I want to briefly vent for a moment about a kind of attitude that I see common on the internet today which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. An attitude that only serves to lock people into hugboxes and stifle healthy human interaction, and an attitude that got the next blog post on Worlio cancelled.

I'm talking about a project by some folks on Github to... 'restore' Activeworlds, or something along those lines. My memory from my interview with them is fuzzy because it was back in December but I've got the basics down. That's not super important though. I also want to go ahead and clarify that I'm posting this of my own volition. This isn't an official statement on behalf of anyone else but myself and nobody asked me to write this.

Lastly, don't go witch-hunting or bullying or even lightly provoking anyone mentioned here. I'm not writing this to "cancel" or punish someone. Attack the thought, not the person.

I'll need to provide context because this story goes back to November, so let's rewind real quick.

On November 27th, a Discord user named relic4898 had added me and asked me if I would be willing to take a look at their project called WideWorlds, a completely original, portable NodeJS-based 3D chatroom meant to work with Activeworlds props and RWX. I had been around the retro virtual worlds communities for some time now and I seemed like I would be a good fit to try it. However, I was at work when I had received this message so I didn't fully respond right away, I just said I was busy and that I'd be back. By the time I got off work I was tired so I went to bed and forgot to answer. When I came back the next day, this user had erased all their messages and blocked me completely without a word.


Using the recent notification history on my phone (I didn't screenshot this unfortunately), I tracked down the Github repo and the people maintaining it and sent an email to the repository owner. Relic was an alt account of theirs, so keep in mind that at this time I had no clue who the actual person was that I was talking to. Pretty unprofessional and strange. Though I deduced pretty quickly that it was either Blaxar or Nekohime who had sent me the message. I tried to remain polite throughout all of this.

(i'm on the list because i starred the repository before taking the screenshot)

After this, Relic got back to me and added me on their main account named Melody (this is Nekohime). Everything seemed mostly normal and friendly from here on out, so I brushed it off as a fluke and moved on. I assumed they must have been the anxious or sensitive type but I didn't question.


I should mention for the sake of transparency that a good chunk of our communication in between these logs was actually on WideWorlds itself while Nekohime was giving me a demonstration of the software, since this is were I conducted an interview to try and understand more about it. I have a recording of this interview somewhere in my Shadowplay folder but I won't upload it here yet unless someone asks, as it's not crucial to the story here. Most of it is just me noclipping around the environment and occasionally asking questions for like over an hour.

What you do need to know is that after the tour, over Discord I had briefly expressed interest in writing a blog post about WideWorlds on Kangworlds and perhaps even Worlio (see image above). I wanted to put a blog section on Kangworlds but had nothing to really write about, and Wirlaburla needed something posted since we had not really written anything to the Worlio Blog since July of 2022. I had recently been hired as a new Worlio moderator during this time while many of the old staff were being phased out, so I saw it as a great opportunity to both shine a spotlight on something I thought was cool, and give visitors on our sites a good read. This didn't happen because I ended up procrastinating on it for a couple of months, but I was about to get on it just this week when—

Oh lord.


Drama ensues. Nekohime whines to me that Wirlaburla has programming opinions they don't agree with and that this somehow makes him a horrible person. While the contents of the "Shit of Avoid" page linked sound spiteful, if it wasn't clear already, this is nothing to be even remotely concerned about. It's opinions some dude has about mostly computer stuff. Most of it is calling out developers who have consistently stabbed people in the back or shunning big corporations. This type of page is not even an original concept, Richard Stallman does the same thing on his website.

Nothing in the highlighted paragraphs tells me that Wirlaburla is an evil person. He's complaining about techy shit. I'm sure we all have techy shit we hate. Boo hoo!

Their next point of contention is that Wirlaburla likes Luke Smith and that Luke Smith admits to being "red-pilled". That's it. No really, that's it. No mention of neo-Nazism or crimes or bullying or anything, no proof that he actually said something vile to someone or did anything wrong. They are angry at ME because I'm associated with someone who enjoys hearing the rants of someone else who used the term "red-pilled". If you didn't know, this is a documented logical fallacy, and it's not how you solve problems with other people.

Presumably it's because the term "red-pilled" is being mislabeled as a "far right dogwhistle" nowadays...in which case, wow, quit being out of touch and go watch The Matrix like a c00l person. I mean, you're in the VRML and retro computing community, you should at least understand the meaning of the pill... GAWD!!!!!

After this, my side of the argument (I had still been relatively patient up to this point!) was thrown away and invalidated because I'm not "old" enough, because they don't have an actual justification. And then they block me and ban me from the WideWorlds server.


So, to recap:
- I was cut off rudely without any word by the WideWorlds team because I did not respond immediately to a message from a complete stranger.
- I try to make peace and learn more about WideWorlds because I thought it was interesting.
- Two months later, I am confronted for no reason about something that was not written by me, and which holds no real weight on the world, and the WideWorlds staff member who had invited me stops talking to me because I do not agree with them.
- The same staff member abuses their position of power and completely bans me from the community, now dragging the project into this childish emotional squabble.

The last part there in that list is what sets me off. I can't support a project run by people who treat it as a place to enforce their personal beliefs as the only true fact. At that point, you don't have a cool tribute project, you have an echo chamber to crawl back to, and it can get toxic. This is why I haven't written a blog post about them.

Soon after this I wrote an email.

And then I leave it at that.

I'll edit this with more information if I get a response. The point of this thread is for me to express my frustration and ask that you all DON'T behave this way. You will alienate a lot of people. A lot of the people on Wirlaburla's "shit to avoid" list that Nekohime got so mad about were listed there for this very reason.