Nov 29, 2024, 22:51 pm
Torrminatorr is a forum for sharing games. Many years ago it used to be open and friendly, yet that couldn’t last long, greed has found the way to ruin the fun, like cancer, eating it from the inside.
How did this happen, who is responsible for this?
Let’s take a look. As with anything complicated, the path to failure is made of multiple parts going wrong. By analyzing them each paragraph, we can gain wisdom to not repeat their fate.
Many-many years ago, the forum has added the “Thanks” button. I’m told it was done to avoid users saying “thanks” in writing. Seems innocent, right? Well… Cheaters in games do everything they could to get the 1st place, publishers destroy developer studios, add microtransactions and DRM into games, all for the numbers on the bank account to go up to please the shareholders. Numbers are not a joke in our world, too many give them too much significance, forgetting they are made up, then it leads to toxic behaviors, fat egos, and ruined lives.
Today the Internet is swarming with bots, some of them can discover copyrighted material and report it. In return, the forum users were forced to hide the download links by making it invisible to anyone not in the system. A few years ago, swarmed by irrational paranoia, the whole forum was made hidden, becoming an empty husk of itself where you cannot do as little as to read an offtopic post that has nothing to do with piracy and has no links. This has worsened further when some narcissistic uploaders, whose egos are inflated by the “Thanks” in thousands, used the pretext of fear to make some posts invisible unless you have 50 or more posts.
The difference is that to a narcissist, praise replaces love, they view forum “Thanks” as the sign of praise, they crave it the most very bad: The more total activity the forum has, the more “thanks” they get, and the fatter their ego grows. The fatal error in this “perfect plan” is, however, as any of you knows by being forced to attend a work meeting or a wedding, “forced socialization” doesn’t work. Socialization has be voluntary, not forced, it has to come from the heart to be the flame of success for decades. Why did this pass, then, why was it authorized and approved? The trick to how they achieved this manipulation is as old as the time: Do appeal to emotions, especially the fear, a notoriously strong emotion, then repeat a lie a billion times, it will feel like the truth (Illusionary Truth Effect).
Making matters more difficult, to gain the 50 posts is not an easy matter. There is no plan for this at hand, the forum doesn’t have a guide to follow. Every user by default is denied to post download links in the appropriate topic of a game, the offtopic section is not developed and overall activity is small. If at any moment for any reason (or no reason) any narcissist decides that you might be one of their countless enemies or you question their status quo or to try to hold them accountable, you’ll be deleted into the nothingness instantly. It doesn’t matter if you were here for years and done a lot of contributions, they don’t care about the forum as a project, they don’t care about higher ideals, all what they care about is their ago and praise, that’s all that matters to them and that’s the only reason they ever upload anything.
All of the above is the direct result of negligence on the part of one person only, the forum owner: Nikolay “ADMIN” Toporov (he/him). The very architecture of the forum has given roots to what devours its fading light. To me, it feels like witnessing a golden city slowly crambling into ash, populatted by skeletons, ghouls, and vampires. History tells us that great empires fail because of egos, greed, and mismanagement, and there is no sign that Torrminatorr won’t be facing the same fate, it has objectively worsen over the years. Torrminatorr is no longer an open friendly place it was used to be, this Torrminatorr of the past is dead and nothing can return the past, we are not in science fiction and we got no time machine.
The wisdom from this unfortunate situation is:
1. Do not be a victim to imaginary numbers, don’t take life too seriously, it’s all made up;
2. Be aware of repeating lies and appealing to fear, don’t let it get into you and haze your rationality;
3. Have a good moral core, follow the higher ideals and don’t mistake a tree for the forest;
4. Being a leader, try your own product like a common user, don’t get out-of-touch.
Let’s address the elephant in the room and ask exactly three questions in the end of this mess:
1. “Can the forum be saved?” Yes. Remove the “Thanks” counter or the whole button. Make the links automatically hidden, remove the 50 posts limit. Mark the narcissists as such, remove all the special rights away from their greedy hands, let it be known that narcissism or other toxicity is never welcome in the staff ranks;
2. “Will it be saved?” No. Nikolay doesn’t care, the narcissists will do everything to destroy it in the pursuit of the praise, and the users have no power to affect them. It’s set to worsen, there is no basis for it to change;
3. “What should I do?” Honestly, what do you think it’s written for? It’s a cautionary tale. Learn from their mistakes, be better than them, that’s good enough for me.
How did this happen, who is responsible for this?
Let’s take a look. As with anything complicated, the path to failure is made of multiple parts going wrong. By analyzing them each paragraph, we can gain wisdom to not repeat their fate.
Many-many years ago, the forum has added the “Thanks” button. I’m told it was done to avoid users saying “thanks” in writing. Seems innocent, right? Well… Cheaters in games do everything they could to get the 1st place, publishers destroy developer studios, add microtransactions and DRM into games, all for the numbers on the bank account to go up to please the shareholders. Numbers are not a joke in our world, too many give them too much significance, forgetting they are made up, then it leads to toxic behaviors, fat egos, and ruined lives.
Today the Internet is swarming with bots, some of them can discover copyrighted material and report it. In return, the forum users were forced to hide the download links by making it invisible to anyone not in the system. A few years ago, swarmed by irrational paranoia, the whole forum was made hidden, becoming an empty husk of itself where you cannot do as little as to read an offtopic post that has nothing to do with piracy and has no links. This has worsened further when some narcissistic uploaders, whose egos are inflated by the “Thanks” in thousands, used the pretext of fear to make some posts invisible unless you have 50 or more posts.
The difference is that to a narcissist, praise replaces love, they view forum “Thanks” as the sign of praise, they crave it the most very bad: The more total activity the forum has, the more “thanks” they get, and the fatter their ego grows. The fatal error in this “perfect plan” is, however, as any of you knows by being forced to attend a work meeting or a wedding, “forced socialization” doesn’t work. Socialization has be voluntary, not forced, it has to come from the heart to be the flame of success for decades. Why did this pass, then, why was it authorized and approved? The trick to how they achieved this manipulation is as old as the time: Do appeal to emotions, especially the fear, a notoriously strong emotion, then repeat a lie a billion times, it will feel like the truth (Illusionary Truth Effect).
Making matters more difficult, to gain the 50 posts is not an easy matter. There is no plan for this at hand, the forum doesn’t have a guide to follow. Every user by default is denied to post download links in the appropriate topic of a game, the offtopic section is not developed and overall activity is small. If at any moment for any reason (or no reason) any narcissist decides that you might be one of their countless enemies or you question their status quo or to try to hold them accountable, you’ll be deleted into the nothingness instantly. It doesn’t matter if you were here for years and done a lot of contributions, they don’t care about the forum as a project, they don’t care about higher ideals, all what they care about is their ago and praise, that’s all that matters to them and that’s the only reason they ever upload anything.
All of the above is the direct result of negligence on the part of one person only, the forum owner: Nikolay “ADMIN” Toporov (he/him). The very architecture of the forum has given roots to what devours its fading light. To me, it feels like witnessing a golden city slowly crambling into ash, populatted by skeletons, ghouls, and vampires. History tells us that great empires fail because of egos, greed, and mismanagement, and there is no sign that Torrminatorr won’t be facing the same fate, it has objectively worsen over the years. Torrminatorr is no longer an open friendly place it was used to be, this Torrminatorr of the past is dead and nothing can return the past, we are not in science fiction and we got no time machine.
The wisdom from this unfortunate situation is:
1. Do not be a victim to imaginary numbers, don’t take life too seriously, it’s all made up;
2. Be aware of repeating lies and appealing to fear, don’t let it get into you and haze your rationality;
3. Have a good moral core, follow the higher ideals and don’t mistake a tree for the forest;
4. Being a leader, try your own product like a common user, don’t get out-of-touch.
Let’s address the elephant in the room and ask exactly three questions in the end of this mess:
1. “Can the forum be saved?” Yes. Remove the “Thanks” counter or the whole button. Make the links automatically hidden, remove the 50 posts limit. Mark the narcissists as such, remove all the special rights away from their greedy hands, let it be known that narcissism or other toxicity is never welcome in the staff ranks;
2. “Will it be saved?” No. Nikolay doesn’t care, the narcissists will do everything to destroy it in the pursuit of the praise, and the users have no power to affect them. It’s set to worsen, there is no basis for it to change;
3. “What should I do?” Honestly, what do you think it’s written for? It’s a cautionary tale. Learn from their mistakes, be better than them, that’s good enough for me.