Hat Monster[/url]":1ulexccg]I once made a thread similar to this one. For historical reasons only, please see...
Arsia - Obscure and sub-culture references you're likely to come across on Ars.
APK
Net.kook, troll and egotist who is banned from almost every tech forum there is. Frequently seen on NTCompatible.com. See MWNH's Essential Reading thread.
ARS
Chuckle-fodder from newbies not realising that 'Ars' is not an acronym.
Ars DC Hub
A DC++ hub created by Ars forum posters. Not discussed on Ars at all but often implied at.
Ars Hole
The act of overloading a site due to it being linked on Ars.
Bad Place, The
More accurate monicker for "The Soap Box", which is a theo-political debate forum. As with Battlefront, this forum doesn't exist for itself, instead to act as a heatsink and raise SNR in the other forums.
BBTL
Abbrev. "Bump Before The Lock". A semi-serious protest against heavy handed Zoso moderation in the Distributed Computing Arcana. Useless threads would be bumped repeatedly with "BBTL #x" where #x increments on each BBTL post. Slipped into culture there and few now associate it with its original purpose.
BF, The
Abbrev. The Battlefront. Forum specifically designed for flames and advocacy. Typically PC vs Mac or Win vs Lin. Quite high quality of debate, considering the nature of the forum.
And yes, Peter B will swear a lot at you.
Caesar
Your new deity and (mostly) benevolent dictator.
Death Camps
When Semi On has achieved global domination, he'll open death camps for the disposal of social undesirables - those who cause suffering to others through utter stupidity more than maliciousness. Compare and contrast with Darwin Awards.
DoD
During an early post count brag thread, somebody asked what they got for having 1,000 posts. The answer was "the dildo of death" and it became an Ars tradition.
No DoD thread is complete without The Assigned AntiDoD posting his contempt for the whole thing. The title of The Assigned AntiDoD was first held by Thallium, but has since passed on to Stasis7. The DoD has declined in the last six months as of October 2004 it's unclear who The Assigned AntiDoD now is.
A member of the Underground Railroad, an Unscathed (these people have never bragged about post count), may rescue a victim from certain peril and take them to the UR.
The DoD is now deprecated, everyone refers to it, but it's faded from the limelight.
FBT, The
The First Babe Thread, a perpetual thread in the VR.
GESC
Abbrev. "Gaming, Extra Strength Caplets" forum. In there live demons and Ars Clanners although the difference between the two isn't great.
Gibson, Steve
Net.kook, blowhard and webmaster of
http://www.grc.com. Famous for grandoise claims, doomsday predictions, getting DDoSed and generally suckering newbies. People using him as an argument authority are generally laughed out of town.
GSADYFT
Abbrev. "Go See A Doctor You Fucking Tool"
IBTL
Abbrev. "In Before The Lock". A PC++ post meaning that the poster believes this thread to be both about to be locked and reducing the SNR.
JAHOYFT
Abbrev. "Just Ask Her Out You Fucking Tool"
LKF
Abbrev. "Linux King Fu". Where Linux is talked about. BSDs and other Unixoids belong in here, in theory at least. LKF is mis-named and really applied to anything OSS.
NT Mojo
Original and still commonly used name of the WindowsNT, 2000 and XP Technical Mojo forum. Ars pre-dates both 2k and XP.
Ohrmazd
He who's name shall not be mentioned. Those who incite his wrath may end up with stinky bums.
OYBB
Abbrev. "Oh you better believe"
Parallel Universe / Bizzaro Lounge
A backup forum used when the main forums are down. While the PGs do still apply, the fora contained therein (of which there are two, technical and not technical) are utter chaos. It's fun in the small doses it's delivered in.
PC++
A useless post is admitted to be useless by its author who notes within it "PC++", the PC meaning "Post Count".
PDT, The
The Perpetual Drinking Thread in The Lounge.
Petar/Petwar
Alternative names for Peter B. Hero to some, villain to others. Heavy in opinion, heavy in naughty language, highly skilled, fair in moderation. Prone to embarrassing moments, not above posting about them.
PGs
Abbrev. Posting Guidelines. The rules by which the OpenForum is moderated.
Senator
Hand picked title for highly regarded posters. Chosen by the Imperator himself, these posters are intended to reflect the very best of the OpenForum.
SC, The
Originally the forum named "Software Colloquium" but since renamed to show its proper purpose. Still commonly referred to as The SC forum.
SNR
Adopted from Usenet, in widespread use. The signal to noise ratio is the "usefulness" of the forum. Many off-topic threads and flame wars will reduce SNR. Insightful and informative on-topic posts will increase it.
STR
The Scott Tarr Ratio is an obsolete measure of defining your post count as a proportion (not an actual ratio) of Scott Tarr's - so an STR of 0.5 meant you had half the number of posts. This came about because Tarr had, quite simply, more posts than you.
Sub
Subscription. Paid service resulting in bonus access to both the Ars main site and more importantly, the fora.
Unibrow
Semi On's distinguishing feature.
VR, The
Abbrev. "Velvet Room". The Ars forum for relationship (or, more often, lack thereof) discussion and ranting.
YAxT
Abbrev. (Lounge) "Yet Another x Thread", so YACT is likely to be "yet another car thread" or "YAGT" to be "yet another gun thread" - These are two which never need any explanation of purpose. The poster usually explains his meaning if it isn't immediately obvious. The way of explanation is always of the form YAF(amily)T and never YAF(Family)T.
