YAY FAUST

[Cain]

The policy was nobody got modded, banned or adminned for anything, the only way to get banned was illegal IRL threats, thing like that.
Once in awhile it would flare up and go all peedee but usually it was just chill.

Hahahaha, no.

EBG used to a Pagan shitneck forum called "The Obsidian Mirror".  Yes, it was as pretentious as it sounded, if not worse.  Before that, it had been a minor Discordian forum, but had not lasted very long in that incarnation, so the owner, SMFabal, handed it over to the smelly Pagan types.

The Mirror was a strange place, where egos ran amock and banned whomever they pleased, for the high crimes of mocking them or "being disruptive".  After one such event, involving members of this forum, a few others (ECH, Horab and myself) came over for a few days and trolled the place.  The whole thing escalated hilariously with flounces and Internet-Tough-Guy posturing, until there was such a bad taste left in the mouth of the admins they asked SMFabal to intervene.  He then turned the Mirror over to Bella.

Bella then set about organizing EBG.  Hugh was made an admin, which was the first big mistake, since Hugh was a prime offender when it came to fucking with people using his mod powers.  There was drama on PD, so a lot of people used EBG to escape the drama, only at least some of the drama on here was Hugh's doing.  So him being co-pilot of the other place didn't help, even though he was absent for large stretches of time.  Still, because Bella was actually around, and Lauren, the previous admin of PD, was an absentee-slumlord extraordinaire, stuff actually got done there and it grew more popular, at a time when interest in PD was waning.

After a while, some of us got bored and Verthaine mentioned MW as a possible place for having some fun.  So a few of us went over to have a look, and got relentlessy shat on by the self-declared Pagan hierarchs.  Most of you know this part of the story.  Things came to a head over the summer, lots of Discordians and Pagans who were sympathetic to us got banned, and they returned to EBG.

What some of you may have missed was, in all the mess of the time, Hugh was back and fucking with posters he didn't like.  In particular, he was losing an argument with Fnordie, who was making him look like an idiot, so he deleted a bunch of his posts in retaliation.  He was caught out and demodded, but still seems to pop around EBG whenever he feels like dropping off a pearl of his Enlightened Wisdom.

PD was a desolate wasteland by this point, overrun by Pinealist fuckwits and with an absent owner.  Lauren even got tired of this situation and so decided she was going to junk the entire site.  Before she could though, ECH stepped in and offered to run it, and Faust offered hosting, and the PD of today was created.

Immediately, EBG had a competitor for posters.  It had been trying to brand itself as a "site for Discordians, not a Discordian site" for a while now, especially with the Pagan influx (with two being made moderators, and one co-admin), and with the old WSotTC lot taking over here, gave it a chance to add to its brand as a less confrontational and abrasive version of PD.  Which it certainly appeared to be on the surface.  If you ignored all the scheming and backstabbing that was going on via PMs, with various people trying to stir shit, passing along rumours and trying to trick those they despised into attacking others.

I myself got banned once and had an entire thread deleted because "I threatened to troll the site".  I was only let back on because by that point it was practically open war with MW and they decided they wanted me on the inside pissing out rather than vice-versa.  And when my girlfriend of the time logged onto my account to give them (in their secret, by-invite-only trolling forum where some of the plotting went on) the email address of a stalker who was harassing me (and went on to harass Verthaine and Bella, only getting banned once she worked her way up to annoying an admin) they then yanked my access to the secret trolling forum, and so I requested my account deleted.  Admittedly, Violetta could have handled the situation with more tact, but her way of saying what everyone else was thinking but would never say was one of the things I loved about her.

I didn't go back again until the TCC debacle.  Again, I was let in on the understanding that I would be gunning for Wiccans and not them.  Not that this didn't stop me having the occasional potshot at certain people, but I kept it limited.  This was about the summer of 2007, for those wondering.  By that point, PD was getting several new and high quality posters a day, while EBG was languishing without much in the way of interest to entice new posters, and so needed a forum war to revitalize their fortunes.  Which it did, for a short time.

Ultimately though, EBG only ever flourished when it was in a fight, when PD was crap, or both.  And some people over there certainly had no qualms about abusing their mod powers.  That it was a "nice" community is basically propaganda.  And not even very good propaganda.

[Luna]

Thanks, Cain, nice to have it all in one place.

[Cain]

There is much more than that.  And I may be biased.  But ask people who have been around since 2005 or 2006 or so.  Some have some very interesting stories.

And of course, you can verify what is in the public record over at EBG, even though that is an incomplete record.

[Luna]

There is much more than that.  And I may be biased.  But ask people who have been around since 2005 or 2006 or so.  Some have some very interesting stories.

And of course, you can verify what is in the public record over at EBG, even though that is an incomplete record.

Rephrase.  Thanks, Cain, nice to have one perspective all in one place.

It's pretty much academic, I've got nothing invested over there, though it'll be interesting to see what happens now.

[LMNO]

As a minor subplot, EB&G also tended to be more easygoing about "occult" stuff like tarot, kaballah, magick, NLP, etc.  While it might have been 90% bullshit, someone curious about that kind of stuff could at least get a thread of a couple of pages without it collapsing into mockery.

[AFK]

I think another piece of the history as well is that EB&G also became a place for the PDers who, for whatever reason, were uncomfortable with the organization that was going on here around BIP.  Which to my mind was a bit silly.  I mean, a little organization is good if you are going to put out content and product.  But I think people were getting wigged out because they thought we were going to turn into this big, bad proselytizing internet machine. 

[Cain]

I think another piece of the history as well is that EB&G also became a place for the PDers who, for whatever reason, were uncomfortable with the organization that was going on here around BIP.  Which to my mind was a bit silly.  I mean, a little organization is good if you are going to put out content and product.  But I think people were getting wigged out because they thought we were going to turn into this big, bad proselytizing internet machine. 

Yeah, remember when Wolfpoet and Eldora called us cultists?  Good times...

[LMNO]

Some people peeled off from PD and went to EB&G when the current PD attitude of "You're free to say what you want, and we're free to verbally assault you for weeks" became established, as well.  But I think a lot of that was covered in Cain's summary (which is quite good, by the way).

[Sita]

I knew very little about the back story to EB&G (since I joined in Jan of '07), so that was nice to read.
I found it to be a nice community, but I consider this to be a nice community too.
Then my definition of nice does not equal sugar and fluff and everyone gets along, but that there is a good range of people and viewpoints and, generally, things are discussed in a civil manner.

It was definitely more laid back. Which I liked, and hope it will get back to eventually.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Thanks for filling in the blanks, Cain. I guess I thought of it as nice or laid back because I always knew it as Bella's and she didn't much give a shit what people did. I remember the Hugh thing. Dude had a Dalai Lama on a fuckin' THRONE avvie - said a lot.

I myself got banned once and had an entire thread deleted because "I threatened to troll the site".

WUT? Who did that? When?

[Cain]

Early to mid 2006.  By Bella, of course.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Holy fuck.

[Nadezhda]

[...].  That it was a "nice" community is basically propaganda.  And not even very good propaganda.

Ah, well, I came to EB&G when the TCC shit happened, so it's always been a "nice" community for me.  I didn't get to see it before, and things always change :P  It's kinda like how TCC used to be an awesome community where we were 'allowed' to be batshit insane in the Temporary Insanity subforum, and where mocking noobs was a group activity.  And then for whatever reason, it had to become an all-age appropriate assbucket full of fetid "Elders" and modrodders who would first accept help and then vilify the helpers because they weren't "nice pagan types" or whatever.

Your mom is a nice community.  Baaaaaam.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

[...].  That it was a "nice" community is basically propaganda.  And not even very good propaganda.

Ah, well, I came to EB&G when the TCC shit happened, so it's always been a "nice" community for me.  I didn't get to see it before, and things always change :P  It's kinda like how TCC used to be an awesome community where we were 'allowed' to be batshit insane in the Temporary Insanity subforum, and where mocking noobs was a group activity.  And then for whatever reason, it had to become an all-age appropriate assbucket full of fetid "Elders" and modrodders who would first accept help and then vilify the helpers because they weren't "nice pagan types" or whatever.

Your mom is a nice community.  Baaaaaam.

Did the change occur after it was re-opened, after the original owner died?

[Don Coyote]

[...].  That it was a "nice" community is basically propaganda.  And not even very good propaganda.

Ah, well, I came to EB&G when the TCC shit happened, so it's always been a "nice" community for me.  I didn't get to see it before, and things always change :P  It's kinda like how TCC used to be an awesome community where we were 'allowed' to be batshit insane in the Temporary Insanity subforum, and where mocking noobs was a group activity.  And then for whatever reason, it had to become an all-age appropriate assbucket full of fetid "Elders" and modrodders who would first accept help and then vilify the helpers because they weren't "nice pagan types" or whatever.

Your mom is a nice community.  Baaaaaam.

Did the change occur after it was re-opened, after the original owner died?

Some time long after the original owner died. When I joined in 08 or 09, it was acceptable to harsh on noobs who couldn't communicate properly and asked really stupid questions.
I know this because I was harshing the noobs.

And then....it stopped being acceptable....and then I got TU'd...again and again and again and then IP banned.