The List

[LoverDemon]

(Reconstructed this piece-by-piece for archival reasons).

(I remember most of the people on this list, but there are a few generic names I couldn't piece together just because of my memory being fuzzy, any generic names that you see that can be filled in (for instance Bump, and I know I knew a Bump but I can't for the life of me remember the name), let me know.)

Otherwise, enjoy one of the more amusing sagas of the ASMB.

The Original List
The_Pirate-King
psycho_raven
newnightcreature0
SwimMod_Beezo

Spoiler

On December 28, 2007 a group came together to create The List.

 

How one gets placed on The List is a heavily guarded secret.  It is protected by many Sentinels...no one Sentinel knows every step to The Hidden Rite.  One requirement is known by each Sentinel. 

 

Each Sentinel of The Hidden Rite looks for posters who meet his (or her) requirement.  That user is submitted to The Sacred Assortment.  It is then that other Sentinels verify that the members of The Sacred Assortment have completed their various requirements.  Once it is deemed a member of The Sacred Assortment has met each individual requirement, they have completed The Hidden Rite.  They are then placed on The List.

 

A member of The Sacred Assortment will remain inactive until all Sentinels have verified their completion of individual requirements.  A member can not be notified of their placement in The Sacred Assortment.  Only upon being placed on The List will a member know of their consideration and status.

 

The Sentinels of The Hidden Rite meet each day via anonymous usernames in order to submit new members for The Sacred Assortment and to verify those who have made The List.  Sentinels may never reveal their identities to anyone.  Sentinels may be placed in The List in the same manner as regular members since their identity will not be known to each other.

 

The Sentinels are ever vigilant...always looking for those who are worthy of The List.

 

The List doesn't care about your popularity or status on the boards.  The List can include anyone.   There is no limit on the number of people who can be added to The List each day.  Names may be added several times a day.

 

Will you be on The List?

 The purpose of this is pretty straightforward, it is to describe this operation to us, the IBers.

1.  Sentinels know as little as we do, except that they also know a requirement, given to them by "The One".
2. There are ten sentinels, each submits a user who has fulfilled the requirement.
3. A user who has completed all requirements will be added to the list.

The intro also contained a poem.  The sentinels, and people behind the list, seem to communicate entirely in poems. 

 

The idea here is, the sentinels are watching, and they will be giving out clues. 

However, notice the words overlayed in white.  They sure do pop out. 

Here is the original combination: "Ten bound faces IB escape threads"

however, several other variations have been suggested, such as "Ten IB bound threads escape faces".  

Another important note is the emphasis on the number 10: 10 sentinels.  It's possible that 10 refers to December, which was originally the tenth month, the prefix "Dec" meaning "10".

 

Spoiler

 

In the first meeting of "The Sacred Assortment", 24 names were added.  One name, (DanielFenton) was taken off the list at his request, via the email at the bottom, and was not replaced.

Bizarro_Deus, myname, ubernerd, boomguy, WereCat, inhumanrampager, ViciousLovesYou, hubb, shorty10788, wacky1980, EvilsergE, Pyro_metal, lesans_muse, discolemonade, Arachnomancer, RoboBuddha, CorpsePride, Legato-II, panic, fok, spekinzdoich, Arekkusu_Emo_kid, sneakerpimpette, Unit, vengeance

 "Spam" "Ham" "Clam" and "ram" were all used in a thread created by spekinzdoich two days before the list began.

"Arekkusu_Emo_kid" only has 25 posts, meaning he met all 10 requirements in 25 posts.  Either he's a sentinel, or he bumbled his way onto the list, but either way, each of those posts should be scrutinized for potentially meeting the Ten Requirements.

Bourve3, Hauhi, yupat, duzitickle, EVIL_YAMI_RUSH, eva001, krazy, God-Says-No

 InsanFox was added shortly after using the words "rum" and "steak" in conjunction with the investigation.  Arekkusu also used rum and steak in his posts, and capitalized them suspiciously.  It's possible that saying "rum" and "steak" is one of the ten requirements of being on the list.

The Second Meeting of The Sacred Assortment concluded with the names above.

Glodson, BunnyBomber, false, zoidberg

 The Third Meeting of The Sacred Assortment concluded with the names above.

The Fourth Meeting of The Sacred Assortment does not exist. 

"Four does not exist" is brought up repeatedly in the list. 

Spoiler

SwimOdin, Swim_Drewld, Bump, Full_Metal_Panic

The Fifth Meeting of the Sacred Assortment concluded with the names above.

At 4:44PM...We smelled sex and candy.

Sex and candy is a song by the band "Marcy Playground".  A line from the song is "Yeah there she was ; like disco lemonade".   This leads us to believe discolemonade's post at 4:44 pm was what led the sentinels to put her on "the list".  Note the occurrence of four.

Furthermore, discolemonade's post  at 4:44 PM reads:

it's all too much...the pressure

he's all that i can take

what position should i wear?

This looks like  song lyrics, which is possibly one of the requirements for making the list.

Rum and steak?

On a side note, we would like to say that Sunabozu is not one of us.  This person seeks

to mislead you.  "Facts" presented by this person are not part of this game.

If you listen to Sunabozu you will be led astray.

A user called "Sunabozu" was posting poetry-style list post and passing himself off as a sentinel.   I beleive this is an honest and straighforward attempt by the sentinels to prevent copycatting, however others may see it otherwise.

The number of people added each time is decreasing.  The part at the end is strange: does it imply that the next memebers added have not met the requirements?  And there's that four again...

Blayze, cornjuice, I_Love_Flffy_People, SwimMod_Nayru

SwimMod_Nayru was added to the list to replace "Prince-of-Pwnage", presumably because he asked to be removed, but why wasn't DanielFenton replaced instead of removed?

Gecko, sahockeygirl15

The Sixth Meeting of the Sacred Assortment concluded with the names above.

GirlwGun

Seven is another number that would seem to be associated with The List.
The Seventh Meeting of the Sacred Assortment concluded with the names above.

This links to user profile #444, named "1234564".  Note that seven is replaced with a four.  Also, note that the DLV(date last visited) is in 1969.  If you replace the second four with a seven, you get use profile #445, named "1234567".  If you replace the first four with a seven, you get... nothing.

 GirlwGun was presumably added to bring the total number of names to 52, and to make up for DanielFenton's asking to be removed.
 

The List is done, the task complete.

It was rather something of a feat.

52 names placed in stone,

So now the list is fully grown.

 

All that's left is to wait,

until the counter reaches it's date.
Keep an eye here so you know,

some clues per day until I go.

This meants the list is over, and the counter [which ends on new years 2008] signifies the amount of time we have until all is revealed. 

Some interesting things about the number 52:   5+2=7   5-2=3   5*2=10    7,3, and ten are all list related numbers.  52 is also the number of weeks in a year in the Runic calendar. 

 

 In response to an e-mail received tonight, a name has been replaced on The List.

All Sentinels are in agreement on the replacement.

 

--The One  (10:44PM)

This is where they inform us that Prince-of-Pwnage was replaced by nayru.  Also, "The One" has not been brought up before, and it can be assumed that he directed this whole operation, seeing as 10 people who don't know each other at all can't put together a freewebs and assign each other requirements without knowing each others names.  There must be One person who knows all the names, i.e. "The One".  The sentinels verified this, to some extent, in their posts.

Spoiler

Here is your clue for the 29th of December

Let's see if you can remember...

 This opening suggests a past event.  It was posted on 12:01 on the 29th of december, along with the image below.

"chocolate_soda" has been mispelled "chrocolate_soda", and "aeternus_flammus" has been mispelled "aeturnus_flammus".  That gives us an incorect "I" and "U".  "Foureyes" is another four.  Nobody seems to know him.  The four people surrounding his profile pic were related through AIM conversations, or so sayeth aeternus_flammus.  The image title is "areyoureadingthisrightnowifsopostfour.bmp".  We posted "four".  A user the sentinels tell us is a copycat showed up.

So...we do not meet as a group now.  Some of you were asking.  There were Eight Meetings of the
Sacred Assortment in total.  The last of our meetings made a sub-list in case names wished to
be removed or some other unforeseen event took place.  We waited until we had a strong
sub-list before we ended our meetings.  We still do not know who each other's identities.
We are waiting, the same as you.

However, The One knows...and The One also knows the fakers.
Some of you want to spout madness just to confuse those trying to play along.
Some of you are getting close...a lot craftier than we expected.

A hint, though some of you were thiking along these lines anyway...
Things that appear wrong...always, always, always have a deeper meaning.

So, yes...you have figured out a few things about us.
Excellent.

 Throughout the investigation of The List, "The One" and the sentinels have encouraged us in our pursuits.  This post suggests that the list ended with GirlwGun, and any further names are merely clues as to the identity of "The One."

Very important! Notice where it says "A hint, though some of you were thiking along these lines anyway... Things that appear wrong [i.e. spelling errors] always, always, always have deeper meaning."

The fact that there was a spelling error in that very sentence cannot be ignored as a coincidence.  There is an "N" missing from "Thinking", and that is significant...

Deus's Birthday? Why is birthday in red? Is today his birthday? This update was posted today, the 29th, later in the day.

A special clue, just for Deus's Birthday.

(Most of the images for the following have been lost.)

Another profile pic with a four in the name, and four names outside of it, just like the last update.  To the right are wingdings, or signs of the zodiac.  What wingding letters are they?  I'd like to know, but I'm to lazy... >.>

Also, these are zodiac symbols, which comes up a lot in complex zodiac related theories.

Both lines are anagrams.  The image title "MixedUpMashedUp.bmp suggests so.  "Oh! A Characters Nine... Omen?" could be translated into "I the one Arachnomancer" with an S left over.

Or mash the h and the n together and you can make "O its me Arachnomancer."  Or it could become "He is NOT arachnomancer" with an E left over. This raises Ara as a suspect, and dashes it down.

Honoree Fruits is an anagram for "there is no four"

Here, more copycat alts are denounced.  Via poem.

The image title? "thesepeoplearenotrealnojokesnofakehints3.bmp" 

Spoiler

There is no four. There is no fourth section.

Spoiler

IT WAS ALL ARA!!! WE ARE THE SENTINELS!!!

Arachnomancer is the sole creator of the list.

There are no sentinels, no sacred rite, no rhyme or reason to the names on the list.

She was the only person involved.  In the final update to the list, and in this post, she reveals the true nature of The List.

That is proven. this is the first message of "The List" thread.  The thread itself is much more amazing than anything you will find in my site.  The depth of the paranoia, the extreme extent of the solutions created for completely random clues... all these things are the point The List makes.

---

This entire "List" conspiracy has been a case in point example of mankind's tendency to search for meaning where there is none, and assign meaning where none is intended.  It's an existentialist testament, if you ask me. 

Kudos to ara and everyone on the investigation team... except for one person.

 

Final List

Spoiler

The_Pirate-King, psycho_raven, newnightcreature0, SwimMod_Beezo, Bizarro_Deus, myname, ubernerd, boomguy, WereCat, inhumanrampager, ViciousLovesYou, hubb, shorty10788, wacky1980, EvilsergE, Pyro_metal, lesans_muse, discolemonade, Arachnomancer, RoboBuddha, CorpsePride, Legato-II, panic, fok, spekinzdoich, Arekkusu_Emo_kid, sneakerpimpette, Unit, vengeance, Bourve3, Hauhi, yupat, duzitickle, EVIL_YAMI_RUSH, eva001, KrazyAce17, God-Says-No, Glodson, BunnyBomber, false, zoidberg, SwimOdin, Swim_Drewld, Bump, Full_Metal_Panic, Blayze, cornjuice, I_Love_Flffy_People, SwimMod_Nayru, Gecko, sahockeygirl15, GirlwGun

 

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by LoverDemon

[crackymckrackin]

I kind of remember the list. It's all a bit fuzzy. 

[LoverDemon]

6 minutes ago, Swimmod_Perseus said:

I kind of remember the list. It's all a bit fuzzy. 

Yeah, it's basically the only thing I could find from that era of Investigations and creative ways for people to mess around with other members on the board. Everything else is basically dead and buried.

[Raptorpat]

Oh man I have the vaguest memories of this and only because I read it, and I'm even on the list wololo

[LoverDemon]

13 minutes ago, Raptorpat said:

Oh man I have the vaguest memories of this and only because I read it, and I'm even on the list wololo

Ah sweet, it sucks that stuff like this is so fuzzy and forgotten by this point, this stuff was basically on it's last leg and a bit of a muddled mess. I had to use multiple sources to get all the names on the list, because the original site that hosted the list has long since been scrapped and these names... are all of a blast from the past, I remember almost everybody on this list.

Makes me wish I was as big into internet history as I am today.

Edited June 1, 2023 by LoverDemon

[Raptorpat]

Yeah there's soooo so much that's been locked in my deep storage, but the more I think about it with it in front of me, the more it's coming back.

Maybe not the specifics, but definitely the feeling/vibe of it all.

[lupin_bebop]

I vaguely remember The List. 
The craziness that ensued therein was fun to watch while I was figuring some life stuff out. 

[Raptorpat]

The more I think about it, the more I definitely remember this