TORC to Board 77

After the problems and my unfair ban from TheOneRing.Com (TORC) on February 4, 2004, I continued to hear many complaints about that community.  In May 2005, a member mentioned that problems eventually led to many members being banned, including the mod, Shadowjack (SJ), which served him right.

The banned members then created a new community called Board 77 (B77).  Out of curiosity, I peeked, especially at the Member List, and found that many were the cliquey TORC members, including ones who caused me problems, played mind games, or had fallen under bad influence.  During that time, they had temporarily halted new membership, and before that they had only been accepting friends, which obviously were those in their cliques.

I did not wish to speak to those people, but only B77 members were allowed to view the threads, so I had no choice but to apply if I wanted to see what was going on.  Besides, my membership acceptance or rejection would show me what type of people the members are.  I was unexpectedly accepted to B77 on June 15, 2005, and received some welcomes, proving that some of the members weren’t bad.  However, I also began to wonder if they did it just "to be polite."

Exploring, I learned that Alandriel, one of the people I had problems with at TORC, had been the founder.  Threads about the history of B77 and TORC problems further informed me that it had been a long and complicated issue.  Most B77 members were upset about the banning of a "highly respectable TORC mod and member," SJ.  It was upsetting to see that evil mod get the popularity and rewards that he didn’t deserve.  I had witnessed and experienced his bias at TORC, and he favored the cliquey members, but I wasn’t surprised seeing who the founders of B77 were.

Soon, SJ stated in his first B77 post, "I know some don’t like me… from Torc. But I hope to have a fresh start here."  Alandriel replied, "We’ve all made mistakes in the past and as long as we learn from them we can look forward to a bright future," and Nin (Nienor-Niniel at TORC), who joined her clique in playing mind games with me, added, "TORC is TORC and here is here…."  Though I posted that I agreed about starting new, I thought, "Yeah, right!" sensing lip service and hypocrisy, which was true.  Those three people, and members of their clique, such as Kaya and Jaeniver, never spoke or replied to me.

They also had a forum where members could arrange to meet in real life.  Rodia was spending the summer with her boyfriend, Gimli_axe_wielder.  They were planning on a trip to meet other TORC and B77 members in the U.S.  I decided to test the couple by asking if we could meet some time since we lived close.  Rodia replied that we definitely had to do that.  However, neither ever contacted me for the details, even when I asked.  I had been right: they were part of the clique.

LilyRoseTook had threads about her current alcohol problem.  For a few months at TORC, she posted about problems with her husband, including his smoking and drinking.  It was a reason she began having an online relationship with another TORC member.  Though she and I communicated at TORC, she never replied to my e-mails.  Later, she said that her husband was starting to treat her better, and soon I learned from others that she had suddenly ended her online relationship without a word, and hurt him by totally stopping communication.  I thought she should have explained that she and her husband were working things out, so their online relationship would have to end.  Slowly, it seemed as if she was getting accepted to the clique of problem people and falling under their bad influence, and sure enough as shown by her posts about her alcohol problems, which showed her hypocrisy.  She also never spoke to me at B77.

Soon, an "alter-egos" thread appeared.  Some RPers had more than one RP character, so they had several screen names (or accounts) for them.   At TORC, most of the unpleasant people would not reveal their characters and multiple accounts, proving that they were trying to deceive, play mind games, and brag by putting down those who couldn’t guess the writers of the characters.  I discovered more unpleasant details about the troubles at TORC.

I began having problems with members of the clique after I had joined my first formal RP, The Gathering of the Keepers, which was started by Alandriel.  Soon I received e-mail from her and Kaya about the way I wrote.  About two weeks later, Alandriel ordered the RP to be temporarily locked.  She and Kaya said that they hadn’t been able to settle the RP problems through e-mail, and would explain when she has the RP unlocked again.  Due to the e-mails and posts to me, I thought it was all my fault.  After the RP was unlocked, Alandriel said the reason was "the quality of posts was going down," and I also realized that some people, including Arunakhor, was behind in the story.  To me, those reasons could have been stated right away without the locking of the RP.  I later felt that it was part of a scheme to make me feel responsible and put me down.  At B77, Kaya revealed that Arunakhor had just been one of her characters, proving that she had been trying to hide the fact that she had a role in the RP problems.  Several RPs took place at B77, but I didn’t want to participate.

My visits to B77 quickly waned, and I eventually quit logging in since I knew what was going on.  After many months, I logged in to lurk and find that some problems had occurred and one of the members left.  It sounded typical for a community of narrow-minded, biased, and deceitful people.  After that, I never went back, except to gather information, which wasn’t often.

Later, I e-mailed the TORC admins to remove my articles and posts, but received no response.  After I month, when my articles and posts came up in internet searches, I had to return to TORC against my will and relive the pain and bad memories.  I realized that the name had changed from Tolkien Online back to The One Ring. Com, meaning that the admins’ and mods’ e-mail addresses had changed, too.  The threads with their e-mails revealed more bad news.  InnocentEvil (IE), one of the mods who had sent me rude messages and caused my unfair ban, was now MB admin, a position she didn’t deserve.  Hobbituk, who I had problems with for awhile, had become a mod, which bothered me, because he had been rude to me.  Though we did settle our problems at TORC, whenever he was in a thread with members of his clique, he participated in the mind games and didn’t talk to me.  That’s why I had been surprised he didn’t join B77.  Now it made sense why.

I then e-mailed the web addresses of my articles to the admins, asking me to remove them

.  When I saw no responses or changes, I very reluctantly tried to log in to see if I could remove them myself.  At first, it seemed as if I were in, but when I clicked on a link, I received the white screen with the words that I was banned.  I was upset at their lies and the few seconds of false hope they gave me.  Though I didn’t wish to return to TORC, they had said that my "temporary" ban would be two weeks, and I could ask for reinstatement.  I did, but after almost two years, I was still banned.  Fortunately, they finally did remove my articles, so I wouldn’t have to worry about people stumbling upon them, or return to that unfair community.

I never became active at B77, and I didn’t want to.  I pretty much stopped going there as well.  The server for B77 also has an automatic scan for bad language, and could automatically close down boards containing them without a warning.  Upset, members have moved the board and its posts to where they could cuss and use bad words.  This really proves how B77 and the world is corrupt.