Comments on: ToyTown: How an online community built around mutual aid is becoming a social wasteland because of hierarchy. http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland A bug in the code of the universe. Thu, 24 May 2012 13:03:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: I love it http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-83855 I love it Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:47:48 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-83855 I freakin love your blog about the toytown wankers! Gen, Fraufruit, Robson, Kay, Keydeck, Allerhausen, Jeremy, to name but a few! They spend all day on toytown with a second account so they can give themselves greenies! WANKERS! The lot of them. I freakin love your blog about the toytown wankers! Gen, Fraufruit, Robson, Kay, Keydeck, Allerhausen, Jeremy, to name but a few!

They spend all day on toytown with a second account so they can give themselves greenies!

WANKERS! The lot of them.

]]> By: MAN http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-83854 MAN Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:42:23 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-83854 Look toytown is full of retards. Everybody knows this! Social misfits that dont belong anywhere else. Its like a playground bully group. They spend all day being keyboard warriers with nothing else to do. It has a very bad reputation. Fair enough its good to find doctors and dentists but thats about it really. Who wants to hang out with miserable 40 and 50 year old ex pats who do NOTHING but MOAN and COMPLAIN about the country they chose to move to. If you dont like germany LEAVE. Look toytown is full of retards. Everybody knows this! Social misfits that dont belong anywhere else. Its like a playground bully group. They spend all day being keyboard warriers with nothing else to do.

It has a very bad reputation. Fair enough its good to find doctors and dentists but thats about it really. Who wants to hang out with miserable 40 and 50 year old ex pats who do NOTHING but MOAN and COMPLAIN about the country they chose to move to. If you dont like germany LEAVE.

]]> By: Hambungler http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80901 Hambungler Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:30:40 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80901 The site seems to be run by a very small number of probably increasingly desperate people given the state of the sector at the moment. Like many (most?) similar websites a few people play many screename roles, post their own threads and get "answers" from the "community." Hence "Toytown". (also sounds like "Teuton"..). That would certainly be the logical way to run such a business (remember the scandal a few years ago about Facebook exaggerating its membership? Same principle, if lots of people appear to be using the site, real people are also attracted and hits can also be faked). A lot of the threads involve selling products - someone asks a question where some food, insurance, good bar etc etc is available and then suprise someone answers with a "recomendation". In other words it's scammy like a lot of similar sites. On the other hand the insults, "racism", swearing etc are normal for english-speaking humor unless you are a bit thin-skinned. This also probably attracts their target group which seems to be slightly groovy types who go in for cursing and being smart-asses. The site seems to be run by a very small number of probably increasingly desperate people given the state of the sector at the moment. Like many (most?) similar websites a few people play many screename roles, post their own threads and get "answers" from the "community." Hence "Toytown". (also sounds like "Teuton"..). That would certainly be the logical way to run such a business (remember the scandal a few years ago about Facebook exaggerating its membership? Same principle, if lots of people appear to be using the site, real people are also attracted and hits can also be faked). A lot of the threads involve selling products – someone asks a question where some food, insurance, good bar etc etc is available and then suprise someone answers with a "recomendation". In other words it's scammy like a lot of similar sites. On the other hand the insults, "racism", swearing etc are normal for english-speaking humor unless you are a bit thin-skinned. This also probably attracts their target group which seems to be slightly groovy types who go in for cursing and being smart-asses.

]]> By: Fredy Pwnman http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80290 Fredy Pwnman Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:30:05 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80290 "So how come this situation persists even though it’s obviously unwanted by a lot of the community members? The reason seems to be the same as to why any class society persists even though change is wanted by the majority of people living in it. Inertia and Alienation." It's funny, I just re-watched "Capitalism, and Other Kids' Stuff" <<a href="http://socialist-tv.com/>" target="_blank">http://socialist-tv.com/></a> (you can also find it on YouTube and Google Video, among other places), which is one of my favorite videos (great for showing to those new to anti-capitalist ideas), and it's got me thinking about your question, as it always does. The part where the presenter describes how the kids begin to question the social arrangement, and are quickly assured that their notions of equality are silly and unrealistic, that things never were that way, really, and that the status quo is how things have always been and always will be, because it's the natural order of things, etc., always evokes a feeling in my gut that's hard to describe, almost a panicky feeling, like I want to shout to the kids "They're lying! It's all lies! You don't have to accept this! Stop it now before it becomes too entrenched!" His description of authority figures adopting official-looking costumes, with judges sitting on elevated chairs to appear ominous, etc., is especially gut-wrenching for me. Don't people ever stop to think how all these figures are simply apes, just like the rest of us? We don't have to accept any of this, it's absurd! So why do we? It's like you said, we accept the emergence of authority figures, bullies, etc., because we've become convinced of our own impotence. Those who take the initiative to seize power have an immediate advantage over those who don't want power, and the latter will keep going along to get along as long as the situation remains tolerable, which they will do for far longer than they should, because they'll be more inclined to internalize the ideology of the authority figures, or laugh along with the bullies, than to rock the boat and draw attention to themselves by challenging any of it. This is where solidarity becomes power for those who don't want power for its own sake. If the quiet masses with their heads down would come together and act in unison, they could dethrone the bully-apes without having to be aggressive and/or charismatic as individuals. "So how come this situation persists even though it’s obviously unwanted by a lot of the community members? The reason seems to be the same as to why any class society persists even though change is wanted by the majority of people living in it. Inertia and Alienation."

It's funny, I just re-watched "Capitalism, and Other Kids' Stuff" <http://socialist-tv.com/&gt; (you can also find it on YouTube and Google Video, among other places), which is one of my favorite videos (great for showing to those new to anti-capitalist ideas), and it's got me thinking about your question, as it always does. The part where the presenter describes how the kids begin to question the social arrangement, and are quickly assured that their notions of equality are silly and unrealistic, that things never were that way, really, and that the status quo is how things have always been and always will be, because it's the natural order of things, etc., always evokes a feeling in my gut that's hard to describe, almost a panicky feeling, like I want to shout to the kids "They're lying! It's all lies! You don't have to accept this! Stop it now before it becomes too entrenched!" His description of authority figures adopting official-looking costumes, with judges sitting on elevated chairs to appear ominous, etc., is especially gut-wrenching for me. Don't people ever stop to think how all these figures are simply apes, just like the rest of us? We don't have to accept any of this, it's absurd! So why do we? It's like you said, we accept the emergence of authority figures, bullies, etc., because we've become convinced of our own impotence. Those who take the initiative to seize power have an immediate advantage over those who don't want power, and the latter will keep going along to get along as long as the situation remains tolerable, which they will do for far longer than they should, because they'll be more inclined to internalize the ideology of the authority figures, or laugh along with the bullies, than to rock the boat and draw attention to themselves by challenging any of it. This is where solidarity becomes power for those who don't want power for its own sake. If the quiet masses with their heads down would come together and act in unison, they could dethrone the bully-apes without having to be aggressive and/or charismatic as individuals.

]]> By: some guy http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80093 some guy Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:57:45 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80093 Hey, I read the article linked in your article ( <a href="http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/" target="_blank">http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/...</a> ) yesterday, just to find out today that a very similar thing has happened to Nexuiz... I don't know whether you're familiar with it, it's a free software quake-like FPS game and is lead by a developer group called Alientrap. Yesterday, as it turns out, they changed the website ( <a href="http://www.nexuiz.com" target="_blank">http://www.nexuiz.com</a> ) to some flash shit with content completely unlike the one of the old website without any remark to the users on what this is all about. And as it turns out then, they just sold the engine, the name and the website to a corporation (without informing ANYONE beforehand, even though 90% or so of the game was developed by the community), which is legal because they asked the authors of those parts for permission and they agreed. Whilst the actual game code will have to remain untouched because it is GPL'd and the authors of that code won't give any permission to do whatever to it, there are now 2 games named "Nexuiz", the open, old Nexuiz and the new, console-only, commercial, closed-source Nexuiz, which will naturally lead to a lot of confusion. As in the case of the RD forums, the admins tried to portray this as something completely awesome when talking to the users etc., when in fact, it was an immensely stupid decision and nobody of the community would have agreed with it, if they had been asked. However, the leader of Alientrap has authority (even though he, as was the case in RD.net, NEVER showed up in the forums), so it will be done. We will see what happens now... Hey,
I read the article linked in your article ( http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/… ) yesterday, just to find out today that a very similar thing has happened to Nexuiz… I don't know whether you're familiar with it, it's a free software quake-like FPS game and is lead by a developer group called Alientrap. Yesterday, as it turns out, they changed the website ( http://www.nexuiz.com ) to some flash shit with content completely unlike the one of the old website without any remark to the users on what this is all about. And as it turns out then, they just sold the engine, the name and the website to a corporation (without informing ANYONE beforehand, even though 90% or so of the game was developed by the community), which is legal because they asked the authors of those parts for permission and they agreed. Whilst the actual game code will have to remain untouched because it is GPL'd and the authors of that code won't give any permission to do whatever to it, there are now 2 games named "Nexuiz", the open, old Nexuiz and the new, console-only, commercial, closed-source Nexuiz, which will naturally lead to a lot of confusion.
As in the case of the RD forums, the admins tried to portray this as something completely awesome when talking to the users etc., when in fact, it was an immensely stupid decision and nobody of the community would have agreed with it, if they had been asked.
However, the leader of Alientrap has authority (even though he, as was the case in RD.net, NEVER showed up in the forums), so it will be done.

We will see what happens now…

]]> By: db0 http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80092 db0 Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:27:04 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80092 Whatever Whatever

]]> By: Actus Reus http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80091 Actus Reus Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:39:41 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80091 I'm being anarchic. I'm being anarchic.

]]> By: db0 http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80090 db0 Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:27:04 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80090 I still have no clue what the hell you're on about. I still have no clue what the hell you're on about.

]]> By: Actus Reus http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80089 Actus Reus Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:18:45 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80089 Christ, it's all gotten a bit anarchic in here - I'll get me coat. Oh, and the Lenin joke? Stolen from Toytown I'm afraid... Christ, it's all gotten a bit anarchic in here – I'll get me coat.

Oh, and the Lenin joke? Stolen from Toytown I'm afraid…

]]> By: Why online communities need transparency and accountability | A Division by Zer0 http://dbzer0.com/blog/the-toytown-community-is-a-social-wasteland/comment-page-1#comment-80087 Why online communities need transparency and accountability | A Division by Zer0 Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:40:51 +0000 http://dbzer0.com/?p=3351#comment-80087 [...] ToyTown: How an online community built around mutual aid is becoming a social wasteland because of h... [...] [...] ToyTown: How an online community built around mutual aid is becoming a social wasteland because of h… [...]

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