Soap Opera wank!
Ah- soap opera wank is the bestest wank ever! Forgive any newbie mistakes, but I just had to share the current wankery on my favorite 'General Hospital' Board- SoapZone (why yes, I am sad- and yes, we're a fandom. We have as much Mary Sue fanfic as the next guy!). Here's hoping the juicy bits don't get deleted! The current Kerfluffle has trixie asking Is being called"passive agressively full of $hit" a poster bash?

And to many, the answer would probably be 'Yes, it is'. Of course, things are not that simple...

Seems trixie was so maligned when she posted Weekend Spoiler/Rumor/Gossip Hodgepodge, basically a compilation of spoilers from around the web. HNR responds Wow. I. Bet. None. Of. These. Came. From. NOL. Um, HNR and trixie have a bit of a history. Anyway, HNR was refering to NOL- which is a 'Sonny and Carly' pairing website known for its spoilers. Its policy is 'no reprinting of their spoilers'- only linking is allowed. Now, trixie didn't get any of the spoilers from NOL and she cited all of the sites she got them from, but it's safe money that some of the spoilers did originate at NOL. So this starts, or rather re-starts, the current debate on 'poster bashing'. So far Jeff, board owner and sole moderator (I feel very sorry for Jeff) has issued this ruling: When you goad & bait, over & over, don't whine when you get what you ask for. Snerk. While I sympathize with Jeff, that's probably not the best policy for a peaceful board- nor is it really consistent with the 'no poster bashing' rule that exists. Still- I snerk. And I read more. It's better than crack.

Of course, a little history will help if you plan to dig through all of this. The 'fandom' is divided by massive fanbases who follow particular couples and war on each other like cannibals who haven't eaten in a month (pretty much like every other fandom I follow). One of the biggest fanbases is the S&Cers (Sonny and Carly fans). Many of them left SoapZone and moved to a new S&C board after a wanktastic episode involving the posting of private emails, massive poster bashing, tantrums, etc. It was much fun. Unfortunately, the main post that inspired that was deleted. The closest I could find relating to it was one of the (frequent) posts that pops up every week or so asking
What happened to the Sonny and Carly fans?

Hee. Unfortunately, many of the juicy bits have been deleted, but you can get a feel for the random chaos that frequently characterizes the board (which I actually find fun). The gist of the story itself: while SZ animosity goes back a long way, the S&C exodus began when someone (call 'em 'Poster A' because I can't remember) posted an email reply they had gotten from 'Poster B'. Seemed Poster A had accidently sent a reply to Poster B as email rather than posted it to the board. Poster B's reply to the accidental email was- well, scathing. Basically, it called the girl fat, said she was just jealous of one of the actresses on the show, said they had the pictures to prove it and could post them on the internet- yadda yadda.

Now- when poster A got the reply ('You're fat, ugly, a loser, etc.'), she posted the whole email to the board (naming names)- under a title along the lines of 'S&C fans are so awful and here's why...' sorta deal. So- two things happened: lots of poster B's friends jumped in and slammed Poster A for posting private email (fair enough) and many accused her of lying, saying they knew poster B and she would never have sent such an email. Poster B (who sent the email) didn't chime in until much later, but more on that in a second.

It ended up a huge ruckus, and many of the S&C fans packed up and moved to a new S&C site (along with their friend poster B). To add to the snark factor, the site moderator Jeff ultimately confirmed that the email had actually been sent by poster B. Snerk.

Joybaby kinda explains things here http://soapzone.com/boards/read.php/gh/main/1860284?arc=1 - but do notice, the actual factual issues take up very little of the thread as a whole. Then again, the factual issues are rarely important in SZ flamewars. And leave it to potato to put it all in perspective: All right, this is my official, fairly impartial ruling:

For even more history, AlexisSucksNSwallows kindly provides a repost (in the 'Is this a Bash' thread) of a deleted thread which ALMOST invoked Godwin's Law: (excerpt)

"How about, you will shut the **** up with your nauseating claptrap? You like an unpopular SOAP COUPLE, for pete’s sake! You’re hardly Malcolm X being hunted down by the Nation Of Islam! You're not a suspected Communist being grilled by the McCarthy Commission! You're hardly a Christian in the Middle East being persecuted for spreading the good news! YOU LIKE AN UNPOPULAR SOAP COUPLE! No more, no less. " I can't imagine why the post was deleted in the first place. Once again, I light a candle for Jeff.


I love soaps operas!