Edit: Apparently I am not banned from Yahoo, someone hacked the parental controls on my phone (long distance) and blocked the site. Still, enjoy the rant below that was.
Many years ago, I discovered a fun web site called Yahoo Chat. I spoke with strangers from all over the country in a jumbled free-for-all that was annoying, joyful and spontaneous. After a while pre-teens took over the site with their outrageous sexual remarks (designed to scare off us adults) and their anger and nihilism. Then one day, chat went away, rolled over into messenger in some manner incomprehensible to adults.
Every once in a while I would go back to Yahoo looking for Chat but it was never there. One day I stumbled upon answers. It was stilted and pretending to not be a chat site (with some indecipherable guidelines that nobody really understood) but it was a way to talk to people around the world about common interests.
But soon it was all about trolls. Trolls who insult you and call you malicious names (which mostly reflect on their own sins) and report your questions which makes them "trusted members" in Yahoo and gain status. Eventually this led to my account being frozen out of Yahoo. Friends urged me to just open a new account - or four. I took the first step towards troll-dom.
Several lost accounts and several upgrades of Answers, from a friendly site to an ugly box filled with inane questions and now when I click on Answers - nothing. They have blocked me out.
All I can say is thank you. Answers was becoming such a misery that I feel I have been liberated.
Dear friends, if you hear bad things about me there, please set their readers straight.
Be well, friends and trolls alike, and see you around the Internet.
Happy Hiram
Many years ago, I discovered a fun web site called Yahoo Chat. I spoke with strangers from all over the country in a jumbled free-for-all that was annoying, joyful and spontaneous. After a while pre-teens took over the site with their outrageous sexual remarks (designed to scare off us adults) and their anger and nihilism. Then one day, chat went away, rolled over into messenger in some manner incomprehensible to adults.
Every once in a while I would go back to Yahoo looking for Chat but it was never there. One day I stumbled upon answers. It was stilted and pretending to not be a chat site (with some indecipherable guidelines that nobody really understood) but it was a way to talk to people around the world about common interests.
But soon it was all about trolls. Trolls who insult you and call you malicious names (which mostly reflect on their own sins) and report your questions which makes them "trusted members" in Yahoo and gain status. Eventually this led to my account being frozen out of Yahoo. Friends urged me to just open a new account - or four. I took the first step towards troll-dom.
Several lost accounts and several upgrades of Answers, from a friendly site to an ugly box filled with inane questions and now when I click on Answers - nothing. They have blocked me out.
All I can say is thank you. Answers was becoming such a misery that I feel I have been liberated.
Dear friends, if you hear bad things about me there, please set their readers straight.
Be well, friends and trolls alike, and see you around the Internet.
Happy Hiram
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