Shacknews

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Shacknews, commonly referred to as "The Shack", is a website offering news, reviews, articles, and forums for computer games and console games. The Shack and its sister-site, FileShack, are run by Steve Gibson (not to be confused with computer journalist Steve Gibson) and Maarten Goldstein, along with the site's Console Editor, Chris Remo, and contributors including David Craddock. Sander Pilon did much of the programming for the Shack, including the ja.zz comments system.

Contents

[edit] Site history

Shacknews was started in 1996 by Steve "sCary" Gibson who was 20 years old at the time, as a website dedicated to following news about the upcoming Quake game from id Software. The original name of the website was "Quakeholio". Through the years the website evolved to cover more than just Quake, and the name was changed to reflect that. The name "Shugashack" was chosen after a discussion with friends about the general direction of the page and content. After dealing with a couple of years of people constantly spelling the name wrong and thinking it was a pornographic website, Shacknews.com was decided upon.

FileShack.com, a site dedicated to providing game demos, updates and miscellaneous files for Shacknews users and others, was launched in August of 2002.

Shacknews and FileShack now reaches literally millions of gamers each month with the daily work of just three full time employees. Shacknews LTD is privately owned by Steve Gibson and Maarten Goldstein.

[edit] The news

The news on the front page of the site is normally separated into several categories for easier access. Very little independent research is involved in the news, with articles often being harvested from various gaming news sites around the web. In recent months, however, this practice has been changing, with Shacknews generally researching stories and seeking comment from relevant parties. Stories include:

  • Category specific news, such as RPG or FPS specific news items.
  • Hardware and software reviews, which contain a linked list of items related to products that have been reviewed around the web.
  • Editorials including previews and opinion pieces.
  • Gaming news that covers the gaming community as a whole as well as rumors and news items that don't belong in a certain category.
  • Late Night Consoling, a large news item posted around 10 CST each evening that covers console news and rumors. This was initially the responsibility of Jason "loonyboi" Bergman who moved from Blues News where he updated a similar section but is now maintained by one Chris Remo of idlethumbs.net fame.
  • Sunday Afternoon ShackReviews highlight the new games that have been added to the ShackReview Database.
  • Evening Reading is a "Chatty Post" that contains various technological and humorous news items from the day, as well as a small sounding board for Steve Gibson.
  • First Post is a "Chatty Post" that contains all the files that have been added to FileShack that did not warrant their own news post the previous day. This includes videos, maps, small utilities, and more. It also serves as a sounding board of Maarten Goldstein and may include a movie quote at the end, to be identified by Shackers in a spirit of friendly competition.

[edit] The contributors

The following people have posted news and articles since the inception of the site.

  • Alec Matias (responsible for console news; left Shacknews in 2005)
  • Andy Hanson (created the funk.y comments system; later replaced by ja.zz)
  • Chris Remo
  • Clay Mitchell
  • Dan Beimborn (created the first comments system used on Shacknews; later replaced by funk.y)
  • David Craddock
  • Jack Mathews
  • Jason Bergman (responsible for console news; left Shacknews in 2004)
  • Maarten Goldstein
  • Marcus Yam
  • Sander Pilon (created the currently used ja.zz comments system)
  • Steve Gibson (site founder)

[edit] The comments

The gaming news on the front page is what draws most hits to Shacknews, but the comments system comprises a large part of the Shacknews community. In summary:

  • Every news post has the ability for readers to reply and add comments, as opposed to the nested nature of many internet message boards. For instance, a story about a game demo will usually have comments summing up readers' impressions of the demo, whereas a story with screenshots will usually prompt discussion over the screenshots, etc. A post, once submitted, cannot be edited.
  • Twice a day a non-gaming story is posted. In the mornings this story is given the title werd or First Post!. The nightly story falls under the title Evening Reading and is usually accompanied by several links to interesting or humorous news events and information. Every once in a while posts from other Shacknews associates will be put in place of the normal Chatty threads; these are sometimes called Nighthawking or Sup!. The user comments in reply to that story are generally accepted as being off-topic. These comment sections are what "Shackers" use as a message board.
  • The comments section of Shacknews is monitored and maintained by a group of volunteer moderators, or "Shackmods" as they are known on the Shack. As Shacknews is an open community with open registrations, the moderation rules are designed to prevent behavior that can drive people away from a forum and discourage other users from participating. To this end, the moderation team attempts to make the moderation for comments on the site as fair and balanced as possible.

On November 16, 2006, a copy of the moderator-only message board was posted anonymously on an external website. The site contained almost all of the moderation discussions between June 18th 2002 and October 26th 2006. The modboard also had personal opinions of the moderators about shackers, particularly those who were violating the rules and guidelines. The website was taken down the same day and was replaced with the message "Taken down with respect to privacy.

[edit] funk.y

funk.y comments system
Enlarge
funk.y comments system

funk.y was a comments system built by Andy Hanson that was used on the Shack. Comments could be viewed in flat mode or threaded mode depending on user options. The comments could also be tagged by moderators and "nuked" if they went against the guidelines. A nuked comment would be replaced by the words "* N U K E D *" and the original poster's name would be replaced by an admin account called Duke Nuked.

As the website grew in popularity and the user base increased, funk.y was unable to adequately handle thousands of users browsing articles with comments also numbering in the thousands. Furthermore, the funk.y comments system was hacked a few times as some users found and exploited several vulnerabilities (Screenshots: 1, 2). All comments on ShackES, a now defunct sister-site to Shacknews that dealt with professional gaming only, were once deleted by Shacknews users due to a bug found in the funk.y system. These problems were fixed right away but with the website's continuous growth, it was evident that a new and faster comments system was requried.

The ja.zz comments system was tested on the website for a trial period before it completely replaced the funk.y system.

[edit] ja.zz

ja.zz comments system
Enlarge
ja.zz comments system

The comments on the Shack are currently powered by ja.zz, a unique message board written by Sander Pilon for the Shack. Some facts about ja.zz:

  • ja.zz is essentially a threaded message board. As such, the comments on the Shack go remarkably quickly compared to UBB style posting. Given the twice-a-day nature of the chatty news posts, there is a fresh start every 12 hours or so.
  • Posts are moderated into categories. The default options are for all posts marked with a category to be filtered out.
    • Interesting or Informative are for posts than generally the entire reader base will find informative, like important gaming news or tips on improving computer performance.
    • NWS stands for Not Work Safe, and as such these posts usually contain links to pictures that are unsafe for viewing at work.
    • Posts may also be marked random (formerly called stupid).
    • Political or Religion based posts are marked Political / Religious
    • Anything not relating to games or any of the above topics are marked as tangent.
  • There are several ways to view the comments:
    • Flat mode shows all comments in the order they were posted.
    • Threaded mode order comments as root posts and replies to that post showing only previews. There are two types of threaded mode:
      • Thread mode opens each comment you click on by itself in the browser window.
      • DThread is more advanced; the main page stays open but the reply you click on replaces the root post.

[edit] Lingo

  • Shacker - One who posts to the Shacknews forums.
  • Shackbattle - A gaming event sponsored by the Shack, most often run on servers ran by a Shacker named themelon. As of late many Shackbattles have also occurred via Xbox Live. Games often played in Shackbattles are Battlefield 2 (PC), Counter-Strike: Source (PC) and various titles on Xbox Live.
  • Shackmeet - Refers to a gathering of Shackers who know each other through the forums. They are generally organized by region (ie, Atlanta, Houston, NYC etc.) and are organized by individual Shackers not Shacknews itself. Sometimes purposely misspelled shackmeat.
  • Shackmessage - Refers to the E-mail-like messaging system used on the forums of the Shack.
  • Shacktagged - The Shack's forums have special formatting tags which users periodically fail to close correctly. The result is brackets or curly-braces in the text instead of the intending formatting, showing the error. This is called being shacktagged.
  • Chatty Post - A post to the front page of the Shack to which Shackers can respond with on-topic or off-topic posts in a chatty fashion.
  • Comedy Gold - This phrase may have originated on Something Awful, but became a mini-fad on the Shack, especially with parodies (ex. "Comedy Platinum").
  • Duke Nuked - The fictional character who sends a shackmessage to a user when a post has been nuked for a violation of the rules. This is a play on Duke Nukem, a fictional gaming character. A nuked post is not deleted, but rather is filtered from the other posts (so that it does not appear on the page) and can no longer be replied to.
  • Phil Sized - Very large :)
  • Genjuro Sized - Unsatisfyingly small
  • Lurker - Someone who has a shack account, reads the shack comments and enters shack contests, but never posts to the forums.
  • Catchphrase - A word or phrase which is or has been part of a linguistic fad. Notable examples are "hoorj", "I ate a cat", "sax goes off", "lamp", "sand", and "lime". Posts containing catchphrases may be nuked at the discretion of the moderators; however, their judicious use is not unlike a pleasant "lollercoaster" ride.

[edit] External links

[edit] Official pages

[edit] Community-based pages


[edit] GreaseMonkey scripts

These Greasemonkey scripts add to, or change, the functionality of the shacknews website and it's chat pages.

[edit] Spawned Sites

A couple of sites have come into existence related to Shacknews, often used as a refuge for banned Shackers.

  • Squabble Created by Clay, it was a place of anarchy and spite, and for a long time was the home of Klerck, perhaps Shacknews' most famous banned Shacker. Clay shut it all down and a lot of Squabblers shifted to StooFoo.
  • StooFoo Created by skold. It is similar to Squabble as a place for people who want something similar to Shacknews, but has more relaxed moderation and more comment features.
  • ShackBattles A website created by the Shackers boolean, Ashkie, Haiku and verbatim, which allows you to enlist in ShackBattles so that you can play online with other Shackers, create ShackBattles and create reminders so you will be sent a Shackmessage when a ShackBattle is created. ashkie shut down the site on May 4th, 2005, but it has since been revived, though not yet to the same level of functionality as before.
  • Xbox Live Gamertag List An Xbox Live gamertag list for Shackers to keep track of each other.
  • KOCK Radio This website, set up by SKI242 and basketofkittens, contains information on the online radio station run by shackers and for shackers. KOCK is a purposeful misspelling of cock, used most often when one shacker makes a post as another user, typically stating that the user "loves the cock." Prank posts such as this vary from a few sentences to a full diatribe on the user's faux homosexuality.
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