The problem with forming an opinion of Anonymous is that it's not just one group. From what I've read, all the 'political' hacking has been done by a tiny handful of people who connect via IRC. Whilst I still think they're idiots, they appear to actually be able to argue a coherent point about why they do what they do.

On the other hand, the rest of Anonymous seem to be a bunch of hipster/scene kids who think that /b/ is the coolest of the cool and want to feel like they're part of an International Battle Against Evil by getting 15 guys in dust masks handing out flyers about Scientology in the middle of the city. Pathetic.

At least they're trying to do something, even if they do look like twats doing it.

And yet they're acheiving nothing whilst making the world, on average, a worse place to live in.

Exactly, why do something if you're doing bad shit? That's like saying, Hitler might have killed eleven million people but at least he did something. Even if he looked like a moustached twat for doing it.

Despite what people tell you, beggars CAN be choosers in some occasions. When your best hope against corruption and in support of freedom of information is led by a bunch of infantile internet deadbeats, then yes, you can and should wish for better, or at least hold them all to a higher standard.

An idea which they'd probably just laugh off.

I was referring to the whole crusade against Scientology part. How that compares to Hitler is beyond me.

e: To clarify, the whole "hurr hurr 4chan lulz" rubs me the wrong way too, I'm not defending that. I just think it's still worth recognising that they're out there trying to make a difference.

Some of them are genuinely into Anonymous for the political thing and wanting to change the world.

The problem is then that a lot of them will turn on those people and say that they don't get the concept of anonymous and that it's just an Internet hate machine. Those are the people stalling Anonymous from being something that could be respected/hated at the same time.
Right now they just seem like a bunch of angsty, confused teens who want purpose in their lives but no responsibility.

If they truly did something great, my opinion of them would maybe change. But right now they don't even know what they are. Some of them are bullies, some of them are activists... Some of them are just meme-spewers.

I was a regular poster on 4chan until roughly last fall. I just gave up when I saw how stupid they all were, this collective of inept losers, each worse than the last. They are verminous little fuckers who accomplish nothing. Those that communicate amongst each other for benevolent purposes are an incredibly minute minority in a goddamn Galaxy of stupid, awful people. The poser losers who join because they heard about /b/ and want to be kewl are about as worrying as acne: A temporary problem, at best. The worst are people who will probably keep posting until they die. Just a bunch of genuinely lifeless people who are completely detrimental to society.

Perhaps, but many of them can't actually express why they want to change the world or what's so wrong about the things they're protesting against. Try and get the average Anonymous to express their actual views on Scientology or Wikileaks and all you're gonna get is what they've heard from someone else and a couple of stupid jokes.

Well that's the point. Despite the few people who do it out of true honest stand-points. The rest just do it because of the mob-mentality, and even go as far as to alienate those who have true feelings about it by saying: Shut up, moral-fag. We do it for the lulz...

I've seen it happen a lot. Amongst Anonymous and other things related, you can't really show any true emotions without being made an idiot who takes the internet seriously. If you share feelings, you're automatically a fag. You only really fit in if you're full of blind hatred and sadism.

That's my experience of this whole thing anyway. That's how the case has been presented to me so far, so that is the opinion that I hold.

T-nex is an anon.

That doesn't even make any sense X_x

T-nex is their leader.

There are no leaders.

Only dictators.

But not dicktater.

Dickpotato, hah. I giggled.

Dixanadu is their lady of the night.

Lady of Tuesday Night, just.

I have bingo those other nights.

American society does this to a certain extent, but the anonymity of the internet cranks that all the way up to 11. I agree, it's not healthy. Other countries are ashamed at how apathetic and uncaring we all are, and all these people can say in defense is that "we're all being too PC and shit."

Pathetic. A little compassion for the people they spend time trolling (dominating the less socially powerful for shallow, egotistical gratification) would do everyone a world of good, but OH, THAT'S NOT COOL.

On the anonymous side of things, I've found that there are a number of .onion sites you can order drugs from using bitcoins when using Tor. Fairly tempted.

T-nex is the head Langolier.

*chompchompchompchompchomp*

Also, I don't know if this was mentioned, but Encyclopedia Dramatica - their lulz hub - has been taken down. Perhaps indefinitely, though I doubt that.
I saw this coming. Their most offensive pages were being removed one by one thanks to a few lawsuits.

Really? I only went on that a few days ago. Tis funny.

EDIT: That's uncyclopedia, my bad.

Yeah, ED isn't funny at all.

ED exists(ed) to offend.
If you're feeling particularly hateful towards something that day, reading it's ED page can be refreshing.

I liked reading ED as a satire on 4chan and other thing pertaining to it. What happened to it?

it died a horrible death

I think the first instance of ED being forced to censor was with it's page on black people. The infamous "Offended Page" was soon to follow.

I think it was some Australians doing what Australians do best: getting offended. There was legal action taken against the ED webmasters. I can't say if ED's removal is a result of the proceedings or if their servers just crashed.

I can get ED but I prefer UA because it's funnier and equally ooo

ED was impressive in the pages where they accumulated genuinely funny evidence against stupid people, but yeah a lot of it was crap.

ED had it's golden moments.

-Video game articles were funny.
-Things I hate were lampooned to shit
-I liked the World Cup 2010 live feed.
-Black humor (Not African American black, you know...)

On a side note, Uncyclopedia is not funny.

http://ohinternet.com/Oh_Internet:Bulletin_Board

This explains quite a lot actually. For example;

tl;dr
ED was deleted because the admins/editors were overwhelmed with the amount of shit that was posted and didn't want to siphon through it all and delete the unfunny stuff. Basically it's a SFW ED now. I'm troubled by this.

Id have top agree and say that Uncyclopedia isn't funny. The humor is way too childish, random and unclever.

It's kind of like those really bad movie parodies, which when you think about it has nothing to do with the movies except for the aesthetics.

Actually UC had funny articles but they were spread far to thin for my taste and I couldn't have been bothered wading through god-awful pages to get to a funny one.

Uncyclopedia was Unfunny.

Not gonna lie to you, neither is ED...unfortunately good amateur comedy, written on the internet is hard to come by.

TVTropes manages to still make me chuckle a few times a page, however the ratio of chuckles to pages goes down with every passing month.

As I said, ED is funny in small doses applied to things that deserve it. Uncyclopedia doesn't pull punches, it just sucks.

As for tropes, I don't think its so much funny as it is insightful. Its the cool media bible.

The worst part of ED closing down is the fact that it had a really good creepypasta page. Everything else was hit or miss.

Encyclopedia Dramatica was created by a girl.

Yep.

Seriously :fuzconf:

Read it again until you understand.

If I recall correctly, it was over a page about our indigenous population. Not sure how legal action could have forced their hand though - aren't ED's servers located in the US, and therefore covered by the First Amendment?

Alcar...