18 Apr 2010

How I recall meeting Preservative Woman and “…”

Google Alerts just recently linked me to a post made by either Chair/Pat Smith or a co-blogger in his HikiCulture blog:Preservative Woman: An Alter Ego of “…” of Hikikomori Forum?

Personally I didn’t want to reply to the post nor do I know what difference it is for the Hikikomori community to know whether a hiki has two or more accounts unless they were causing trouble. (which the post really didn’t clarify) Somehow though my name gets mentioned but I’m more pissed off at the way the author presented me as:

“They” seem to like Foolness (“they” follow his blog, Twitter, etc.) who has, or least had, a grudge towards me and HC staff, so they’d probably not reply.

For one thing I have a sensitive spot against people who misconstrue my words. However as a person who has problems conveying his intentions, I often give people a free pass (or insist them to clarify where the misunderstanding happens) but in this case not only was I accused of having held a grudge against someone but there was no link!

This doesn’t mean nothing happened and to those who missed it, all they need to do is to click on the Hikiculture tag in this blog to see what he’s reffering to and decide for themselves whether I hold a grudge or not but to me throwing out an offensive accusation in a way where a reader just has to accept a blog author’s “opinion” with no easy way to understand the relevance of those comments just reek of censorship and attempted revisionist conclusion. The thing that really sets me off though was the hypocrisy.

Apr 06, 2010 Pat Smith said… in this topic

Wasn’t sure if you’d bother checking.

I wanted to make sure you’d see my post.


If you check that link, you’ll see not only did Pat Smith from Hikiculture made a comment on a post I made and not only did I reply but the comment has nothing to do with the post I wrote so for this writer to suddenly imply that I won’t say anything when according to the HC blog it was written April 16, 2010 - it just crossed the line. It was utter hypocrisy. If I was considering commenting on that post initially, ahh… I just got so pissed off after reading it that I just wanted to ignore that post for fear that it would yet again be misconstrued into another Foolness attempting to flame Chair kind of attention whoring or something… (I didn’t actually know what the accusation against me was but in the earlier Hikiculture topics, when I was asking for clarification in the hiki section of AnonIB because of the things Chair wrote, the line of comments I got was along the line of “don’t make things worse” but the more frustrating thing was that when people searched for “Hikikomori StopGap” in a search engine, one of the top links would be one of the HikiCulture posts and I was worried it gave the impression that Hikikomories online bickered more against each other rather than talking about issues important to them.)

At the time though, all I was thinking that I was writing for Hikikomories and even if it wasn’t anything major that could change their lives, that was what kept me going despite the accusations. After all, I didn’t promise I could do anything major with this blog other than sharing my thoughts as an individual who is a hikikomori. This post though, it seems minor but I’m legitimately pissed off. More so than that, I feel trapped.

On one hand, I don’t think it’s my business. Preservative Woman and “…” can reply to that post and even if I wanted to reply, I don’t know the reality either. I don’t know those two people enough nor have I talked to them enough to have a sense of whether they are the same person. On the other hand, my silence seems to go against the transparency and openness I want readers to feel about this blog.

It’s obvious that there’s some indirect connection to me when the author writes:
I can’t see how her and Foolness formed their apparent friendship which would have been impossible through an anonymous “Chan” board like AnonIB.

Sure they can clarify how they know me or are friends with me without my input but if it isn’t clear enough, I value and emphasize looking through all perspectives of the related parties mainly because as someone who has a hard time communicating and interpreting signals back, sometimes that’s the only way to receive some clarity and some semblance of “truth” especially in the internet.

So I felt trapped. Not only because this was a minor issue to clarify from my side thus silence seems unnecessary but because I wasn’t going to keep readers from not knowing how the post affected me so I was obviously going to go off and make a longer post than I intended to. Worst, I get the sense that the author was merely baiting one of us three people to reply and by making a blog post rather than just a mere comment, I was increasing the popularity of said blog post. Even though this isn’t how it works and this is still a reply, I settled for the blog post because I want to feel like I’m sticking to my principles and not replying directly to the author but more to a reader who might wonder what my say in the post is.

In terms of friendship, I’m no more friends with Preservative Woman, “…” and other people than I am friends with Chair.The reality is that I rarely socialize with them and even in terms of online conversations, the volume of back and forth messages I have with any Hikikomori doesn’t compare with people I previously feel as online friends.

…and even that was way way in the past.This doesn’t seem I hate them or would ignore them but the reality is we don’t talk except on occasion.

Even when Preservative Woman was in AnonIB, if the archives is still there, you’ll see I rarely interacted with a specific user and made topics in general. How I ended up meeting Preservative Woman and how she probably followed my blog was because when I left AnonIB, she was one of the two commentors on my blog.

This was when I still didn’t have a Posterous blog and also the other commentor was an anon so that’s how we met each other: Her replying to my blog posts. Somewhere along that way, I got a Twitter account and she got a Twitter account and Twitter’s Direct Messaging became how she contacted me privately on occasion. (Like maybe she wanted to talk to me about something not related to my blog post or I wanted to contact her, that’s how we communicated.)

“…” on the other hand I met in Miu Nya’s Hiki-PhpBB forum. The irony was that we never talked to each other but I was always respected his/her posts in the forum because it was more related to Hikikomoris rather than social topics like Picture threads, favorite foods and the like.

I first primarily contacted him/her when he/she was planning to leave HF.Ironically at the time, I was just pming “…” as a way to keep him/her from leaving HF.

I think, as far as I remember, I wasn’t visiting HF for awhile and then when I was returning, he/she was planning to leave and I was sort of hoping they would stay. He/she ended up staying longer than I did. Even to the point that last I checked the topics, you would see his/her post warning people that the forum was sort of a ghost town or something like that. (I missed the big event where apparently there was a huge argument and the community split off and many felt alienated by each other.)

That was it. We never talked to each other ever again.Later when I was talking to Preservative Woman in Twitter, that’s how his/her name popped up again. At the time, I never knew the name translated to tententen and I think it was because Preservative Woman ended up using “…” instead of tententen that I realized who she meant.

Still at that time, we never talked or followed each other. Maybe I did after Twitter lists came out where I was adding a/an English-speaking Hikikomori list and only last month (I think) did he/she started following me. (Note: Twitter e-mails you if someone follows you so it’s not like I was monitoring him/her.) Well that’s pretty much from my perspective. Not alot of information but that’s all the info I have of them.



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5 Nov 2009

HikiCulture Creator: “Chair” admits he is not beyond spamming

Note that since I haven’t explored much of Experience Project, I’m not really sure how much Chair can edit and delete his replies. However as of this writing, the post exists.

For why I am stating this: some Hikikomoris have this strange habit of editing out their posts. This holds true whether they have spammed or not.

In HikiPhpBB, Chair has edited some of his old post out so I don’t consider the act beyond him.

From the last update on this thread: http://hiki.posterous.com/hikiculture-admin-strongly-suspected-of-spamm

Update: This is actually old but I just visited experience project again and apparently Chair (under the username HikiCulture) posted this:

http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Am-Somehow-A-Hikikomori/760004#comment_embed

“By the way, if you don’t remove those inane blogs of yours that are full of groundless claims about me, I will create a series of blogs stating reasons why I believe you to be the one behind the spamming of HikikomoriForum.

Not only me, but a handful of people I’ve talked to believe you to be one of the culprits behind all of the spamming.

Why were you online on HikikomoriForum while the spamming occured? You had stated that you had pretty much quit logging into the forums since you were busy with other things such as your blogs. I am highly suspicious of you and imagine that you are simply trying to hurt my image.

You know, you’re not the only banned member who has tried to hurt my image. Just accept the fact that I banned you from my forum.”

The important section is in the first paragraph as the last run of recent AnonIB spammings have been been using my username.

Not only that, this shows that Chair himself is not only capable of spamming but he himself has admitted that it is not below him to spam.

Since the post is dated Oct. 30th and I missed it, the context of the post is kind of lost but unless this poster is a fake account, even if Chair himself did not spam the forums, this is conclusive admittance that he is indeed a spammer.

Unless new evidences come to light, I am changing my stance and I sincerely believe Chair to be a spammer just based on these comments alone.

Whether he is the HikiPhpBB and AnonIB spammer, I don’t know. But this statement proves he is a spammer.

May any Hikikomori beware of being associated with this person.

Post Ends

Now one can interpret “reasons” here as not synonymous with spamming.

However the key words that strike me as peculiar is the usage of “a series” of blogs as opposed to any type of singular reply.

Notice also, that he is “threatening” to do this and have no qualms of lying.

It’s very… anti-perception of a non-spammer or at least a non-spam organizer.

The reply reeks of someone who would retaliate strongly against any comment instead of addressing the points raised against him.

Even in his state of anger, the post never assumes the role of a single person flaming or insulting back. It’s always written in an “I’m capable of hurting you and I definitely will” manner that strongly hints of someone who is willing to organize a spamming spree.

Readers may wonder why I am trying to “psycho-analyze” a fairly straightforward post.

This is because I do give Chair the benefit of the doubt and listen to his words carefully to see if there’s any hint that our personality just don’t get along.

Unfortunately, I just don’t see anything in his words that hints that it’s merely a clash of personalities.

Each retaliation just seems like a spammer’s way of saying “You’re not getting me to admit this but shut up about it or I’ll just continue to cause trouble.”

Maybe I’m just reading too much of these words especially since I’m a poor judge of people.

Still, no matter how I try to interpret it, it’s always comes off like he’s planning something huge because someone said something possibly bad against him.

Then there’s always the fact that he’s dodging the points and then throwing unrelated insults back at the person he’s talking to.

At least this holds true with his offensive replies to me.

For example, the original accusations with regards to my banning was edited by him as resolved.

Even in the non-edited post, he himself said it has been a long time since my ban.

Yet not only did he brought the issue back in this post but the only action in-between his “beating me up” comments was a single reply I wrote and it was a reply to a very issue he considers resolved.

It’s really problematic to constantly excuse his behaviour.

If you treat Chair as a non-spammer, then there’s something very fishy about the constant associations with HikiCulture and the spamming of other Hikikomori-related communities.

Then add another person also under the comments of that thread saying:

“Chair made this general comment before deleting it from hikiphp. Went along the lines of, “We have been made aware of our user on hikiculture who has been spamming. The situation is resolved.” You need to brush up on internet laws.”

Yet you would think he would have added/mentioned this in his replies but he constantly focused on saying the claims are “groundless” against him.

With all this consideration in mind.

Chair is either a bad forum admin and a bad diplomat for his brand “HikiCulture” or he’s in league with spammers/is himself a spammer.

To the former, it’s hard to think that a forum admin who is very loose in banning people suddenly gets this spam problem when he is very on top of non-spamming issues.

That’s why I can only conclude that Chair is a spammer based on not only the evidences but his follow-up actions to them and unless new evidence come up that shed some light into that, I consider Chair to be a spammer at this point.

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29 Oct 2009

HikiCulture Admin Strongly Suspected of Spamming

First off, my apologies for the image quality.

I’m very newbish at image editing and it was only this year that I discovered what “cropping” does.

Anyways, on to the topic.

The short version:

Someone has recently been spamming the HikiPhpBB forum. (1st screenshot)

There’s strong evidence that it is the admin of another Hikikomori forum, HikiCulture.

Evidence #1 is the conversation in the 2nd screenshot.

If the text is blurry, here’s the conversation:

Chair:

Me and thirteen other people are talking about you in my IRC channel right now Foolness.

Do you think we are saying positive, or negative things? You have a day to answer. If you don’t answer, I’ll beat you up.


(spamming occurs)

Later on…

“…”:

Cut this bullshit out now. You two have a problem, keep it off this board.

Google: (2nd spam account)
Wut R U gonna do about it tuff guy?

Evidence #2 is where this “Google” account pmed me:

Hi.

Sent at: Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:26 am
From: Google
To: Foolness

I’m Mr. Google, how R U?

The long version:

This all started with this blog post: Is HikiCulture turning more and more into a spam forum?

Then 2 HikiCulture admin (1 new, 1 the founder and user “Chair”) brought up some unrelated accusations of my time in the HikiCulture forum which prompted me to address the issue in a separate blog post:

Reply to Chair/HikiCulture admin

Around this time, the events prompted me to make two topics. One in the AnonIB /hikikomori/ board which is now deleted per the request of a user and another here.

If you visit the two above links, you’ll see how the events got cleared up under the comments.

After my name was cleared up and it turned out the accusation was mistakenly directed at me by a new admin, I focused on other blog posts I was working on and became inactive from the HikiPhpBB forum.

In particular I was kept busy by my recent blog post because of all the problems I have with getting it to post correctly.


Only after, did I return to the forum and address Chair’s recent reply to me. (I didn’t actually leave the forum though since that blog post was in reply to a topic made in that forum.)

That was when all these happened.

For a copy of my reply and Chair’s original post, just look at the last comment underneath the “Reply to Chair/HikiCulture admin” topic.

If the formatting is hard to read though, here’s my reply: (Note that Chair’s reply is chopped up into quotes)

Chair:

Sorry for being somewhat rude in my reply Foolness, I just don’t enjoy people making wild assumptions about me. In the future, if you want to know what my intentions are in anything I do, please email me at {{{e-mail removed}}}

Me:

Problem is, if you understood the context of the blog, I’m not even sure it was you who was editing the wikipedia article so why would I contact you?

If it was you however, then similarly, why should you be trusted to not censor the conversation when you have already strongly removed someone else’s post from a site you don’t own?

Contacting you privately was just not an option and the actions of both you and your fellow admin under the comment section further made it hard to follow that approach.

Chair:

I’ll likely respond to your email within a day or two of receiving it. I ask you of one thing though - if I’m to send you an email, please do not quote anything that I am to say in any of your blogs or elsewhere. If you do not comply with this request, I will not respond to any further inquiries. People quoting personal messages/email messages without first receiving consent from the person you’re quoting is, in my opinion, more unethical than a person ‘advertising’ their website on Wikipedia. This is only my opinion though of course.

Me:

It was a necessary evil I had to consider quickly.

When you and Quasar start bringing up an un-related issue in a blog topic, especially one that attacks my personal character, events can quickly become “he said/he said” and it could start a flame war.

In those circumstances it’s almost impossible to verify anything objectively because the admins are the ones throwing out the accusations and not just some members.

It can also be hard to rely on members on said community because you’re not sure how much they care about a flame war starting out.

In those cases, there are a few things that can be done to quickly quell the smoke. One of them is for one side to give out all the information they knew from their perspective.

Chair:

For the record - I truly feel that adding the HikiCulture link on Wikipedia is not unethical at all considering that:

Me:

It’s not about ethics. It’s about their rules for notability. Especially when a discussion page comment has been removed around the same time.

Chair:

My forum’s subject matter is very much relevant to the Wikipedia article the link is being posted on (If I were to stick a link to my site on the Viagra Wikipedia article for example, then yes, I’d agree with you on the whole ‘spam forum’ thing. There is high relevancy though).

Me:

No, in general, forums and blogs are not notable enough for Wikipedia no matter how related they are to the topic.

Even when this forum was on there, it was highly suspect.

It could’ve been easily attributed to the lack of English links.

When this forum was removed for some reason and not returned, it cemented the fact that the Wikipedians monitoring the article have decided that the article had improved enough that the forum link could be dropped.

Unless the link to this forum was re-added and gained consensus for notability, any other forum link replacing it is equally non-notable.

Even then, the issue between re-adding a forum link and deleting a post in the discussion board is far from the same intentions.

End

It was then that Chair posted that threatening reply above.

At that point, I didn’t understand what he meant by “beat up” and I ignored the post thinking it was just a normal flame.

Before I left though, I did saw the SPAM account post some spam but I never associated the two. (At the time, it was just 1 or 2 posts)

Then a couple of people pmed me (not much, I’m not an important person in any of the Hikikomori boards) and alerted me to the issue.

At first, I was even being overtly cautious and didn’t link the two events together but it turns out this might not be the first time Chair has spammed.

There was talk of a spam attack in /hikikomori/ linked to Chair which resulted in a backlash against HikiCulture in that board. (An event I never saw but was talked about in pm)

Coupled with the other evidences above and there’s strong evidence that Chair is the spammer based on all this.

Please note that after the “Wikipedia” issue got clarified, I’ve never seen Chair spam the HikiCulture boards elsewhere so I’m not removing the HikiCulture link in this post just yet.

I will however put a warning that Chair is strongly suspected of being a spammer.

I will also try to post this link in several social media sites so for those who are reading this that are not Hikikomori or do not care for the English-speaking Hikikomori community, my apologies for blogspamming in your favorite sites. I just felt this issue was serious enough to “report” as to keep future Hikikomoris from (possibly) being associated with a spammer.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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16 Oct 2009

Reply to Chair/HikiCulture Admin

I recently made a topic worrying about the actions being taken on the Hikikomori Wikipedia page with regards to HikiCulture over here and two of the admins responded.

I think they are two because one named himself the HikiCulture Admin and the other named himself Chair although when I was there, Chair was the only active admin I know of since he was the creator of the forum.

Anyways, the reason I decided to make a blog post out of this instead of a direct reply underneath the comments is because of the worrying tone of both commentors. Although I do plan to paste my reply to this quote:

That whole ‘incident’ on the Wikipedia page was typed up by a frustrated member who had been banned from the forum. I had every reason to ban that member, and had been considering it already a week before I finally placed it.


Maybe both admins didn’t know but to quote the recent Wikipedia revision page… Don’t delete stuff from talk pages!

This was a potential major issue because not only was the HikiCulture link restored but the talk page which gives reasons for why HikiCulture is not notable was removed also.

Now the link in itself when restored is no big issue. Lots of people can mistake Wikipedia as an advertising portal as opposed to an encyclopedia. In fact, for a long time, the HikiPhpBB forum was underneath the External Links.

(I have no idea why some users deleted it only to replace it with HikiCulture but most forum and blog links are frowned upon in Wikipedia so there is already some controversy with regards to why the forum link was in the page)

Now add the action of deleting unresolved discussions and now you have a possibility of a person trying to censor criticisms to a site….The admins in their reply though went further than that and posted some irrelevant accusations which justifies this separate blog post:


HikiCulture Admin:
#1

This user was banned from the site for excessive spam and general trolling. We also have reason to believe he was using a proxy for nefarious reasons. His username “foolness” is very accurate, as he acted like one at every opportunity he got, despite warnings from staff.


This was weird not so much due to the accusation.It was more of a question as to why this was brought up and how much of this was true. Username hijacking was a common worry of mine but at the same time, I do know that I’m not worth the time.

(In fact in the now defunct /hikki/ AnonIB board, someone even said that my way of speaking was distinct enough that it would be hard to pretend as me.)

Still…

Such comments often fall under a “You said, I said” model so one of the convenience of making a separate blog post for this was that I could post this topic in other Hikikomori boards and hopefully, current members of HikiCulture visiting there could verify what happened after I got banned.

Btw, my personal recollection of what happened is located here. …or for those who don’t want to click on the link:

Ok, I was banned for the second time in HikiCulture (I don’t know the reason why. It could have something to do with that announcement that something changed in their profiles but since I never put any data in there, I never bothered tweaking it but soon I saw my account/posts disappear despite remaining active. In fact, my account was deleted around the same time I wrote a reply. It wasn’t a controversial one and it was attributing the fact that despite the admin’s criticisms with the HikiPhpBB forum, the member base growth remained the same and in fact, the previous forum probably had more Hikikomori related topics although it wasn’t the fault of the forum design as there were certain key members that stopped being active at around the time the forum required these members to stay active. This is why I’m not attributing it to a case of breaking some obscure rule but treat this as a warning if you plan to join that forum.I normally don’t like re-joining forums so I won’t be signing up for another account there. I did sign up a 2nd time because at the time, my first trial was so short I wasn’t able to preview most of the forum’s contents.)


Also when my account was banned for the first time, in a private pm located in HikiPhpBB:

Yeah sorry, some members got pruned after I created new rules. You are welcome to join again, just be sure to be active to prevent automatic pruning.


Sent at: Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:35 pm
From: Chair
To: Foolness

Btw for those wondering why I would have a private conversation with Chair at another forum, the reason was because Chair originally invited me to HikiCulture via a PM in HikiPhpBB.

#2

And fyi, foolness: Many people is this world with AS has done great things. If you want to give yourself credibility, do not make fun of those with medical conditions, you just end up looking “foolish”. :P


This was another weird comment because I didn’t feel like I made any comment that is directed at anyone with Asperger Syndrome. (I am guessing that is what AS meant) Still, if anyone is willing to mediate, I would be open to anyone pointing out where I made fun of them in that thread.Obviously I’m biased to myself while I am wary of HikiCulture Admin’s motives so if anyone else would like to point out which section sent that wrong interpretation, I’m all ears and would edit that portion out.

#3

Please do me two favors: 1.) Do your research before childlessly laying down groundless claims, and 2.) Accept the fact that you were banned, grow up, and move on. All you have accomplished by writing this, is making the site appear higher in Google. You saved us some trouble, thanks a lot!


I really don’t know where I am laying down groundless claims and not accepting my banning, so again, if anyone can mediate I would appreciate the help.I would really like to assume that HikiCulture Admin’s words are based on something valid and not just mud slinging but frankly I can’t interpret it any other way.

Chair:

#1

I have not received any site complaints from anyone in the IRC channel (about a quarter of the forum’s users enter the IRC chatroom each day), nor have I received complaints through personal messages or emails.


This is actually the reverse. If any current HikiCulture member can mediate for me and point out how the topic had nothing to do with complaints by members, I would again appreciate the help. …The rest of the section didn’t seem related to me or the topic, so I just copy pasted it in the Wikipedia talk page over here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hikikomori#Linking_to_sites_which_aren.27t_much_help


Finally, I apologize if I thanked people generally too much in this thread. These kinds of replies are the kind that make me want to explode at a person because they seem so off-base and reek of insults for insult’s sake and yet there’s a strong possibility that there was only a misunderstanding so to counter and prevent any unnecessary flaming on my part, I am trying to be as polite as possible.

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13 Oct 2009

Is HikiCulture turning more and more into a spam forum?

This is another placeholder topic but one slightly more serious:

First off, I’ve no doubt that - for members of this forum - this could easily come off as a HikiPhpBB vs. HikiCulture vs. AnonIB /hikikomori/ thread.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that coincidentally I’ve made a recent return post on HikiPhpBB.

This isn’t intentional but is a result of me just being frustrated and bored so I decided to re-check the Hikikomori boards I know of (except Sankaku and HikiCulture)

Sankaku because it’s a news site and I’m too busy to add further information overload unto myself and HikiCulture because I’ve been banned.

Another major blow to my bias but I’ll let you decide how much based on this incident:

From a recent revision of the Hikikomori wikipedia page discussion board:

I’ve been a member on a few Hikikomori and recluse forums and websites for a while now. “HikiCulture” keeps being linked to here, but it generally is not a good place for information and help. It’s still fairly new and the administrator has no idea on how to run a forum correctly and generally doesn’t understand that the site is for people who need help and information. He overreacts and abuses control without thinking about his actions, and he has Asperger’s Sydrome which hinders his decisive abilities, causing harsh and uncalled-for actions which may offend. He also bans people for things which are petty and do not require action. It’s generally a place to avoid due to this. The community itself is great, but the administrator known to some as “Chair” isn’t good for the community. I’ve heard of other Hikikomori sites opening soon for giving advice and help and they’ll be linked to here once they have been created.

Also, I am not meaning to cause offense, I have been asked to write this comment by a lot of members of the community at “HikiCulture”. The way it’s ran is unfair and the staff do not care about us with mental conditions, reclusiveness, depression and social anxiety. It’s not wise to link to “HikiCulture” any further.

Now I didn’t write this and I only had a short time on HikiCulture so I have no way of verifying this but what’s worrying is that this comment was up a few days ago.

I don’t participate much in Wikipedia but the argument while not verifying to me that it was accurate, did convince me that there was ample reason to remove the HikiCulture link from the main article so I decided to do so.

What’s worrying and why I am being harsh and calling it spam is that not only was the link restored but that the above quote was also removed.

…

Now I get that there’s no proof of any persistant trolling nor is this even a rare issue for most wikipedia articles but it is kind of worrying that the Hikikomori label may be starting to be used as a marketing tactic and that’s why I’m preserving these quotes in case it never gets restored.

(I’ve no patience for wikipedia edit wars.)

I also fully accept the responsibility that I may be accused of doing the same thing with this blog and this may come off as hypocritical mud-slinging by me but since I have no way to prove my integrity, I could only give my word that I don’t have an agenda against Hiki-Culture but it would be heart breaking if future Hikikomoris gather in the wrong place due to wikipedians’ neglect of protecting the Hikikomori article from such edits.

Therefore even if the word “spam” can be interpreted as sensationalism, this would have to stay to serve as linkbait in case the issue becomes more drastic in the future.

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27 Aug 2009

A major criticism of Hikikomori PHPBB and HikiCulture

This is actually nothing new but I’m posting this anyway to highlight the problem.

While finally deciding to re-register to Hiki-Culture, I was met with these two questions:

Will you be sure to create AT LEAST one post/thread within a week of completing this registration form to prevent your HikiCulture account from getting deleted?: *
Please be honest when answering this. If you select ‘No’, staff will delete your account.

After posting your intial mandatory first post within a week of joining up to this site, will you be sure to create one post or thread per month and log in AT LEAST once a month to prevent your HikiCulture account from getting deleted?: *
Please be honest when answering this. If you select ‘No’, staff will delete your account.

Of course, I knew this because my account was purged due to inactivity. I didn’t know the exact timeline though because as far as I can remember, the questions were new. Not that it should surprise me, but it did.

I guess there’s something about seeing the numbers in perspective but I just can’t help but think of the comparison of posting once a month vs. a general private torrent site without a strict rule.

Sites that create this rule just seem so… anti-Hikkikomori. Compare this with your average private torrent ratio rule and despite a longer headstart to get the right ratio so that you can comfortably leave your account alone, I would say a good estimate for causing your account to get deleted is leaving it for 6 months. Even then you can say there’s a much more valid reason for the deadline and that 6 months is enough even for the most avid of lurkers to post in a forum (without feeling forced).

“A month” though…

That’s the sad thing separating English Hikkimori communities. There’s just no “moderate” community right now. It’s either all anonymous or private “post-a-lots” outside of topics in general boards.

Of course I’m not saying don’t join either forums especially since I’m going to join anyway and I don’t know of any other place outside of the three boards. However consider this a warning or even an advise saying “don’t bother” if you’re new to forums and thought to work it through. A month is shorter than it would normally seem over the internet. Maybe one day there’s a better platform for “silent” Hikis to get information and support without needing to join such frisky communities. (Still no idea what the ideal model for this is though. Even the Hiki IRC failed to attract a large enough group to support 24/7 discussions.)

Edit: Speaking of new sites, I just saw this linked in Hiki-Culture.

http://www.experienceproject.com/group_stories.php?g=142181&s=d

Source: http://hikiculture.prophpbb.com/topic138.html

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