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The Aftermath of TOTSE (and Why I Don't Seek Out Old TOTSE Members Anymore)

Arnox

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Staff member
Founder
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This seemingly random thread is coming from a very recent guest post that tried to spam a TOTSE spin-off. After giving this a bit more thought, I think a little more explanation is needed regarding my feelings on TOTSE and also why I'm pretty disillusioned with its old members.

Now, before I say anything else, this next sentence is to the old TOTSE members directly. I'm probably more an ACTUAL OG TOTSE MEMBER than you will ever know. Why? Because I know what TOTSE was about. What it was REALLY about. And it certainly wasn't Bad Ideas (for those who don't know what I'm talking about, you can look up all the history here). It was about exactly what it said on the tin. Freedom of expression and freedom of information. Mostly, it was the former though. Anyway though. I've been a card-carrying follower of that site's core philosophy and spirit since decades. Nothing has changed and most likely nothing will ever change in regards to that.

So... What happened then? Well, as you can see from Sanctuary's history, many of the leftover members of TOTSE are what I would call truly cancerous. And I don't say that lightly. I know that word gets passed around like candy these days, but when I say that, I mean it. TOTSE wasn't about illegal activities at all, although you could certainly discuss them. It wasn't about being a criminal, although there were certainly career criminals on the site. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, people lost sight of that. They lost sight of what Jeff Hunter envisioned. And soon, TOTSE's offshoots slowly became a breeding ground for wanton acts of stupidity, morphing into a clone of /b/.

TOTSE was based on core American ideals. But the American ideals of freedom were also based on the concept of responsibility and duty. TOTSE was no different in this regard. But that was flushed down the toilet with many of TOTSE's offshoots in favor of a twisted version of freedom. "I can be a total fucking dreg of humanity but the minute you do or even say anything against that, you are literally Hitler." And that is pretty much the downfall of Sanctuary v1.0 summed up in a sentence. And I am far from the only admin that has lost patience with this community. The old TOTSE community (or should I say, what was left of it) has had no less than FIVE DIFFERENT ADMINS, including me, all noping out because this old community fucking sucks. I'm sorry, but that's just how it was and is.

Now, having said all that, I'm sure there's a fair few old TOTSE members that are nothing like what I described. And I've met many old TOTSE members that really carried on the true spirit of TOTSE, or at the very least, were just plain old good members. But nevertheless, the many bring down the few. The old community is just way too unstable and unmanageable. I miss TOTSE dearly but I sure as fuck don't miss a lot of you people. That is all.
 
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