You never fully appreciate anything until you've lost it...

NOTE: This was originally posted on December 14th, 2007 on my (now defunct) Tumblr blog.

So just now I was having a discussion with my girlfriend about what I used to do before we met, before I gained something resembling a life and real social skills, and what have you… basically I was a forum whore. I posted on forums night and day. I was a member of a community, I felt like I belonged somewhere and things were always fine in one community for a little while, but then things started to go sour, every time.

The first online community I involved myself in was for a tabletop game, Warhammer 40,000. It was called the Bolter & Chainsword. I was an internet n00b at this point, having just gotten cable to replace that silly dial-up business. It really opened my eyes. I think it actually defined who I am today. If not for this new, fast internet, I would not be the computer geek I am now. Now tell me that’s a bad thing all you want, but I don’t believe that for a second. I love being a geek, I enjoy this, all of it. And I really enjoyed posting on the B&C, as it was affectionately known. I met new people, people from across the world. I had expanded my social circle many times over and all seemed well. Well, until I started to realize how this new hangout of mine was a monolithic dictatorship. The admins made the rules, the mods enforced them, and everyone just went about their business, “yes sir, no sir”, etc… If you know me well, you know this definitely did not sit well with me. So of course I started to rebel. Just a little at first, then I became more belligerent and eventually I got enough mod warnings to realize that this was a useless endeavour and that nothing would change here. I considered just leaving, but then what about all the friends I made? Where would I post pics of my painted models? I pondered this for a while, until by accident I came across InvisionFree, a free host of Invision Power Board forums, the same as used by the B&C. I got on MSN with my best friend, Dan, a classmate and fellow dissatisfied B&C member. We decided then and there that we would make a better forum, a place where WE made as many or as few rules as we wanted, and we’d invite along our friends from the B&C to start it off. And start it off we did, we built a nice little community for ourselves, people were generally happy. Ya we had growing pains, hell, the power of being admin even went to my head a couple times but we soldiered on through it and learned and grew together, as a community. But not all was well in paradise, as they say… new membership dwindled, once active posters became less active and eventually I made the decision to pull the plug due to a lack of will to keep it alive, as well as being busy with various life issues at the time. It was a sad time for me, honestly. I know it seems weird to feel loss over a message board, but this really mattered to me.

Interspersed with the previous events, I also discovered and tried out Ubuntu Linux, my first time using the Linux operating system and I immediately fell in love with it because it was so easy to use, but also because it had a thriving community of users and developers who supported and helped each other with problems and also relaxed to chat about random things in other the Community Cafe, or the IRC chat room for the forum. This place was even better than the B&C, I thought. The community was so much bigger, and had even more like-minded people. I really felt at home here, I made many more friends and learned so much from so many people, I couldn’t even begin to thank them. But again, something was not quite right here either. The more I got involved with the community, the more I got closer to those actually running it. I befriended one of the head admins. With this I also began to see the ugly side of every message board, once again. It was minor at first, but eventually all the squabbling over forum politics gave rise to insults, rants, flame wars, and soon, bans. I didn’t like what I saw because it completely went against the principals of the Ubuntu initiative of everyone being equal, everyone being Human. Well… I guess that last one was right… because humans naturally fight each other for more power. That’s what I saw unfolding before me… a huge power struggle and it wouldn’t end well unless something was done to stop it. So once again, I took up my cause, I became a rebel. I sided with the others that desired to keep things open and free for all. And we lost. Nothing was ever said or done to me directly, but several of my friends were banned, and suddenly this community just didn’t feel welcoming to me anymore. I left without a word. I haven’t gotten involved with a major online community ever since.

This all occurred from between 2004-2006, a year ago now. The whole point I’m getting at here is that while some scoff at those that choose to spend most of their leisure time on forums, I saw it very differently. They were a way for me to socialize and interact with other people who thought much like me, and being a nerd like me meant that I didn’t get that chance in the “real world” so much. I really miss being a part of something I believe in absolutely. I really miss discussing something that interests me with other people that are interested in it. But I wonder to myself now, if these places seem like such paradises, why do they always seem to fail me in the end? The answer to that will elude me for a long time, if not forever. But I do know that I definitely miss the good times, while they lasted, and this didn’t really sink in until just now.