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Sissyfight2001: Year of the Boards

In 2001 the site of the game of sissyfight moved to the boards. The transition of the game's movement was gradual, and initially the playground fought back. In early 2001 there was a popularisation of games on the playground (Opium Den�, Speed Sissy�, Tease-Tag�, see strategy board [many games were invented in 2000 but only achieved mass popularisation in early 2001]), but with hindsight this was actually symptomatic of attempts to resuscitate interest in a playground game that did not seem to have made it through the winter. Sissyfightv2001 was set to provide a different game, and its new location was on the boards. Thus general board discussion was now to focus more and more on aspects of this new board game: what had occured on the board; what potentially could occur on the boards (bans, suspensions) and analysis of board posting activity.

The new "board gaming" had two basic elements of which there were many sub-sets. The elements may be classed "disruptive and non-disruptive".

On the "non-disruptive" side of board gaming, players began to make Sissy Art, icons (gradually increasing in complexity to animation), fancy font colouration, image posting, clans, games (kindergarden and Girl's Bathroom) and links to sissyfight web-pages. These board games and pages increased and got more complex as a players identity and respect on the boards became a more important aspect of the game sissyfight than their identity and respect on the playground.

There were also contests (Icons, Survivor, Rumble). The contest sub-set of some "non-disruptive" board games might seem a throwback to the playground game, but in important ways this is not the case. First, these new contests shared a new "ranking system" by which prestige for players could be gained in ways other than one's performance in the playground game, and on its partially discredited ranking tables. Second, when the game required skilled performance on the playground (Rumble) the advent of "point-trading" for the victors epitomised the board game's new supremacy over the playground game. Third, the boards were to be the place the new board game would advertise (i.e. Survivor in Lunchroom as opposed to e.g. Opium Den� on playground) and, forth, for organisation of complex tournaments (in place of Homeroom). Fifthly, glory to the victor was awarded on the boards as were final congratulations of sportsmanship, all round ("good game").

There were also so-called "disruptive" elements to sissyfightv2001. And, as in the playground game, what was "disruptive" was something defined largely in the eye of the beholder, and in practice by the (often, but by now not exclusively) "old school" playing elite, and ultimately by the administrator, RamonaQ. "Clan war" (Pink Llamas, Black Tigers, Blobs), "eye-brow raising" (AudreyHorne - actually beginning in late 2000 with his faked death - Kedra, ConTr!ckster, LukeB, Tripinthehed, and various kid apostles), "board war" (with GetTiffany) and redirected "class war", were all sub-sets of disruptive board gaming.

The new "class war" is interesting because it demonstrated a clear shift in the game from on the playground in 2000 to the boards in 2001. During 2001 arguments concerning the points system and the playground game in general gradually diminished to a whimper, largely because people came to accept a powerlessness to change anything, but also because the boards had become an adequate replacement for players' competitive instincts. In 2001 the most controversial system referred not to the "points system" in relation to playground performance but to the system of administration of the boards and its arbiter RamonaQ: posts replaced points, threads replaced rooms and how these locations of the new board game were handled became the object of intense and usually disruptive debate. Towards the end of 2001, as towards the end of 2000 in the playground game, there became clear distinction between board game players: those who supported the administration system and those who supported it but also sought changes. As in late 2000 on the playground, in late 2001 there were many revisionist players who thought the board game corrupted or, from the elite perspective, many who, being "absolutely sickened", thought it was getting killed off by "ignorant" kid newbies or other "irresponsible" adult elements.