Talker: Encyclopedia II - Talker - The culture of talkers

Talker - The culture of talkers

Talker - Divisions between talkers

Talkers can be divided quite succinctly between two groups - ew-too-style talkers and NUTS-style talkers. Spods, as ew-too-style users were called, would almost never go to a NUTS talker, and vice versa. Beyond this simple division, there was a second division. All-ages users would never go to an adults only talker, and vice versa. However, adults-only talkers were almost exclusively NUTS-style, which meant that there were only 3 major divisions. Multiple worlds talkers however added an extra dimension. Because multiple worlds talkers effectively act as "one stop shopping" for users, many multiple worlds loyalists would never go to single talker systems. Whilst they might be convinced to go to another multiple worlds talker, it would be a great leap for them to consider going to an individual talker. In a similar vein, single talker loyalists would rarely go to a multiple worlds talker - or if they did, they would only go to 1 of the worlds and ignore the remainder. And beyond this simple division, there were also sub-divisions. BDSM users would often only go to talkers with a BDSM or similar theme. Similarly, zoophile users would often only go to other zoo or "furry" talkers. The same existed with lesbian talkers and gay men talkers, and other sub divisions. Indeed, users of general (vanilla) single talker adult chats would often totally ignore all of the other specific interests, never ever going to lesbian, furry, gay or BDSM talkers, or any other subdivisions.

This division is notable within the description of talkers. Whilst a number of articles were written in various magazines about talkers, they were almost exclusively about ew-too talkers, specifically the "big 3", Surfers, Resort and Foothills, and a reader of these magazines could easily conclude that NUTS did not exist. So big was this division that a recent BBC article about talkers [3] failed to mention the existence of NUTS talkers - and referred to the big 3 plus a relatively unheard of talker called Snowplains, and insisted that the ew-too style is the only style in existence. http://www.ewtoo.org/ has only referenced NUTS talkers since 1998, when Neil Robertson, the creator of NUTS petitioned heavily for their inclusion. But even then, Ew-too charts only mention Ew-too talkers. [4] And beyond that, Neil Robertson's history of talkers, which now recognises ew-too talkers, does not list a single adult-orientated talker. [5] In a similar vein, many NUTS loyalists will insist that Surfers and Resort are irrelevant, and instead refer to NUTS talkers. Thus any article about talkers is by its very nature subjective. [6]

Talker - Feuds and alliances

A number of talkers developed great feuds between each other. Two well known feuds are the one between Surfers and Resort and the one between Sleepy's and Lintilla. Many feuds remained throughout a talker's entire history, and may develop so far as to encourage hacking of rival talkers, with loyalists proudly wiping the talker or taking it over for a period of time, perhaps even wiping all user accounts. Coordinated attacks, where 30-40 users might be asked to go to a rival talker and hurl out abuse, writing nasty messages on boards, sending nasty messages to other users and so forth were common. In retaliation, many petty bans were enforced. Some rival talkers would ban all admins from a rival talker. Others may even go so far as to ban users who talked about a rival talker in a positive light.

In a similar vein, many talkers had alliances. Whilst these were often determined by the code base and style of talker, they often existed between individual talkers who shared a common desire. Great relationships existed through these alliances, and they may share users, share admins, or recommend users from one talker to be admin on another. Much mutual advertising existed through an alliance. In some cases, 2 or more talkers may even act as one, and may even end up merging, either to create what is effectively a multiple worlds service (such as Ancient Realms) or to be hosted all on the same site. The strong alliance between Foothills and Resort, or between Lintilla and Fantasia's led to at various times both talkers acting as one.

Talker - Net relationships

The concept of the net wedding was explored in detail in a talker. Whilst a MUD may have a net wedding as part of the roleplay (and may even include two men marrying each other, with one pretending to be a girl), a net wedding in a talker had much greater significance. Net weddings were often done by people who were really married in real life, or else living together, as a further sign of committment. Net weddings often led to real weddings at a later stage. The committment involved in a net wedding was significant. It was not uncommon for 500 users to go to a talker to see a wedding, and for the wedding to be advertised all over the talker world a month in advance, and for users to be smailed asking for them to come, including a priest, vows, and official sanctioning of the wedding by the owner of the talker and several of the admins. Most multiple worlds talkers had an entire talker devoted purely for net weddings. Some talkers were created purely for net weddings and would only be open so as to facilitate a wedding. A net wedding could last for 4 or 5 hours, and then include a honeymoon to a specific honeymoon talker, with after parties and all of the regalia of a real wedding. Whilst some net weddings were small, and indeed some talkers simply had code to allow users to marry themselves, it was in many cases a significant event.

In a similar vein, it was not uncommon for a variety of other net relationships to develop. Someone might have a net father, net mother, net brother, net sister, and net children, and this could be done regardless of age. A net father could in fact really be younger than you, and children could be older. On BDSM talkers, this also included the ability to permanently own a slave, as well as many other complexities.

Talker - The rumour mill

A tactic that was often used between warring talkers was the spread of a rumour about one that they did not like. Because many of the rumours were totally invented or else greatly exaggerated, many users became very thick skinned about them. Indeed, a number of talkers would fiercely support their talker if there was even a suggestion of improprietry, and it could actually increase a talker's popularity. In some cases a talker may even spread a rumour about itself, just to add popularity. "All publicity is good publicity", as they say.

On some occasions rumours were in fact true. Whilst there is ongoing dispute about the technicalities of what happened, events such as Surfers suddenly having Foothills' code, or Sleepy's suddenly opening up with the exact same code as Lintilla were not disputed. The specifics of why or how, however, were. What made a rumour really hurt was not whether it was actually true, but rather if it was possible. For example, the rumour about Cat from PoE being anti-zoo was based on his promotion of Cowlover to sorceror, someone who was hated. Whilst Cat insists that he was just doing what he was told, the reality is that that rumour stuck. Many other rumours have stuck for similar reasons, regardless of them being true.

Rumours could destroy a talker completely, or turn its user level in to rubble. Publishing of rumours on web pages and posting of them on other unassociated talker's message boards was a good way to hurt the talker. As a result, many talkers refused to even have a web page other than to simply state how to connect. http://www.surfers.org/, for example, does not even mention that Surfers even has a talker on the service, let alone a description of it.

But rumours often had the opposite effect as well. A talker which is subjected to particularly nasty constant criticism and rumours, such as Crystal Palace was, may actually gain in popularity, due to people going to the talker to try to find out if it was true, and then concluding that the talker had been scapegoated or treated unfairly.

Talkers which were regularly the subject of rumours often had especially loyal and antagonistic users, who would retaliate particularly nastily. If anyone repeated a rumour to a loyal user of a talker who was subjected to constant rumours, the users of that talker may go to great extremes to seek revenge on that user, often going to the lengths of severe harassment, cyberbullying and cyberstalking, sending a virus to their computer, and sometimes even worse.

Talker - Talkers being real

The atmosphere of a talker is that it creates a virtual environment. Room descriptions, a theme, including colour and specially tailored code means that to many it felt like they were home. Many users would look around at a room description, look at profiles of users, and feel like they were really there. It was common for people to describe the talker, or indeed even a favourite room in the talker, as their "home". Some talkers even allowed a user to have their own private personal room as well, either for admins, special long-term users, or in talkers that had credits or money of some kind (such as Crypt, PoE, Iron Rose or Crystal Palace).

A lot of users described talkers as their real home, and their actual real home, where they lived and their family as being fake. It was common for people to use such terms as "family" to describe their fellow users. "hugs" was a common expression used to welcome people who they knew and loved.

The description of talkers, and the way that commands worked went well beyond simple roleplaying. Whilst in a MUD or the like, a user might pretend to battle, they would really know that it was not real. In a talker, most long term users were very serious with what they were saying or actioning, and, if they were able to do it for real, they really would.

Amongst this, however, were a number of casual users who would "play" on the talker, and not take it seriously. Some would pretend to be someone that they were not, the worst case of this being if they pretended to be a woman when in fact they were a man. Whilst that is tolerated on a MUD, on a talker it is perhaps the worst offense imaginable. Some players would say things to the screen as part of cybersex but in reality be quite bored. Some people would tell terrible lies.

The general feeling amongst most long-term talker users is that players were not generally appreciated. Thus, whilst police officers would occasionally use a talker to try to catch a suspected paedophile or even zoophile, the falsity of their methods meant that most talker users were able to notice them quickly. Many talkers indeed had a policy to ban "players", and hence many police officers found themselves banned by talker owners, and unable to complete their "stake out".

The general feeling within a talker community was to protect its users, even if they were breaking the law in real life. So long as they did the right thing on the talker, that was all that mattered to them. Even when a talker owner had been required by law to assist police to capture a known criminal, them doing so was often seen as a reason for abandonment of the talker.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The culture of talkers", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki