EPTMass Grave: The Great DotA 2 Key Trading Thread 2012
January 31, 2012 - July 9, 2013
It began with the premise that the average netizen could read, would read and would follow instructions. It ended with our streets littered with dead bodies, pessimistic moderator notes and worst of all, bad poetry. No update of procedure, no reiteration of rules, no tide of red text could stem the hoard.
Blowback is a bitch.
Did You Know?
Never in the field of human literacy were so few instructions unheeded so consistently by so many.
The Curtain Rises
Citing the amazing success of the previous thread, Hassybaby created the 2012 version on Jan 31st. He made the process simple and promised frequent updates.
Want a key? Post here.
Have a key? PM me.
I'll arrange a meeting, tell me you're done and I'll move on to the next person.
Word travelled fast and people who had little or nothing to do with Team Liquid wanted in. Two provisos were added before the thread reached page three: a ban on bribing and a one hundred post minimum⁽¹⁾.
24.5 Hours Later
Now on page nine, the thread contained dozens of posts which failed the criteria so Hassybaby wrote the rules again. The very next post broke both of them and managed to fit in an advertisement. More followed and some head scratching started at this point. Were people not reading, or not understanding?
This question would be asked over and over again and, though still only the second day, soon the hammer would fall with such force the impact would leave forum goers scrambling for metaphors.
The Thread As We Know It
The rules had proved useless by themselves so GMarshal declared they would now be enforced. He also added a great big sign at the top. First sentence: Read the OP. The rest of the sign summarised the OP, which they would now read, wouldn't they? Besides, "Read the OP" is always the rule before replying so what could possibly go wrong? Within two hours there were four mod actions.
Mod action, mod action, mod action. The thread would be quiet for a few days only to be bumped and met with more mod actions. It lasted one and a half years and was unlucky to score only two hat tricks⁽²⁾. The herculean efforts of our moderators acted as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to the warning sign's fence at the top. Each ban was an opportunity to give direct guidance to those who possessed powers of observation inferior to a budgy's, and one moderator handled the majority.
GMarshal's ban reasons were diagnostic, mathematic, halcyon, Shakespearean, melancholic and algorithmic. He rehabilitated where possible and dealt with recidivists as necessary. He invoked divine law and complained about reading comprehension more times than can be listed here.
I suspect very few read their mod note but no pearls are ever cast before swine while we monitor our beloved ABL. Which is possibly the only reason vGl-CoW took the time to write his prophetic ban, quoted here in all its glory.
Day 90 of our experiments for assessing humanity's potential of survival in the event of an apocalypse.
We handed the test subjects each a little sign with a number on it. We showed them a locked door and told them a treat was behind it. However, if the number on their sign was below 100, they would be immediately killed upon opening this door. A test no-one would fail, we thought.
We were wrong. Today marks the 137th death. Soon, we won't even have enough room left to store the bodies. Humanity, I fear, is doomed.
We handed the test subjects each a little sign with a number on it. We showed them a locked door and told them a treat was behind it. However, if the number on their sign was below 100, they would be immediately killed upon opening this door. A test no-one would fail, we thought.
We were wrong. Today marks the 137th death. Soon, we won't even have enough room left to store the bodies. Humanity, I fear, is doomed.
Like the Oscars but with Fewer Good Looking People
The work of our moderators was not our only source of amusement. Creating any thread on Team Liquid is like a game in Theatresports; you set the stage as best you can but the actors might take the script anywhere. Containing only bans the Great DotA 2 Key Trading Thread 2012 would have been a depressing graveyard. With audience participation it became a graveyard with clowns frolicking around tombstones, laughing at those less fortunate than themselves.
The following awards recognise stand out performers.
How to Explain This Award
It was first thought that ignorance was the problem, thus if knowledge could be bestowed the thread would cease to be a bloodbath. To this end BLinD-RawR posted a corrective meme to enlighten dimmer minds.
As the hemorrhaging continued unabated a paradigm shift occurred. Perhaps this thread was acting as an irresistible force of nature to the obtuse. The language changed to reflect this new understanding and people sort a description rather than a solution. BLinD-RawR used a simile, Teliko a metaphor.
Literary device, schmiterary device. The award goes to Mr.Loki for his first person perspective of the raw mechanics: I didn't read the great big sign at the top, I never do, Ok?!
Irony is Spelt H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y Award
A second award goes to Mr.Loki for then expecting us to read his 5 paragraph justification.
Should Have Known Better Award
Just before full ban mode was engaged one of the last warnings went to LordWeird. Even 3K+ posters have to pick their threads carefully when they feel like making a joke.
Two Out of Three Ain't Bad Award
A strong international contingent competed in this cerebral olympiad and the biathlon proved no less daunting for them. Most fared well on the no-bribe high jump but the 100 post hurdles proved entertaining for all the wrong reasons.
A quota system was demanded by loppus whereas SMokes2 appealed to our good hearts. Two Greeks, Gregoryy and Catalytic, took the same approach but one obviously didn't ask his mother for help. Ronchas' mother hadn't come to watch him start the race, she'd come to watch him finish it.
JeJeFlak pleaded ignorance, wrote a boring anecdote, asked us to do his homework for him⁽³⁾ and threw in some martyring for good luck. A good effort but I deducted points for clutter.
The award goes to JD21 who simply stated he might be wrong, stupid or ok; then asked for a key to find out which.
Luxiest Guy On Earth Award
Continuing the international theme, from the tiny country came Cloudsong, who wrote a very polite request with his 9th post. Although he didn't get a key, he escaped mod action despite being reported.
Retard Free Zone Award
Post warning sign, only page 32 lacks any mod actions⁽⁴⁾. It seems Feb 29th is some sort of moron kryptonite and our special posters go to a special school to figure out how the hell leap years work. On March 2nd the first graduate appeared and normal transmission resumed.
Retard Full Zone Award
This right here is the watershed post. The OP, the warning sign, a note that keys can be purchased, and now a post saying 5000 keys were being given away. I guessed it would take 24 hours for someone to be banned and I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. It took 29.
Anyone banned after this point needs to wear a helmet indoors.
Star Wars Reference Award
Dubzex is Admiral Ackbar to Penacea's clueless little X-wing.
They Came From Behind Award
Congratulations to Penacea for maintaining his intercept course with the Death Star.
That's Inquisitor Admiral Ackbar to You Award
When Dubzex asks a good question I suggest you give a good answer.
Awww, He's a Softy After All Award
SeeKeR gets another X-wing in his gunsights but then fires a warning shot.
Seriously?! Award
tyger006 dodged being banned in the DotA thread with his second post by first screwing up simple instructions in the Ten Commandments thread. Quitor's first post was in the right thread but his second was so much worse it was reported earlier.
These efforts were topped by willer123 who plumbed new depths of stupidity when he posted twice in the Ten Commandments thread then sat back and waited for his key.
Ask and You Shall Receive Award
Also waiting was Hassybaby after he bumped the thread to fish for a ban. You'll have to click here to see how long.
Lifetime Unachievement Award (more of a prediction really)
To everyone who was banned: your reading comprehension will exclude you from all but the hottest and noisiest jobs, where you will fail to follow instructions, be fired, be sent to welfare to fill out a form, where you will fail to follow instructions.
A New Equilibrium
It stands to reason that stopping an apocalypse would take an event of apocalyptic proportions. Short of every netizen having their IQ spontaneously jump 30 points the answer would have to come from outside Team Liquid. And it did.
Valve blew a gasket and the internet was suddenly awash with beta keys. SeeKeR, who had by now taken over the thread, found himself drowning them. As was everyone else.
Still, some hardy souls managed to get themselves banned. Faced with the options of posting in the thread or sending a PM to one of the dozens of people offering a key, some still chose to play chicken with the hammer.
By sheer weight of numbers they won. SeeKeR abandoned the thread after updating the OP to read “Just don’t ask me”. The mods removed the rules from the sign and ignored reports from then onwards⁽⁵⁾.
This thread was a battleground between an ignorant mass of outsiders and the high standards we strive for. And with this loss we learned that quantity has a quality all of its own.
What Did You Mean, Bad Poetry?
This section began as a "Cheeky Fellows" award for people who farmed 100 posts, asked for a key and have hardly posted since. For instance, at the time of writing this Kishuu and D1pstick have 103 and 105 posts respectively. The award would have gone to whoever had the worst combination of sub 110 posts, a recently accelerated posting frequency and poor quality.
It would have except one person went further than anyone else in this regard. How much further? I considered making an award for crimes against humanity.
The innocuous sounding Mr.Bimbles joined us on February 7th, 2012. 52 days passed before he thought of something to say, a month later he had 16 posts to his name. Quantity was obviously not his goal. Nor was quality, he created 7 closed threads in this time. Because of the DotA thread we can now consider this period "the good old days".
On May 4th he noticed the DotA thread and his posting rate jumped from 0.5 to 10 per day until he could ask for a key⁽⁶⁾. There were more closed threads, more pointless posts, and there was poetry, the horror.
Vitalstatistix
All the important numbers.
Total Mod Actions:
18 warnings
258 bans
+ 3 geniuses in other threads
13 nukes⁽⁷⁾
Footnotes and Sources
1. Both points were contentious but Hassybaby did a better job of explaining his position on trading and post counts than anyone did of explaining why nearly 300 people didn't read the OP.
2. Hat tricks one and two. Albacksen edited his post in time to dodge creating a hat trick. More were spoilt by mere minutes here, here and here
3. For the newbies: see where he said he didn't know his post count but asked us to check his join date? That was stupid because where you check your join date is where you see your post count. You also see it immediately after posting in the heading of the post itself.
4. Technically: post warning sign but pre deluge. But since the deluge was a massive upset to the equilibrium that had lasted almost a year, only page 32 can claim the award.
5. Well, not for the entire thread but from page 111 to 125 there are no bans, which would be an achievement in any thread, let alone this one.
6. To be fair he has kept posting although, mercifully, not at the same rate. He has since written poorly received reviews of DotA 2, Diablo 3 and the gaming community as a whole.
7. I've counted dota2betakey who was nuked with 3 posts and given a ban reason of advertising. The rest of the nukes are obviously directly linked to the DotA thread.
Obituaries
- SLoWGruNt by TehTemplar
- Goetzinho by marttorn
- arbitrageur by marttorn
- CharlieMurphy by TheAmazombie.
- Coagulation - an autobituary?
- Wurstbrot by SixtusTheFifth.
- SC2Necro by SixtusTheFifth.
- Dark Templar by iamperfection.
- Platorepublic by jdseemoreglass.
- The ABL Nuke Diaries.
