The Sceptics’ Tank has been around since the very beginning of the internet, founded before the term “social networking” existed. In those first, baby-step days, we had a presence on the old BBS boards, launching in 1989, when “the internet” wasn’t even called that. There was Prodigy, later Compuserve, and most people had a vague awareness of something called “email” that was mentioned on tv now and then. The Twelve were its founders. The original Twelve, additional Nine, and subsequent Half Dozen have been identical for fifteen years. We have lost a single member to death, and another to federal prison. The latter is out, back, and welcome… good to see Seth wandering the IRC hallways. THE SCEPTICS’ TANK got its name, and solidified its presence as an actual group, in 1992. This spring (2012), we will be twenty years old.
No member has ever been banned from our BBS (now defunct, but that was what we had way back in the stone-age), our IRC channels, the forum, or this blog. Granted, we are a private group, and only allow visitors on rare occasions. We’ve banned people from the IRC channels, but these were hackers attempting to steal our hacks and servers.
The IRC servers have Channel Owners, but everyone is an Op. The forum has no administrators except for the webmistress (Olie), and Overseer (Marc). Both are simply in charge of fixing the broken shit. Nobody is silenced. Nobody is “in charge.” Stupid people don’t get in to start with.
Now, let’s think about this. Nobody—not one member—has ever been censored, silenced, or shunned. We have knock-down, drag-out fights over politics, religion, current events, morality, literature, string theory, and everything else. Yesterday—October 19, 2011—a founding member referred to another founding member as a “cocksucker.” The discussion in question began on IRC, migrated to the forum, and was an in-depth debate concerning Stargate, Star Trek, the Prime Directive, and featured quotes from Schopenhauer, Descartes, Spinoza, Tolstoy, Saint Augustine, Marx, and Leibniz. (Members can check the thread if they think we are shitting them. We are really not shitting.) It also bears mentioning that the invoker of the word “cocksucker” is a tenured professor at one of the finest universities in the country (which shall remain nameless, to protect the innocent, and the tenure), the ALLEGED sucker in question is a Roman Catholic priest.
It’s fine. It was a heart-felt and vigorous debate.
The point, after a week of more ABSOLUTE WRITE hijinx (which, as always, bled outward), more blog posters moderating honest, if embarrassing, comments, of Kindle Board wig-outs that resulted in massive email-explosions, and cetera… THE POINT is that grown ups who are not fucking assholes never need babysitting. Call the priest a cocksucker. He can take it, and dish it right back at you in full measure. Tell the professor he doesn’t know shit. He can argue in response with a side order of piss.
Never, in the history of this group, has a topic been closed, moved, changed, banned, barred, or discouraged.
We will celebrate twenty years together, snot-slinging, bitching, moaning, insulting, and loving the living hell out of one another. Nobody has ever been silenced or moderated. We slug it out. We hug it out.
It works. Try it. Or just shut up and unplug.
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