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 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Slender Man Mythos
Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
Moderators: ChildOfAtom, Cougar Draven, DavFlamerock, Dixie_Wolf, ndemeter
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DaLadybugMan
Decorated

Joined: 15 Dec 2010
Posts: 186

 		Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
This goes for everyone. There are a lot of Slenderblogs being deleted when the story is through. Not only is this annoying, it's downright rude to everyone who might want to read it afterwards (especially people like me who consider it their "job" to analyze the mythos). Often times, these deleted blogs are rather important. Let's go through some examples, shall we?

CUT!: was one of the first humorous blogs. It apparently also managed to walk the line between comedy and horror very well. Was "deleted by the police."

Enter Light: One of the biggest events that happened near the end of the whole Core Theory thing was the Slender Man's minions attacking Nessa and forcibly dragging her to their side. And then her blog got deleted, leaving little evidence of it. And then she came back, providing a bit of additional information, shortly after which it got deleted again.

White Elephants: One of the most influential blogs in the mythos. It's what founded "Core Theory." It was "wiped by an antagonist" after the writer "lost his mind." Fortunately, some of the chached posts were found, but they're not easy to find. Rebooted, and anyone reading the story from where it starts up would have no idea what it's about.

A Lack of Lexicon: A rather large part of the early mythos. It wasn't a huge blog, and it didn't run for particularly long, but it was one of the first to include multiple characters sharing the same blog and did a lot with codes. "A" was the first character to really work with expanding into other blogs. It was, at very least, influential.

Para-Not-So-Normal: Another influential blog in the Slenderverse. References to it appear in quite a few places. On top of that, it was a long-runner and had quite a few posts. Again, it started up again recently with new posts.

Slender School: I didn't exactly care for the blog, but anything about NAPPA makes no sense without it.

You can see the problem. The mythos is already hard to follow because it's so interconnected. And when you take out primary links, it becomes impossible to understand what's going on. What's more, it makes things nearly impossible for anyone to go back and check on what exactly all this is about.

So please. If you absolutely must make your old blog defunct, do it in a different way. Start the character with a new blog under a new name, like zero recently did. That way, you get the added bonus of a reveal. Make it so that they simply can't read the old posts, like the Delmonts can't read the posts on the eleventh hour. Or just start a new blog and keep the same character, like Zeke Strahm did with Seeking Truth/The Mystic. You don't have to delete the blog. In fact, for our sake, please don't.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:50 pm
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NoMoreGaems
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Joined: 17 Sep 2010
Posts: 627

 		I figure anyone who does such a thing probably cares more about the artistic integrity of the thing than they do about their audience at all, so they probably won't really understand the issue. On the plus side, it also makes it easy to not care about them.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:23 pm
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Miscellania
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Joined: 10 Mar 2011
Posts: 67
Location: In hiding.
NoMoreGaems wrote:
I figure anyone who does such a thing probably cares more about the artistic integrity of the thing than they do about their audience at all, so they probably won't really understand the issue. On the plus side, it also makes it easy to not care about them.


You make your point, and you make it well.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:27 pm
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SpaceBass
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Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 2701
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 		This thread is a perfect example of why our moderators err on the side of extreme caution when it comes to deleting or removing information from the forums. Cheers.
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:44 pm
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JustAQ
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Joined: 22 Mar 2011
Posts: 155

 		I was actually really disappointed that I couldn't read "ForeverStalked". I wanted to read the worst of the worst. I read "Breaker", but it wasn't as bad as FS sounded.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:03 pm
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SadlyChamo
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Joined: 08 Dec 2010
Posts: 285
Location: cat planet

 		I got rid of mine because I just plain didn't like it and the only person that did was this one girl who has a huge crush on me. If anyone liked my serieis I will gladly put it back up.(It was just on my YT Sadlychamo) I might even finish it up. I do however have a plan to re-do it when I get a better camera.
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He comes in your house at night. He watches you sleep. He know who you are,since he always was there. He hides in you closet. Tonight he will demand something of you..."GIMMA TWENTY DOLLA!"

PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:10 pm
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Nimbus
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Joined: 07 Jan 2010
Posts: 263
Location: Bumfuck, Egypt - Florida

 		I miss 2080twentywightY Crying or Very sad
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:11 pm
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bendy
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Joined: 19 Aug 2010
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Nimbus wrote:
I miss 2080twentywightY Crying or Very sad

Me to Nimbus, me too...
Rolling Eyes

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:57 am
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Anonymousity
Entrenched


Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Posts: 1125
JustAQ wrote:
I was actually really disappointed that I couldn't read "ForeverStalked".


Which one was that one?

But yeah, I agree with the notions in this blog.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:58 am
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NoMoreGaems
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Joined: 17 Sep 2010
Posts: 627
Anonymousity wrote:
JustAQ wrote:
I was actually really disappointed that I couldn't read "ForeverStalked".


Which one was that one?

But yeah, I agree with the notions in this blog.


WHY HE MAKE MOVE NOW

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:04 am
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sonicmax
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Joined: 18 Nov 2010
Posts: 23

 		you could always try looking here: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:11 am
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awakeasaurusrex
Entrenched


Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Posts: 1099
sonicmax wrote:
you could always try looking here: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Archive.org does not archive everything though, and often what it does archive takes quite a while to appear.

But yeah, DaLadybugMan, you make an excellent point, and NoMoreGaems is right that it shows that the authors place artistic integrity above the ability of the audience to actually follow and enjoy their work, and if you have that much contempt for your audience why publish a blog in the first place? Why not just keep your writing in notepad if you're just doing it for your own enjoyment and don't care about anyone else's ability to read it?

What particularly irks me is the tactic that DaLadybugMan identifies in Enter Light and White Elephants - deleting the blog midway through the story and rebooting the whole thing. Not only is that incredibly disrespectful to anyone who comes along trying to read your blog after the story is done, it completely screws over anyone who starts reading your blog in the middle of the run. It puts across the impression that you only really care about the readers who've been following your blog from the start, and that really isn't cool.

And ultimately, artistic integrity really isn't an excuse. At the end of the day, as an author, you bear the final responsibility for everything that happens in your story. No crying and claiming that you had to delete the blog because "that's what the story demanded" - if that's really the case, it's still your damn fault, because it was you who set the story up in such a way that it demanded it.

But in fact, in almost every case I reckon a decent author should be able to come up with a way to justify not deleting the blog and still pull off the effect they want. Take White Elephants, which deleted all the old posts and had the main character forget about them and start posting again about coming out of hospital. Well, there's an easy way to justify keeping the old posts up but maintaining the character change: just say that the main character has just been discharged from mental hospital, and as far as they are aware all their old posts were just their delusions talking, but they've decided to leave them up as a reminder of how bad they can get when they don't take their meds (and because something scratching at the back of their heads makes them want to keep hold of that information...). There, more or less the same impact, but presented in a way which doesn't screw over anyone who found your blog late.

To be fair to White Elephants (since I've picked on that blog twice in this post), I can kind of see why they purged the posts - it was part of a general effort by the main Core Theory players to quietly kill off the Core Theory, or at least scale it back from the mildly ridiculous place it had got to. But I don't think deleting the posts worked out the way they wanted to; that particular genie was out of the bottle already, what worked in stopping the Core Theory silliness was the relevant bloggers remembering that Slendyblogs are horror stories and not fantasy stories and adjusting their presentation accordingly. On balance I think they'd have been better off leaving the posts up rather than trying to tidy away their mistakes, but have later posts refer back to them and be all "Oh man, how could we have been so stupid?"

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:57 am
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anerisinaction
Boot


Joined: 22 Mar 2011
Posts: 67
Location: Hiding, UK

 		This entire post 500000000000x. Yes yes yes.

I just got into the Slenderizing Thing a few months ago, and would spend hours rereads old blogs, old comments, and more. It got to the point where I actually came up with a good way to make it into my Master's thesis, though it involved Core Theory and with White Elephants deleted... *shakes head in sadness*

And even beyond my geeky academic pursuits, I want to know! I want to read it! I need to know! I must analyse! And these assfucks DELETED it. dfkljsdnflgksdnflgkjfsdbnghlksjfdn I'm a good and loyal fan! I've tell everyone I know about the shit I am passionate about! Why you gotta play me like this? Why I gotta feel so isolated and hurt?

Basically despair, anger, annoyance, and THANK YOU THANK YOU for making me feel I'm not alone in this.

EDIT: Seriously though. SERIOUSLY. If your story really warrants a deleting of the blog, at least make there a brief OOG archive where we can DOWNLOAD a notepad file or something. Put it up on another site. Make them only accessible through a subtle way. You're just preventing yourself from getting more fans here. Fan like me. ;-;

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:50 am
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ectobandit
Veteran


Joined: 11 Feb 2011
Posts: 74

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
DaLadybugMan wrote:
This goes for everyone. There are a lot of Slenderblogs being deleted when the story is through. Not only is this annoying, it's downright rude to everyone who might want to read it afterwards (especially people like me who consider it their "job" to analyze the mythos). Often times, these deleted blogs are rather important. Let's go through some examples, shall we?


Yeah, because the people running those blogs totally owe it to you, right? Rolling Eyes

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:31 am
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anerisinaction
Boot


Joined: 22 Mar 2011
Posts: 67
Location: Hiding, UK

 		Re: Dear Everyone: Please Stop Deleting Your Blogs
ectobandit wrote:
DaLadybugMan wrote:
This goes for everyone. There are a lot of Slenderblogs being deleted when the story is through. Not only is this annoying, it's downright rude to everyone who might want to read it afterwards (especially people like me who consider it their "job" to analyze the mythos). Often times, these deleted blogs are rather important. Let's go through some examples, shall we?


Yeah, because the people running those blogs totally owe it to you, right? Rolling Eyes


I don't know. I run a lot of RPGs and as a GM I do feel I owe it to the players to make sure they have access to game materials even after I stop running the game/answer questions/etc. They helped make it what it is, and without them I wouldn't have been able to run anything.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that when so many other blogs/stories/people are dependant on what they post that we ask them to leave it up, or at least provide access to the information. Though they may have created it, through the players and other PMs they helped make a huge collaborative story, and removing their section is really isolating for newbies/unfair to people who relied on it to tell their story/other aspects of the game/etc.

I'll never get to read about Core Theory, which everyone references constantly (or used to, but still) because the blog is down. I really feel like I missed out. I'm supportive of the whole "creators don't need to obey the whims of their fans", but this is more than creator/fan relationship. This is, at least in part, a GM/player relationship. And as a player, I feel I own a part of the mythos. Maybe that's wrong, but I think that sense of contribution is what keeps people coming back, is what makes people post, is what makes us want to see how it ends.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:37 am
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