Which I achieved some time ago and forgot to mention, lol.

Nice. Even as inactive as I am, my e-penis is continuing to grow large and intimidating. When I inevitably get bored of the world and return here, to my place of refuge, my comeback shall be even more glorious. Secret Episodes shall rain from the sky and I will shoot back up the B/P ranks and all those in my path shall perform fellatio upon me.

Oh my, yes.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

Due to my writing work (namely the latest chapter of Sinners, 62000 words...yeah...), I've been rather inactive in recent months. With that titanic chapter behind me, though, and the Elite Guard Barracks calling to me, I shall return with significantly more activity! My wake-up call was the realization that I MISSED A DEPOSIT. OH GOD. NOW I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW TO LEVEL UP, INSTEAD OF TODAY.

*sobs*

NEVER AGAIN.

Thus I have returned, and I will continue my efforts to protect the Portal and keep the grandest morons on Newgrounds from fucking up the site any more than they already are, as well as aiding those who wish to do the same. :-D

Something I HAVE been up to on Newgrounds, though...Toss the Turtle. I love this game. Big time.

W-P-S also made a swell sequel to Anusboy. Hooray for actual artists!

That is all for now.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

So, yesterday afternoon my mom woke me up (I'm nocturnal again) and informed me that Michael Jackson was dead. Shocking to hear, since he was never on my "important people who might die in the near future" mental list, but I turned on the news and indeed, it was true.

Seeing all the stuff about how much he contributed to music, how shitty his childhood was, and how he was a hero to so many people, I kinda started feeling guilty about my past ragging about the guy. Yeah, he got a little weird in recent years, but so what? Can you really blame him after all the shit that he had to deal with, both from within his family and from the public?

It's possible that he molested kids. It's also possible that he was an alien surveying our planet (hence the moonwalk). But the fact is, we'll never know. The American legal system isn't exactly rational or competent, and one thing that everyone should be aware of is that few people are ever as bad as the media makes them out to be.

What we DO know, without any doubt, is that he changed the music world forever. That's what his legacy should be, not the tabloid garbage that so many of us relished in for so long. A musician. An artist. A goddamn pioneer.

I'll be putting the damn jokes to rest.

Rest in peace, Mr. Jackson.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

If you suspect that someone is using alts to leave multiple reviews on a flash, or see any sort of review shenanigans (lots of people leaving copy/paste reviews, for example), PM a review mod so they can check it out and potentially stop a spam flash from stealing an award!

The review mods are 36Holla, absent, AllReligiousDrunk, aviewaskewed, BlueHippo, Canas, CaptainBob, Coop83, deckheadtottie, FIGMENTUM, idle, Jercurpac, Jonas, kidray76, life, Malachy, NEVR, RageVI, ramagi, Sanjay, Seamonky, SevenSeize, ShitOnAStick, Stormwarden, Streakydesign, The-Swain, tigerkitty, UberBarista, and WavyGravy.

Don't hesitate, because once something gets an award, it can't be taken away!

Be sure to read the public service announcements below for other ways to clean up Newgrounds. Comment or PM me if you have any questions.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

Egypt is apparently killing all their pigs. Despite there being no evidence that pigs are the actual vector of the outbreak. Oh, and there hasn't been a single case in Egypt yet.

Goddamn it, guys. You used to build pyramids. You should be smarter than this.

On that note, I'm coming down with sickness. I'm also not panicking. I'll be doing the same thing I always do---20% more sleep, lots of water and orange juice, and avoid hacking on people. Seriously, guys, if this little blip of influenza is supposed to be a CLASS FIVE EPIDEMIC OMG, then the system is very, very lame. More than 30000 Americans die each year from influenza. Our current death toll from swine flu is ONE. A young child, (who are among the most common victims of EVERYTHING). One who visited Mexico, with a health care system that's kinda...how can put this nicely...shit.

THIS IS NOT A PANDEMIC. THIS IS FLU SEASON.

sdfgsdfgsdfg COCKS

also happy pico day

also holy shit my account didn't get deleted, WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED? XD

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

It seems that my time on Newgrounds is at an end. I committed the grave mistake of criticizing an abusive reviewer's reviews and calling him a moron, and he has informed me that my account will soon be banned by the moderators. I know not when the hammer will fall, but it will likely be before the morrow. I thought that there were user-controlled blocking tools available for those modes of communication, but apparently I am in error, and Big Brother will reeducate me.

I would like to say that I love all of my Newgrounds buddies and have always considered this site a sort of home away from home, except there's nothing to eat and I have no idea what any of my friends actually look like and odds are at least a third of them are lying about their age and/or gender. Never before have I been so involved with a website and its users. Back in the beginning, 34358 B/P's ago, I never thought I'd still be on Newgrounds more than half a decade later, but...it was worth it.

And I threw it all away by calling a rulebreaking user a prick via userpage comments and private message. OH THE WASTE! OH THE HUMANITY!

Since I will surely not be here tomorrow, I leave all my NG-possessions to ramagi. I wish I could have married you, ramagi, but GhostSG means serious fucking business. Treat my account well. The password is iwantramagi469.

Farewell, you princes of Newgrounds, you kings of the internet. I take my bow and prepare for e-death.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

People who are romantically and/or sexually attracted to persons of the same gender. Also (though increasingly archaic) a state of cheerful happiness.

Gay, however, is not a synonym for stupid or lame.

Get it right, you fucking preteen-minded morons.

This concludes today's public service announcement.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

THIS MANGA MADE ME CRY. PUNISH IT BY READING IT.

Also (and this should have occurred to me within the first few pages, but I guess I was in denial), it's a shojo manga. For those of you who aren't familiar with manga, it means I just spent two hours reading and tearing up over a story marketed to chicks under the age of 18.

Damn you, emasculating manga I never heard of until last night.

THAT IS ALL

...except for this very Newgrounds-relevant screenshot, anyway. Rofl.

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

For so long, Newgrounds has been without a dominant flash group. So many small, inefficient groups have popped up in the wake of the Barney Bunch and Kitty Krew, and many of them cross the line between funny spam and rulebreaking idiocy.

Well, never you fear, Newgrounds. Something is on the wind. Perhaps you've felt it already.

Maybe it'll blossom again. Maybe it won't. But however the chips fall, the world will once again catch a glimpse of the wonderful gaiety of Drew Pickles and his legions.

Also, if you're a Naruto fan, then you should definitely watch my latest flash featuring the amazing adventures of Naruto, Rock Lee, Neji, Kakashi, and Sasuke! :3

*****

Why spammers can win awards and why it's your fault.
Why mass voting is always wrong and how to do what's right.

[Back to Slash's Index Page]

Hello. My name is Slash Firestorm. I'm the current commander of the Elite Guard Barracks, a longtime Newgrounder with a specialty in B/P'ing and abuse flagging, and I'm here today to deliver a public service announcement.

This is a beginner's guide to the sensitive issues of spam and how it should be handled. Some of this will be obvious to seasoned Newgrounders, but this is crucial information for newer and less experienced users. Feel free to recommend anything that should be added to this, and if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'm happy to help.

I also recommend reading my public service announcement on why spammers can win weekly awards and why it's your fault, and what you can do to reverse that trend.

******

Spam.

It's aggravating, isn't it? Such utter garbage passes judgment, and you don't know why anyone could be stupid enough to vote to protect it. One frame flashes? Tiny loops of dicks and crude sketches? And it's passing, and will remain on Newgrounds forever, and it infuriates you.

You've got to do something about it; this site is going to hell in a handbasket. But what? Perhaps you should get a group together, and all vote to blam such garbage with your combined voting power. Then the Portal would be clean and wonderful, right?

Wrong.

What you are proposing is a blam club, a group dedicated to mass voting, and such things aren't just against the rules of Newgrounds; they also make things worse off.

It's not that there aren't enough non-spammers to blam shitty flash; hell, normal Portal browsers outnumber the spammers by at least a hundred to one. The problem is just how many of those Portal browsers are stat whores who vote solely for protect points. Ironically, most spammers DON'T mass vote; they rely on the Newgrounds public to vote five on the flash, since they mistakenly see it as a "guaranteed protect point", creating a cycle of self-delusion---you vote five because it's sure to pass, but it's only sure to pass because you vote five. You could have fifty people mass voting and still be ineffective against the other hundred and fifty who would rather have internet stats. It's nearly impossible to overcome that foolish majority, and thus so-called counter mass-voting is ineffective.

But that's just why mass voting doesn't work. Now let's move on to why it's wrong.

Mass voting is against the rules because it goes against the very foundation of the B/P system---that individuals decide on flashes and form a sort of community consensus on what is worthy of being on the site. If the whole of Newgrounds voted based on what they considered quality---never going to happen, but let's pretend that it could---the Portal would be in its ideal state. There would be flash that some people hated, but enough people would like them to warrant their passing judgment. Those who didn't like those flashes could simply not watch them, and the Portal would be a sort of pure, fair democracy.

Mass voting is abusive because one group seeks to impose their definition of quality on the entire site. Sure, some spam is almost universally considered shit---those one-frame flashes, for instance---and it's okay to be mad that they're passing and voting zero on them when you see them. But it's NOT okay to try and tell a group of people to vote zero on them, because deciding that YOU know what the community consensus should be is the equivalent of a dictatorship. If there was only one correct definition of quality, Tom would have trashed the B/P system years ago and picked everything by hand.

In an ideal points-are-irrelevant Portal, the utter shit would be taken care of by group consensus. Thus, the goal is not to tell people how to vote; the goal is to get people to realize the function of the B/P system...for the collective judgment of Newgrounds to be rendered, sparing that which most deem worthy and denying that which most deem garbage.

The reason why the Portal is a shithole is not because of the spam itself, but rather it is the lack of that democratic consensus that is the B/P system's ideal state. Instead of the popular opinion of Newgrounds being expressed in the saves and blams of under judgment flashes, we are flooded with the spammish submissions that enough people have deluded themselves into believing will always pass. And indeed, they always pass until the NG public realizes that they're the only reason it's being protected and strive to change that fact. Until then, as I've said before, Newgrounds has the Portal it asked for, and the Portal it deserves. For the time being, that IS the group consensus.

All that those dedicated to helping Newgrounds can do is to teach the NG public that the group consensus does not have to remain fixed. We cannot change it ourselves, and even if we could, we have no right to choose for them. We must vote how we, personally, feel that we must, and let everyone make their own decisions, regardless of what those decisions are. It may be frustrating, but that's how it must be.

If I have one piece of advice, it's this: learn to relax. Spam flash passing judgment is not the end of the world. It will drift off the Portal soon enough, joining the hundreds of thousands of submissions in limbo, never to be seen again. Newgrounds isn't running out of space, and it's not going to crash because a fake preloader got by with a 1.80.

Never neglect to whistle that which breaks the rules, but don't let non-rulebreaking spam get you aggravated. Some people, believe it or not, like some stereotypically spammy flashes. I, myself, joined a spam group (the Barney Bunch) and was able to enjoy myself AND fight over-the-line abuse. It's not impossible to embrace both aspects of Newgrounds. I suspect that in that extremely unlikely ideal Portal, there would be much less 'spam', but not none of it. A little controversy is healthy; it toughens you up.

Vote fairly, vote individually, and for fuck's sake, vote. Every person who B/P's for quality instead of points brings the Portal a little closer to that ideal state.

Those interested in promoting fair voting and fighting abuse should check out the Elite Guard Barracks, a group of high-ranking Newgrounders who are dedicated to those principles. Even if you don't have the qualifications to join, we'll still be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

*****

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