Advice for the Spiritually Callow and the Mendicant Pundits

[Physics Guy]

I'd say that this kind of story is an edgy kind of genre, just by its ambiguous narrative structure. Add in a lot of references that are going to be pretty esoteric to most readers, and this is a project that is just going to be tough to publish on a broadly-themed message board. I mean, a lot of what's funny and interesting about it is precisely how nonsensical it sounds unless you know a lot of esoteric stuff.

It's also hard to say what a chatbot can't do, these days. They can be uncannily fluent in a lot of registers. A reason to ban them, even if they might be as fluent as human posters, is that they rarely if ever actually say anything insightful, trained as they are merely to repeat the kinds of things people say, on any given topic, on the internet. They also occasionally trip up and say something idiotic. The narrator in this story is kind of like that, too, is he not? He goes down a rabbit hole of esoteric connections that all fit together neatly when viewed in his own obsessive tight focus, and loses sight of any coherent big picture. And he starts slipping up now and then, more and more. If any story is likely to be mistaken for an A.I. text, it seems to me, this one might be, from its nature.

The meta-narrative about losing coherence is precisely the kind of thing that I doubt an A.I. could do, but this meta-story has to be implicit, since it's happening to the narrator, so the story is never going to be able to use this deeper implicit story to prove that it means something. I think this story is just in a genre of stories that look a lot like A.I. texts. They're supposed to be like that; but that makes it hard to publish them on message boards.

The idea to start with a cold open, posting the unpunctuated rambling, was a great hook, but it also had some drawbacks. An alternative would have been to start with an explanation of where the project was going, perhaps only by PM to a few mods or admins, before posting in public.

As a matter of fact the author's identity was guessed fairly early. So I'd suggest that there isn't really any reason now not to just continue with the project, in whatever forum it finds itself. Those who want to follow it will go and read it, and those who just don't get it can ignore it.

If something cool has been irretrievably lost, with the outing of the real author under threat of banning the pseudonymous account, perhaps there is the possibility of rebounding from that and doing something even better with it. This may well just be too much work, but what about leaning into the A.I. theme in the story? What if Jaxon starts using an A.I. to identify apologetic parallels for him? What if ... well, what then?

[Moksha]

Add something from Linear B and it will be a hit with the classicists.

[Dr. Shades]

At the same time, he is wringing his hands about banning Rosebud because her floridly insane accusations could be considered “Free Speech”.

Please copy-and-paste this alleged post wherein I supposedly wring my hands about banning Rosebud. I'd be very interested in reading it.

That is when it dawned on me, why in the hell should anyone invest any energy and time creating content for this place?

Spam = content?

I’m just going to get unilaterally banned simply because Shades doesn’t get it.

Really? You're going to get unilaterally banned? When will this happen?

That post was made on Dec 4th, I'm talking about Dec 12th after the creation of this thread and Shades is still accusing me of being an A.I. bot.

Just think: If you had posted under your "Dr. Stakhanovite" user name--as opposed to breaking the rules by creating a new account--none of this would've happened.

[I Have Questions]

Just think: If you had posted under your "Dr. Stakhanovite" user name--as opposed to breaking the rules by creating a new account--none of this would've happened.

I think that’s a fair question to ask - why not post under your existing username?

I will say that I no longer post under my existing username. I was IHAQ, forgot my password (I think I had an hissy fit because something didn’t go my way administratively, that’s on me) and so opened a new account as I Have Questions. I guess the two usernames are so similar that nobody would really mistake that it wasn’t the same poster.

[drumdude]

I think the pseudonym added to the mystery. I can’t fault him there.

[Kishkumen]

I think that’s a fair question to ask - why not post under your existing username?

I will say that I no longer post under my existing username. I was IHAQ, forgot my password (I think I had an hissy fit because something didn’t go my way administratively, that’s on me) and so opened a new account as I Have Questions. I guess the two usernames are so similar that nobody would really mistake that it wasn’t the same poster.

Pseudepigrapha. On a site for discussing Mormonism, the use of a clever or obscure pseudonym to add a certain flavor to the writings posted is a real delight for the reader who "gets it."