What's Area 25?

DarlinKell · February 23, 2002, 13:52

I saw it mentioned several times in Chris 62's thread about Ming. I wouldnt posted the question there but i thought it might be considered Thread Jacking?

H Tower · February 23, 2002, 13:58

a long time ago... well probably not that long ago, but before i got here, one of the forums got shut down. at least that's what the mods and admins thought, all that happened was that it got taken off the main page. and a few of the more notorious posters found out it was still there. and since post counts counted there... Can you say spam? I don't know exactly who found it or who posted there. Anyways, they all ended up getting busted when Ming found out, something about Horse posting a link to it in the OT, at least that's what i got from the horses mouth when i asked him over at CivFanatics... he was probably just trying to get me (and others) riled though.

faded glory · February 23, 2002, 14:23

I wondered that too......but how can you have an unused section of forum? I mean.....we could spam the Mac or TOT forums to hell.....like that? Kind of?

Where was this forum?

DarlinKell · February 23, 2002, 14:27

well kinda reminds me of the old Sega msg boards..... when you make your own forum.. you moderated it and had a password for ppl to get into it....... there were no lists.... just other ppl had to know the name and the pw to get to the forum...... they redid the msg board and siad they got rid of them ...... but they didnt, they just kinda forgot about them and we used them all the time once we'd find out a pw to one of the old forums.

ixnay · February 23, 2002, 14:30

I don't remember when this happened, but from what I've gathered, one of the forums became unused, but still in the database. All the forums have a url like this:

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisp...?s=&forumid=31

And I suppose by putting in a 25 at the end for the forum ID, they managed to get in there.

Wiglaf · February 23, 2002, 14:31

For the record, FG, spamming the mac forum is rather difficult. Mark gives it a regular sweep every so often, usually knocking off whatever asher posts, so you'd probably have a hard time getting anything done there...

Gramphos · February 23, 2002, 14:34

Poly is full of surprices. I know about the double area 51.

DarkCloud · February 23, 2002, 14:38

IT was not merely spam. There was pornography and other such things there.

Through use of the forum, some posters managed 30 to 40 posts a day for a time.

Over 30 were banned.

Snapcase discovered the forum... was up to 3000 or 4000 posts... then received a 50% pcr, I believe... Then changed his name and locked himself out of his login, and was forced to create a new login and has since then recovered his posts.

Andz83 was among the banned as were a multitude of others.

AH blew the whistle on the operation.

Gramphos · February 23, 2002, 14:45

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Snapcase discovered the forum... was up to 3000 or 4000 posts... then received a 50% pcr, I believe... Then changed his name and locked himself out of his login, and was forced to create a new login and has since then recovered his posts.

I know the story of Snapcase's DL (A Preserved Snapcase on Stage), but I didn't know it had to do with that forum, but more that it were related to that he used tochange his name now and the, and one they he made the name too long for UBB. However, that account works with vB (Snapcase tested it).

The date of is new account would bring down the discovery of area 25 to november 2000.

DarlinKell · February 23, 2002, 14:46

hmmmmmmmm....... dont think i'd be a snitch....... and ifi were i'd be sure and not tell ppl it was me....hehehe

H Tower · February 23, 2002, 14:55

i bet horse just wanted the attention, he will forever be remembered as the whistle blower.

faded glory · February 23, 2002, 15:14

How can a forum like that Hide from the Mark????? Moreover..Porn?

That would have been awesome had it still existed

Is there an Archive of it?

Dam!

Eli · February 23, 2002, 15:32

The forum was removed from the main page, but not closed for posting. So the mods couldnt see that new posts are posted there.

Someone discovered it using the method ixnay37 described, and the rumor spread. So we were pumping up our post counts for a while and then AH told to the mods and everyone got banned.

Luckily, I had only 400 posts at the time, and 33% PCR didnt matter much.

Dauphin · February 23, 2002, 16:40

Quote:

and since post counts counted there... Can you say spam?

At the time OT posts counted aswell.

....

There was also the "Case of the Communal DL" on that forum.

Buck Birdseed · February 23, 2002, 17:54

Note that there are no empty "hidden" forums in vBulletin so don't even try to find them. I already did.

This was under the previous system, UBB. And although I take full "credit" for finding Area 25 (and the three other empty forums, 2, 8 and 30 IIRC), the, er, trick was discovered by someone at OWO, where it was possible to spam the classic "empty" forum. It was discovered on the eight of October, 2000, IIRC. It was a day after I left for Univeristy, so I missed the final chapter of the whole mess.

I don't think anyone except me used the communal login, "Ken Bregott". The "communal" bit was an afterthought, actually.

Asher · February 23, 2002, 18:15

Sure there are secret forums on Apolyton. You just can't access them in the conventional way.

Buck Birdseed · February 23, 2002, 18:19

How does MySQL deal with deleted entries?

Gramphos · February 23, 2002, 18:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher
Sure there are secret forums on Apolyton. You just can't access them in the conventional way.

I know about seven...

Dauphin · February 23, 2002, 19:25

Ways of accessing or secret forums

Hydey · February 23, 2002, 21:06

Horse was not the whistle blower, he was the scape goat.

H Tower · February 23, 2002, 21:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Hydey
Horse was not the whistle blower, he was the scape goat.

actually he confessed to posting a link to area 25 in the OT, and then ming found it, and that as we say, is history

ColdWizard · February 23, 2002, 21:46

there could have been any number of whistle-blowers. one of the area 25ers was dropping hints about the "secret" forum, so while i didn't see AH's supposed link, i still found the forum. there's no shortage of people here smarter than me, so i'm sure others found the forum independently as well.

i didn't bother posting in there as browsing some of the threads made it pretty obvious that most everyone involved was going to be caught and punished. that assumption was validated when ming posted in there later

Hydey · February 23, 2002, 22:15

History is written by those who want others to believe there thoughts, it rarely matches the truth.

Ming · February 23, 2002, 22:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Hydey
History is written by those who want others to believe there thoughts, it rarely matches the truth.

While that may be the case in many situations...

DaShi · February 23, 2002, 22:37

There is a secret forum deep in the center of Apolyton where the moderators live.

*End Is Forever* · February 23, 2002, 22:52

There were some great threads in Area 25. I don't remember any porn though. My personal favourite was the Word Association; "normal rules apply, except you have to post five times before anyway else can".

Hydey · February 23, 2002, 23:15

Area 25 had some great spam in it,

I mean where was area 25.

Lancer · February 24, 2002, 05:00

Though AH turned informer, we shouldn't hold a persons nature against them, give the guy a break already...

Eli · February 24, 2002, 05:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Snapcase
(and the three other empty forums, 2, 8 and 30 IIRC),

Were they used too?

Buck Birdseed · February 24, 2002, 08:25

Not really. I posted once in one of them, but we decided to pick No. 25 (real name "HS - Alphaleague" IIRC) because it had no official moderator set. I don't honestly know if that makes a difference.