Wired

From Oddworld Library

Wired is a registered account on the Oddworld Forums that has been used by several members, including staff. The account was initially created in for use by certain members to masquerade as a real person, until this was revealed publically .[1] After backlash, the Wired account was primarily used to host the Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards. Wired's final post was the results thread of the 9th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards on .[2]

Original use

Creation

Wired was created by members of the message board The Mausoleum. Hobo (then Super Moderator of Zulag Two on the Oddworld Forums) created The Mausoleum on ezboard, intending it to be an additional venue for staff and other respected members to socialise without having to share a forum with members he found unpleasant, in particular a member called Dino.[3] Dino was strongly suspected by Forums staff to be the latest in a string of accounts created by a single individual (their other accounts including Codek, originally named Death;[4] Reese Charles; and Mawk.[5] In , Hobo and Rich (then Moderator of Off-Topic Discussion on the Oddworld Forums as well as Hobo's second-in-command of The Mausoleum) invited several Oddworld Forums members to join, including AquaticAmbi (not yet Moderator of Off-Topic Discussion on the Oddworld Forums), who became The Mausoleum's third-in-command.[6] In , AquaticAmbi invited non-moderator Dipstikk to join The Mausoleum[7] against Hobo's wishes.[3]

Members of The Mausoleum came up with the idea of creating a parody account of Dino[8] and created the character of Wired with a detailed backstory and planned upcoming events.[9] Wired joined the Oddworld Forums on [10] and first posted in his own welcome thread on ,[11] later on the same day that Dino was banned.[12] Rich and SeaRex (then Global Moderator of the Oddworld Forums) were the only members of staff who were involved with Wired, with at least 5 non-moderator members also participating,[13] including Facsimile,[14] Leto,[15] AquaticAmbi,[6] and Dipstikk.[6] Wired made 83 posts under this pretense over 32 days.

Response

In late , Dipstikk revealed the existence of The Mausoleum to Sekto Springs, a member who had not been invited.[16] In response to his breaking the forum's rule of secrecy, AquaticAmbi banned Dipstikk from The Mausoleum.[6] After this, while exchanging insults with Hobo in Hobo's birthday thread, Dipstikk revealed publicly that Wired was controlled by several forum members.[1]

Reactions by forum members were negative, with participating members of staff being accused of hypocrisy regarding the rules against owning multiple accounts (or ‘multis’),[17] especially after Sekto Springs was only permitted to rejoin the Oddworld Forums with a new account under the explicit permission and ongoing scrutiny of Alcar, due to his previous account—sligslinger—still being banned.[18][19] Others feared that any new member could now plausibly turn out to be moderators playing a prank.[20]

Other critics pointed out that Wired had acted antisocially to members, even newly joined members who couldn't have been in on the joke,[21] and although Rich had corrected accusations that Hobo was in any way involved with Wired,[22] Hobo's behaviour of insulting members was similarly criticized, and staff were accused of letting him get away with it because he was their friend; several critics requested that the staff moderate the Forums more strictly.[23][24][25]

Members who posted as Wired defended their actions by confirming that it was intended as a performative joke for all members to enjoy,[26] that the absurd nature of Wired's posts should have been self-evidently farcical,[7] and that their use of a multi, despite being against the Forums' rules, was done with the administrators' prior consent.[27] Alcar explained that he gave tacit permission believing that such compromises were often necessary to keep a community active and interesting, and defended Hobo's comments as light-hearted jokes.[28] SeaRex claimed that, if moderators were any stricter, many of the individuals complaining about Hobo and Wired would themselves have a lot of their posts deleted,[29] but promised that members of staff would discuss the rules of the Oddworld Forums.[30]

Fallout

In the midst of the public revelation, Hobo closed The Mausoleum.[3] He and Rich immediately began inviting members to a new forum called The Glass Prison, named jokingly after The Glass Asylum, a previous occasion when the Oddworld Forums community divided over the actions of moderators. This forum was later renamed The Glass Farce.[31]

Shortly afterwards, Havoc and T-nex (then Moderators of Fan Corner and Oddworld RPG respectively) attempted to remove and replace the Oddworld Forums' other moderators including Administrator Alcar and Global Moderator SeaRex. They were unsuccessful but were not removed from their positions as moderators.[32]

After being involved in arguments with Wired participants, Dipstikk decided to stop posting on the Oddworld Forums, although he also cited the lack of Oddworld news and general lack of interesting recent content on the Forums.[33] Fearing that his posted art might be subjected to spam, theft or mockery in his absence,[34] he asked Havoc to delete his threads from Fan Corner and Non-Oddworld Art & Literature.[35] On , Havoc deleted 43 threads created by Dipstikk between [36] and .[37]

On , Alcar noticed the deletions and restored the threads in order to preserve the history of the Forums.[38] He also activated a feature called Edit Locking, preventing any member without moderation privileges from being able to edit any post older than an hour,[39] although he soon increased this limit to one week.[40] This later had consequences for non-moderators maintaining community posts, such as Fez was doing with the thread ‘The Classics’.[41][42] Dipstikk took exception to being unable to remove his art;[43] after continuing to post until ,[44] he stopped posting on the Oddworld Forums for more than three years.[45]

In response to claims that the Oddworld Forums staff had not been moderating the Forums as sternly as they ought to, the staff began discussing and developing a new set of rules, but these were never implemented.[46] The rules were eventually revamped in 2010.[47]

Later use

After being outed as the fabrication of several members, Wired no longer posted in threads under the pretense of being a genuine person. He was, however, used with the permission of Alcar as a proxy for the staff to create institutionalized threads such as the ‘Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards’ and ‘What Do You Look Like?’ (although Wired originally created ‘What Do You Look Like? (V6)’ before his reveal).[48][49] His characterization as a parody of Dino continued but was downplayed. In this incarnation, Wired created 11 threads.

Date Thread created by Wired
What Do You Look Like? (V7)
A Hobosexual Birthday
The Results of the 6th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards!!!
What Do You Look Like (V9)
Insert your opinions here (OWF awards)
The 7th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards
The Results of the 7th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards
The 8th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards
The Results of the 8th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards
The 9th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards
The Results of the 9th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards

Wired's final post was the results of the 9th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards.[2] After that, ‘Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards’ threads were posted by STM for several years, while ‘What Do You Look Like?’ threads were created by Nate.

References

  1. ↑ a b Dipstikk (). Post 27 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  2. ↑ a b Wired (). ‘The Results of the 9th Annual Oddworld Forums Poster Awards’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  3. ↑ a b c Hobo (). Post 90 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  4. ↑ Codek (). ‘Name Change’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  5. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 69 in ‘Admin for a Day.’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  6. ↑ a b c d AquaticAmbi (). Post 53 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  7. ↑ a b AquaticAmbi (). Post 108 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  8. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 50 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  9. ↑ AquaticAmbi (). Post 55 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  10. ↑ Wired (). Profile: Wired. Members List. Oddworld Forums.
  11. ↑ Wired (). ‘OWF, meet Wired.’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  12. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 106 in ‘Sorry...’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  13. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 118 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  14. ↑ Havoc (). Post 139 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  15. ↑ Sekto Springs (). Post 56 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  16. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 51 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  17. ↑ Havoc (). Post 82 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  18. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 30 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  19. ↑ Alcar (). Post 41 in ‘Hilarity of OWF's History’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  20. ↑ T-nex (). Post 71 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  21. ↑ Cyber-Slig (). Post 97 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  22. ↑ Rich (). Post 39 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  23. ↑ T-nex (). Post 76 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  24. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 79 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  25. ↑ Cyber-Slig (). Post 94 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  26. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 89 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  27. ↑ Alcar (). Post 86 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  28. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 96 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  29. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 125 in ‘Urgent’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  30. ↑ T-nex (). Post 13 in ‘The Glass Asylym’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  31. ↑ SeaRex (). Post 117 in ‘Hilarity of OWF's History’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  32. ↑ Dipstikk (). ‘Bye.’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  33. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 19 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  34. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 23 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  35. ↑ Dipstikk (). ‘Now hear this! Judd Update!!!!’. Fan Corner. Oddworld Forums.
  36. ↑ Dipstikk (). ‘Other art, unrelated to my current works’. Fan Corner. Oddworld Forums.
  37. ↑ Alcar (). Post 20 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  38. ↑ Alcar (). Post 12 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  39. ↑ Alcar (). Post 31 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  40. ↑ Wil (). Post 57 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  41. ↑ Fez (). ‘The Classics (PM a mod for new suggestions to add)’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  42. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 21 in ‘Um.. Edit Button?’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  43. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 5 in ‘Boo.’. Welcomes & Birthdays. Oddworld Forums.
  44. ↑ Dipstikk (). Post 84 in ‘If you were invisible...’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  45. ↑ Oddworld Forums members of staff ( – ). ‘Rule revamp.’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  46. ↑ Wil (). ‘Staff changes and rules revamp’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
  47. ↑ Wil (). Post 10 in ‘Wired’. Employee Lounge. Oddworld Forums.
  48. ↑ Wired (). ‘What Do You Look Like? (V6)’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
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