A funny thing happened to a discussion site that warned it was going to shut down because it couldn't afford to pay for bandwidth.
Site regulars upset about the impending closure started talking like there was no tomorrow, and soon there were more bandwidth-hogging messages than ever.
That's what happened over at Bianca's Smut Shack, the pseudo-erotic chat and message-board system that cultivated a dedicated following during its seven years on the Web.
Late in April, Bianca's management said that Nerve Magazine, which purchased Bianca's in 1999, had decided to close Bianca's on May 11 because it could no longer afford its bandwidth.
That got people buzzing. Messages about Nerve's motives started flying through Bianca's, with complaints piling upon more complaints, and -- especially when May 11 came and went and the site remained up and running -- a deep mystery setting in. What is going on? people wondered.
According to messages that Bianca's founder David Thau regularly posts on the What's New section, Nerve and Bianca's are in deep discussions regarding the future.
"I know this sounds like a broken recording of an echolalic parrot but...," Thau started his May 10 post, going on to inform Shacksters that the site would probably not, in fact, shut down. "It looks like we're close to an agreement that will keep Bianca's going," Thau wrote.
But which parts of Bianca's will stay alive, and which parts will go gentle into that good night? That was the discussion sparked by a member called Orgazmic, who posted a note saying that private member forums should be dropped from Bianca's in order to save space.
Member forums are topic-specific areas of the Shack that are frequented by regulars -- they're like the favorite seats some friends may save in their neighborhood bars.
"Why is it so important that they stay open?" Orgazmic asked. "Is this not a chat site? How long did B's work without them? What are they? Ego boosters? Fuck egos. Close the damn things down. Why the hell are the (site managers) fighting for bandwidth to keep the damn things open? Returning favors maybe? Beats the hell out of me."
It beat the hell out of Wired News, too, but representatives for Nerve and Bianca's did not respond to inquiries. In the past, a Nerve exec said that he would only discuss the situation once it was resolved, and that any news story printed before then would probably be rife with rumor.
But rumor and gossip are all that Bianca's regulars have to work with right now, and what these lack in accuracy, they make up for in volume. Right now, there's near feverish discussion by those out-of-the-loop about what should and shouldn't be done with Bianca's.
Orgazmic's suggestion that forums be shut down, for example, sparked a controversy of the true nature of online community: Is it a public thing or a private thing?
"But those precious forums are PART of this site," said a member called Repcri. "They're part of what makes up this community. Just because you don't want the member forums around, what makes you think everyone else feels the same?"
How will all this discussion affect the ultimate face of the Shack? Nobody really knows, but there is one thing for sure -- the talking uses up resources.
"We all get on here and post the same bullshit things about what IS going to happen or what the trolls need to do," said Master Hater in a post called "We are all killing B's right now."
He (or she) continued: "By all of us sitting here bitching about the same damn things, we are killing B's.... So unless it is something new to post about, maybe we should all think about biting our cyber tongues and use this place for something more creative.
"Everytime we click that post button we are costing this place."
