A: To provide a non-competitive, low-visibility alternative to the likes of TwitchTV. If it doesn't scale, it doesn't need to be bought out by a large company whose main purpose is making money, no one can invest or hold stocks or stakes, and it keeps it's primary functions and purpose instead of doing whatever makes more money at the end of each quarter.
A: Because that's exactly the problem with permanence. The whole point of this place is for everything to be ephemeral: You had to be there when it happened/if you weren't there, it didn't happen. If casual discussions expire after a day or two, everybody moves on. If extended discussions expire after a month, everybody eventually moves on. If you have a limit on replies, you'll speak carefully to not waste them, quickly reporting anything that doesn't fit the bill to be removed. If VODs don't exist, sure, you'll experience a bad case of fear of missing out, but if you can't control which channel you put yourself in, just what kind of content you find, you'll drop that feeling immediately and just take what you get.
A: This is also part of the ephemerality focus of this place: Anonymity. If no one can track each other through the site, and if no one even has a profile, no one can stalk or obsess over each other. Everything is based specifically on context. Think of it like leaving a school or job for good: Once you and everyone else splits, all concern you've had for each other will immediately evaporate, so it'll be just yourself again, just like when you go back home, especially if no one lives with you: You don't think about your fellow classmates or coworkers at home.
A: This place has automated text filters to stop certain words or phrases from passing through. Depending on the immediate statement, you'll be given the chance to correct yourself.
A: Your text data string triggered an [EAT] security filter by containing critical contraband terminology, unauthorized link bypass attempts, or excessive ASCII art text bloat characters. Eaten messages are deleted entirely from system streams to protect the local database matrix.
A: To prevent reporting tools from being weaponized as vectors for harassment or custom insults, users must choose from a strict grid of pre-defined System Compliance Identifiers.
A: You accumulated 8 downvotes or an instant alignment infraction loop flag. Your profile has been forced into active Rehabilitation Mode. Your speech routing capabilities are locked site-wide across both forum boards and live streaming feeds.
A: You must navigate to the Self-Service Rehabilitation Hub page (rehab.html) and activate a 5-minute Focal Re-Synchronization loop. You must keep your browser window focused directly on the calibration screen. Navigating away, shifting your application tabs, or losing window focus resets the countdown timer instantly.
A: If a node attempts to assign a penalty tag without typing a valid context description string, or if the system finds you have not broken any native site boundaries, the Spite Protection Gate intercepts the report. Both accounts will instantly cross-block each other for 90 days.
A: Certain words and phrases are blocked by the filters put in place here. In order to maintain anonymity, messages will get altered to prevent people from learning about each other through their speech habits and talking about or describing anyone. If you say certain things that are unacceptable but aren't too bad, you'll be given the chance to correct yourself, but if the message skews too far into something unacceptable, it's just gonna get erased to discourage you from trying to say it.
A: When it comes to certain words and streaming behaviors, the system will, in immediate cases, redtag you for speaking or behaving out of line. This limits your behavior and activity on the site. However, nothing is perfect and it can't all go through a server if it can't be afforded past a certain point, so since users have randomized usernames, there's no fear in redtagging anything they don't agree with as long as who or what is actually breaking the rules or the spirit of the place.
A: Yes, it tells you what you did that was correctly reported or system-tagged, your punishment and what you can do to undo it. This means no one actually gets banned out of here as long as they actively work their way out of the punishment since the timer won't move and will even accumulate if you try to lurk, idle or if you commit more poor behavior.
A: If someone reports you spitefully, you both automatically block each other for 90 days and the offender gets a redtag for it. 90 days because some people out there will at least pretend that they've turned a new leaf, even if it's just for the sake of interacting with people on the site.
A: To prevent "Streamer life," when someone dedicates their entire life to streaming. If you can only stream after at least 48 hours pass, at 4 hours maximum at a time, they'll stop what they're doing and go do something else. If they can only hold onto three chances to live stream, without refunds and regardless of external circumstances, they'll stop obsessing over the idea. If the timer starts as soon as they use their first chance, they'll keep an eye on the clock so they don't expend their second or third chances when the time they spend overlaps into it.
A: That's the point: The most you can do, revolving around live streaming, is either use up all of your streaming tokens at once, share a room with up to three other people, or conga-line with up to five other people. No persistent channel URL and no URL you can share means you'd be advertising into the void, and a limited viewer/chatter count means you'll stop trying to hoard people. When you stop streaming, that's it, everyone walks away and moves on. That's the whole point of the place: No retention loops. Everyone does what they came to do and walks away, giving you more time and mental space to focus on your actual life.
A: We do, actually, but it's quite different. Unlike streaming tokens which are 4 hours a token, viewing tokens are one/streamer, meaning that if you come back to the same person, regardless of reason or circumstances, as long as they're still streaming, you don't consume extra tokens as you're using the same one, allowing people to snooze to a streamer they find that they like without getting punished for it. Just pray the streamer has enough tokens to keep going or that they're part of a conga-line marathon. Unlike streaming tokens, which regenerate once/48 hours, viewing tokens are one a day at five max. There are also scrapbooks which briefly summarize what people watched, and since they expire a day and only contain game screenshots, people aren't gonna try too hard to read them.
A: More things I can't put through a rented server, but at this point, it's under debate. Yes, you can only show direct video game footage or, at worst, a webcam pointed at a TV. Your microphone must go through a separate audio track, and that audio track needs to be detuned by at least 15-20%. No streamer avatars, facecams or other forms of identifying information on the feed, and no name-dropping anyone in the chat room. All of this can't possibly be put through a rented server as names and usernames, even from other sites, are endless. This means we must rely on users to redtag such behavior to keep the site ephemeral. Simply put, we have to rely on honesty for the time being.
A: Old video games from old consoles. At the time I say this, anything originally published on the PS2 and PS3 and other consoles of their generations and earlier. We also take speedruns and TASes of anything from any time, though I'd love to know how the hell you'd TAS a newer-generation game if it's on console and not PC. We also take horror games because I can name people who love a good night's scare instead of a good night's sleep, especially when they're experiencing it second-hand, but at that point that's their problem. We also take fighting games as there's a community behind this whole genre who love online matches. This means we also take collaborations of this sort of stuff, where you and up to three other people play the same game at the same time whether in the same group or just playing different instances of the same game. Different games are not tolerated as that could only mean chaos. Finally, we take marathons of either of the above, alone or in combination, though I'd stick to one genre, if I were you, meaning that if you have a few buddies lined up, you've got yourself a nice conga line of gameplay for people to hangout and fall asleep to.
So, in total, we take retro games, speedruns, TASes, horror games, fighting games, and marathons of either.
A: I'm aware of the flaw and am currently trying to find a workaround for it. As of right now, fighting games are the sole specific exception to the username/identification problem until I can work out the kinks, and this is why I won't allow any other type of game on the site, especially when they have voice chat, in-game chat and overall nonsense behavior.
A: The short list is NSFW, with a single game being the exception as it censors itself, NSFL, DEI nonsense, violence and gore, with specific fighting games being the exception, immaturity and overall aggression and hostility. We're inclusive, but we don't tolerate sanitized content, just that we won't let anyone toe the line, either.
A: Japanese animation tends to be used specifically for sexual purposes with few exceptions. That is to say, except for maybe Shonen Jump in almost every case, Japanese animation sexualizes everything it comes across. This isn't just limited to women, it's almost as if it's designed specifically to promote sexual behavior, with the conspiracy theory being this is to aid in Japan's business model. From the clothes women tend to wear to how they behave or are depicted in cartoons, I have almost never seen different. Even worse, it also leans toward encouraging and suggesting underage sexual abuse. Whethey it's underaged or simply undersized, it's unwelcome here, and so we can't take any chances here, it simply can't be allowed.
A: That's kind of the point. If the system and the userbase flag incorrect and undesirable behavior, people will be less inclined to do it as repeat offenses get you restricted for increasing amounts of time. This means everyone must choose to rehabilitate and stay rehabilitated for as long as they want to interact with anyone here. Yes, this means no moderators as everyone moderates each other and are more comfortable doing so when usernames are inconsistent in every way, and yes, people are going to mask or pretend just to get around the place to the point that their heads hurt, meaning those kinds of people won't stick around. If you're comfortable with misbehavior and mistreating people, then this place wouldn't be for you, plain and simple. The whole point of this place is to give people back what TwitchTV stopped giving them when Amazon took over, but there are some things people got away with, including myself, that they shouldn't be allowed to get away with again.
A: To give people a place to be video gamers and nothing more, not attention seekers, shillers, sellouts or "somebodies." This place isn't designed for people to "get big" or "make it" by playing video games, it's for people to watch each other play video games and discuss it, nothing else. Everything is limited in scale to prevent needing to make money to sustain itself and, therefore, be sold off or absorbed into a giant company, like Amazon did to TwitchTV, or to die once absorbed, like Google's product kill count.