Arise! Airfix Tribute Forum! Arise!

Transcript of Comcast customer support:

“Airfix Tribute Forum, sir. I am so sorry sir. Airfix Tribute Forum. Yes sir. I am so sorry sir. Yes, I know sir. Airfix Tribute Forum. Airfix Tribute Forum go bye-bye. I am so sorry sir. I am so sorry. Yes. Go bye-bye. Airfix Tribute Forum go bye-bye.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. My favorite forum, the wildy popular and fundamentally reactionary Airfix Tribute Forum has been out of order for a few days and it’s annoying. My high-tech spy-on-you software (everybody has one) tells me that some unhappy soul visited my site after searching for information on the ATF and what’s happened to them.

Well, I don’t know. I went to a couple of other Airfix forums and found out that the forum “managers” are desperately trying to find out what has happened and will do their utmost to get it back on line as fast as possible.

That’s cool. In the meantime, I’m doing my bit by writing a tribute to the tribute forum. This is CERTAIN to bring the ATF back from the dead. All I have to do is pen a lengthy tribute to the something that has passed on and it will return as surely as that dude on Night Gallery who came back when they remembered the right combination of taps.

You know what I’m talking about.

Oh ATF, wherefore art thou? I discovered the Airfix Tribute Forum right after my unhappy experience of being arrested by the secret police (posing as some kind of right-wing militia) at SimHQ. So I needed a safe haven like most survivors of torture.

The ATF fit the bill perfectly. No nonsense was tolerated there. I once went way out of my way to snitch on a creep who had inserted his nasty political opinions into his sig. BOOYAH! They busted that guy like a Texas cop on a Mexican speeder. The ATF tolerates no cuteness. Zero cuteness tolerance.

I am probably the biggest smart-aleck on the entire forum. I test the limits, in a wholesome and healthy way, but I do feel a bit guilty about it. I can hardly believe that I’m such a hypocrite . Maybe I enjoy being able to be the “class clown” and I don’t want any competition from other clowns? Perhaps.

But I don’t attack people. On the forum, I mean. My great sin is failing to stay on topic (but I really think that rule should be flexible). You see, on The Airfix Tribute Forum, a whole new kind of thinking has to take place before you can really “get” what it’s about. You have to love Big Brother. I know that sounds horrible, but only because of a certain prejudice.

If people, in general, weren’t such jerks we wouldn’t need the ATF. But we DO need it in order to have a place where civil discourse can occur without the whole thing descending into “Lord of the Flies” territory. Either that, or full-on Usenet-style nucular combat, toe-to-toe with the Russkies. On Usenet, when some S.O.B. would get out of line, you could cut him or her to ribbons. No rules. On a forum, one is constrained. This constraint has a wonderfully “double edged” quality. If the rules are poorly enforced, or enforced only against newbies and oddballs, then the forum rapidly becomes the lion cage where innocent bushbucks are gnawed upon day and night. No one can actually bring up a new idea on a forum where the admins are petty tyrants. One of the “old timers” will just call the originator a dumbass and that will be that. Har har.

On the ATF, such things are not tolerated.

Oh ATF, I embraced your magical, mysterious, all-knowing eye of moderation. I will embrace it on any forum if the forum is moderated. On internet forums, moderation must be rigid, fair, and pro-active. Anything less opens the door for abuse. The only alternative is a good and proper anarchy like the old Usenet. There, I could kick some butt and not feel the hot hammer of banning. But as long as some self-righteous weenie wields that hammer, then it must be applied with the cold logic of the Vulcan mind.

Goodbye, farewell, and so long , Airfix Tribute Forum! We shall grieve thy untimely end.

…and welcome you back as soon as I finish posting this blog entry.