YTMND observations

Well this is my first post for this project. Observing YTMND.COM has been interesting to say the least. I've been monitoring the forums on and off since the end of March but I did not start taking notes until April. I'll post what I’ve observed then I’ll make updates every couple of days if it is possible.

At first, I started to lurk on the ytmnd sfw (safe for work) forums. One of the first things I can remember observing was that of the users complaining about how no one post in the sfw forum anymore. Posts and replies are hours apart, which is in stark contrast for the nsfw (not safe for work) forums in which posts and replies are minutes apart.

As far as content goes, the topics discussed in the sfw and nsfw forums do not differ that much. The nsfw forums give users more freedom to say whatever they want (and they do!) while the users in the sfw forums show some restraint.

There are users who follow the rules of the site but some other users in the forums fall under certain categories:

1. Parasite - A person who rips off another's ytmnd site and resubmits it as their own.

2. Troll - An attention getter. A user who does malicious things to get attention i.e. - posting shock sites, annoyingly posting the same image over and over, or a combination.

3. Upvoters/Downvoters - Some users create alternate user profiles in order to either upvote, vote for his/her own sites in order to boost his/her rating. Upvoting can be considered as a buffer for when people who downvote, users who create alternate accounts so he/she can give low ratings to other users multiple times. Both are frowned upon but it does not stop the users.

4. NARV (New Age Retard Voter) - referring to users, usually new users, who have a minimal understanding of ytmnd's history, culture, or artifacts that define the tone of ytmnd.

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April 1st

Only four threads were made in the SFW forums today. Only one of the threads had a number of replies, which was about alternate accounts and what users should do with them. Moderators got involved leading several users to delete their alt. accounts. What I observed within that thread was that even though the structure of the forum maybe extremely loose, the mods are checking in and enforcing the rules of the ytmnd.com. Other than that, it was a slow day in the NSFW forum.

April 5th

More threads have been made per day since a few days ago. It is still nothing compared to the NSFW forums though. It seems that users, probably along the lines of the newer users, use the SFW forum to ask questions about how to create things for ytmnd. It probably seems like a safer place to post their questions rather than post question in the NSFW forum and get flamed. It is the same result in the SFW forum though. Users will get their questions answered but not without a smart-ass comment or put down. In addition, from another thread, I learned that most of the users on the SFW forum think the forum itself is pathetic. I don't know why they bother to post in that forum if they don’t like it. Maybe the users have been posting there so long they can't stop, almost like a force of habit.

April 7th

Today, as requested by Jeff, I went and observed the comments on the numerous ytmnd sites. It was hard to pick out which one to check out since there are many. I ended up on a site that had an interesting comment. On www.burntandroidtoast.ytmnd.com, a user by the name of Scottendo responds to another user who points out what little sense the site makes, "There is no point, this is an ytmnd. Is there ever a point to an ytmnd? I make them for fun." Then another user, Mattdh12 goes on to comment on the rating system that ytmnd utilizes saying, "Lets base how funny a site is by its rating, especially on a user who must get revenge 1'd like crazy. Ratings mean jack." It is interesting to see that some of the users don't rely on the ratings system to decide what is good.

April 9th

Once again, in the SFW forum, I observe that the users complain about the postings and the content. User xXYellowJacketXx mentions,” I’m primarily on NSFW. I'm here trying to help these people out and make this forum something that sucks slightly less, but I keep getting held back by DA MAN." Again, users complain yet they still post. Today I also visited the NSFW forum. The name of the forum definitely describes the content that lies with in. Swearing is widely accepted in both forums but much more is tolerated in NSFW including pornographic pictures, pictures of dead things, a disturbing picture of a dead baby, etc. Needless to say, there was an overflowing of pretty much useless threads but today I saw six threads about the same thing: some users named Adair. Apparently, a number of users have a problem with him. Numerous users suggested that he be placed on Faggot Patrol or fp as they abbreviate. After a little digging, I found out that faggot patrol was not just some sort of insult. It is also the name of a group of users under the moderators of the NSFW forum. Whether or not it is a good thing, I have yet to find out.

April 10th

Today in the SFW forum, moderator drunkpuppies took it upon himself to crate a thread warning the users of the forum to stop being overly crude to one another. If the users fail to comply, he said he would track them down and, "own them like they've never been owned before on an internet forum." If you are familiar with the term "owned" then you know it is a threat. xXWASPXx, another moderator, also chimed in after user xXYellowJacketXx tries to defend his crudeness. According to xXWASPXx, users like xXYellowjacketXx are the problem because of the blatant elitism that he/she as well as other users put upon the newer users of the forum. I feel it is all for nothing because I’ve yet to see any threat by a moderator to be taken seriously. In the NSFW forum, another similar situation played out only a user, called spheny1, calls out the other users to stop making threads that don't mean anything. Responds to this request made that thread into the very thing it was calling out against. It seem that there is not a lot of sense in these forums.