now I couldn't even get a job sweeping up spam.

Blake: I see. So tell us what the posting conditions are like here.

SP_12: Horrible, absolutely horrible. In this forum we don't even have the basics of posting life.

Blake: Such as?

SP_12: Well, we have no access to any type of emoticons except the hand typed ones :( . You see, I can't even express my sadness properly!

Blake: You mean like ?

SP_12: Yes, the emoticons you take for granted are just a distant dream for us. It just makes me so furious :| .

Blake: That's ..

SP_12: Please stop that.

Blake: Hehe, sorry .. err, was there anything else?

SP_12: Yes, the only formatting code we're allowed to use is underline. Who the hell uses underline anyway? Pretty much everyone's resorted to just using CAPITALS for emphasis.

Blake: That is sad. And why is it that they won't let you use other formatting code?

SP_12: Well, one of the detainees stuck a mod with an italic he'd ground to a point, and two posters got into a fight with some bold and messed each other up pretty bad. The moderators figured underline was fairly safe because it's stuck down, and like I said, no one wants to use it anyway.

The high security Woomera sub-forum on Hyperactive 3.1

Blake: Thanks for your time.

SP_12: Hey, had nothing better to do. Actually, before you go, could I just give my thoughts on how I think Mario Sunshine's coming along? While Miyamoto says he's making Mario more mature, the evidence I've uncovered after examining every screenshot inch by inch indicates..

Blake: Ahhh shucks, I'm sorry, the batteries on my tape recorder just ran out. *pushes stop*

This has forced Australian Prime Minister John Howard to threaten to decrease Australian server migration zones in an effort to slow the influx of illegal board posters.

If incorporated, only time would tell if it would be a useful tool at the next election. Or if it would stop the influx. That's probably some type of consideration for him too.

-Blake