Word of Warning - 2016
A lot of the content preserved below (mainly, for the author's own amusement) is a tad... eccentric, we'll call it. As a kid I was obsessed with the freedom of ideas, and contribution.
I believed that ideas were not property, but rather a discovery of an aspect of life that should not be restricted in its usage or knowledge. I have since come to understand the value of intellectual property (under capitalism). I still release nearly all the work I do as Open Source, but no longer free.
The contribution kick is a bit harder to explain. Without delving into every detail of it, I was very involved with Omegle from the ages of about 12 to 17. I got frustrated that people were not using proper grammar / syntax on the website, because I felt like I was putting in far more effort than they were (I was). However, I've come to accept that this is just the nature of online communities, and moved on from caring about it.
The below content, just as the other pages on this blog (other than the Home page with the articles) is preserved for my own amusement.
The Old Content - Preserved in its entirety
Profectium contains information about anything web or tech related, as you probably know. One of our main concerns is the welfare of internet communities and contributions to them. Obviously if you are reading this then you want to help us. Here are steps on how to do it.
Contribute to internet communities
Just because you support the movement to help maintain or repair internet communities doesn't exempt you from contributing to them. Picking up the slack others leave behind may encourage them to do better.
Correct others who are not doing their part
If you notice a specific user who is just leeching from a group of people you should always make them aware of that and encourage them to do better.
Correct grammar and lazy writing
Another thing that the D.O.W cares about is how people type their words out. Because we are anti-lazy we encourage everyone to type in full-lettered words. Acronyms are okay but dropping letters from a word to shorten it is not. Some examples: lol is fine. n u? instead of "and you?" would not be considered alright.
Where can I go to begin?
Anywhere that you can contact people directly or upload content to a database. Any major chatting site, social networking site, forum, or cellular phone texting will do.
You may have a few questions to ask. Some of the main ones include:
I shorten words or talk incompletely, yet I still contribute my fair share. Is this enough?
It will do for the time being, but always work towards betterment. Like a common budist you should always strive for self perfection.
I talk in whole words and sentences but I feel that I do not contribute to my website enough.
There are normally ways to contribute through speech that will please other people. Use your good grammar for the better. Contribute stories or interactive roleplays.
I still do not wish to contribute my fullest out of sheer laziness. Is this bad?
Not wanting to contribute when there are people who will do it for you is a very common urge. You need to picture if everyone else were like you. If everyone contributed the amount that you did, you should feel that you would have an activity community. So in short yes, this is bad.
If I wish to contribute to conversations online what would be a good example of a contribution?
We will look at a prompt. It is supposed to symbolize what another person says. Then there will be a good and a bad contribution shown.
Example: "Hello there [person], how has your day been thus far?"
Bad: Good. u?
Good: "My day has been splendid. I assume yours was alright, correct?"
Redirecting a question by just asking any variant of "you?" is an awful thing to do. Reword it in a way that makes you stand out from other people you have talked to in the past. You should leave your own conversational footprints.
I need some help standing out in my community of choice? Is there some way you could help me?
I do have some tips for anyone looking for stand out. This mostly applies to text, so it can be used it conversations. You can collect your own images as you go. Eventually I will upload a clean version of "yo man". yo man is a word document that I created and have been adding neat or unusual things to for over a year now. It is 15 pages of peculiar sayings, links, and a bountiful supply of ASCII style textpictures. It is also known by some to "contain nightmare" or be the "root of all evil". I can see where they are getting that from because they have seen the unedited version. I will upload the clean one which will cut off around 3 pages of content. Depending on what community you are a part of the following links may help you.
Bubble Text
Zalgo, flipped, funky, arabic, hacker, and upper-lower texts.
You will easily see what any of those do within a short amount of time using it. Be careful with the zalgo though, it has been known to slow the speed of internet browsers because of the tightly packed text. T̻̟͎̹̬̞̣̺̲͖͔͎̱ẖ͇͇͔͕͍͈i͇̲̞̞s̻̰̱͙ ̼̮̝͎̣̯̥̗̙̰͔̙̣i̮̹̫̮͇͓̗s̗͕͈̲̰̻ ̖̞͙͖̱͙͙̻͉̫̩̬̥w̘͔̬̩ḥ̦̯̘̹̤̰̠̟͈a̙̺̼̻̱͍̦̙͇̦͓̼̯̪t͓͚̺̼̯ ͎͓͈̰̠̗̬͚͔̯̯̩̪͉z͚̯̫̟̺͉͉̙̯̖̪̺͖̗̫̰̼a̱͍͇̦̙̭̭̭̰l͍̲̙̳̦͍͍̣̭̥͔̝͚̤̯͔͉g̬̳͇̟o̹͖͚̥̻̫̜̙̮̰ ̖̘̯͚̱̭ͅd͔͚̞̱͈̙͚͇̰͔̖o͓̯̬͓e̦̘̥̗̪͓͔̟̣̩͙͕̼̗̹̰͉͚s̖̺̙̬̙̩̝̞̺͇͎͍̬̣̼̳͇
Zalgo is the most unique becuase it can travel outside of the allowed panes of a few websites, like shown above. It may appear to overwrite the text dirrectly under it.
I am not a part of a specific internet community. Where is a good place to start?
A lot of people would tell you facebook. Facebook seems to work best if you have real life friends that want to talk to you online, and I would not really worry too much about picking at them about their contributions. I feel that omegle.com is a very nice place to start. Since you do not know if you are talking to someone you have contacted before it does not have a strong community built around it. This allows you to talk with someone on a one-on-one style to try to convince them to change their ways. We know that people get a false since of power when their are others to back them up, and here there is only one other person... you!
A lot of people in the community I found seem to be contributing a LOT of content. Should I try to beat them?
No. This isn't a content submission war. You just need to try to match what they are doing if you feel that they are doing enough.
The Internet anonymity project
Have you ever found yourself being pestered to share personal information about yourself that you did not want to release? This is a common nuisance on the internet. The Internet anonymity project is going underway now to show these pests that we do not need to share out information to them against our will. Truly becoming anonymous takes some work. For some tips on how exactly you should go about it you can read my article here. All of that work is NOT needed for what we are aiming to do here. This is a battle against anyone hounding you for personal information (age, gender, pictures, email, phone numbers, etc.). This will be a simply fought war. Deny their requests (unless you want to. Don't give in unnecessarily.) and correct their mistakes.
What is with your strong support in internet anonymity?
I think that everyone has the right to remain anonymous online and to not have to give into repetition requests asking for personal information. The most common of this information is grouped in the bundle of "asl" which means age, gender, and location. This was made famous by sites such as Omegle where you have no previous knowledge of who you are speaking to. While knowing information can certainly be a valuable tool at times it can also be unnecessary.
You seem to be such a big supporter of contributions and anti-laziness. Why does typing out your information bother you?The actual typing part is not the part that bothers me. I, and many others, find security behind secrets. Having to reveal personal information against your will is just not what I feel is right.
I willfully give away personal information.Wonderful. You can continue doing it. I am not saying that sharing your information is wrong. I am just saying that if you did not want it shared it should not be forced upon you to share it.
A new Direction for the D.O.W
When I was writing the rules to what exactly we, the D.O.W, did I wasn't thinking it through all the way. I was mostly irritated that people weren't matching my contributions on forums and I figured that venting my rage on a blog would fix the problem, but obviously that logic is flawed. I also used to be a supporter of hiding information from those who wish to collect it, but now I realize that that too is also flawed. If we keep evading the laws that those with more power than use enforce than we are no more politically driven that the common cockroach, scurrying away from danger. Not giving away your information is a nice way to protest, but you also need to do your part to make sure that unwanted information collection does not become standard practice.
The D.O.W used to stand for protecting yourselves from information collection, but now it is about freedom of information and protesting those that do not give the user a choice to hand over their information. You may think this sounds a lot like the philosophies and morals that go into free (as in freedom) software, and that is because it is. As someone that hopes to work in the software industry one day seeing freedom restricting software is the equivalent of a diver spotting a hammerhead in his landing zone after he has jumped. The only hope is to land right on that shark's back, and that is exactly what the D.O.W will be doing.
There are several Open-Source licenses, including the GNU General Public License. I am urging that everybody copylefts their work, whether it be a blog post, forum post, internet message, picture that you own the rights to, a program, etc. Any information that you made. You can denote that you are giving the right for people to use your information just by specifying in an obvious manor that it is what you wish to be done, for instance I could say. The contents contained in this blog are available for downloading, editing, publishing, and selling to the full extent of the GNU General Public License Version 3 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0-standalone.html. Any derivations of the content on this blog must also be published under the same license. Or, you could write something a bit smaller than that, in the form of something like this: This information is public information GPL.
Any license is allowed to be used as long as it does not restrict the freedoms of anyone that would be willing to edit and redistribute them. You don't necessarily even need to use a license, just denote the content as publicly available. I will be adding something along these lines to every single one of my new blog posts, my email signature, my texting signature, and my forum signature.
This page is public information.
-=Last Edit=-
12/19/11
@6:48pm
