🏀 KuBuckets Archive

I don't frequent other boards these days, but where have all the lurkers gone?

On a board long, long ago in a packet storm far, far away, there were many lurkers from many other schools, most memorable of them being UK and Memphis lurkers.

Where have they gone?

We don't get any visits here that I know of?

Does anyone know where all the lurkers have gone?

Has lurking gone out of style?

Or have they taken on forms that are more subtle?

I miss them.

NOT.

Rock Chalk!

It all ended when Bruce came to K-State and Mizzou left town.

@wrwlumpy

Howling!

Mizzou sucks and KState blows. Enough said.

@Kip_McSmithers - Should put them in a room and let them fight it out .. kind of like the humidifier and dehumidifier (Stephen Wright).
link text ↗

@jaybate-1.0

We have 15,600 users and maybe 2-3 dozen that post regularly...so we have close to 15,600 "virtual" lurkers... :)

I'd like to think it's because we don't post grade A troll-feed. Most of the stuff we discuss is deeper than your average "KU is the greatest thing ever and if you have a negative word to say, you're not a real fan" sort of talk.

@jaybate-1.0 ssssssh. Hopefully they don't notice all the great minds (mine not included) have left that other site and migrated to the nirvana of Jayhawk sports talk and other not so much sports talk. Let them continue to bash and badger those less enlightened.

Not to take this off on a KU is greatest thing ever tangent, but with all the losses this past week teams rankings were shuffled and KU moved up to 9. Not a bad spot. UT dropped to 20. We still have over half the conference ranked. Go Big 12. (Well ten of us anyway.)

@JayhawkRock78

As I predicted, Oklahoma State is now in the top 25 and ranked #24 and now the conference has 7 teams in the top 25. I am not sure if any conference ever had 70% of its teams in the top 25 before...if I were a betting man I would say no.

@JayHawkFanToo And which team out of the 7 seven teams is ranked the highest?

@KUSTEVE

KU, of course...as it rightfully should be.

@JayHawkFanToo You mean...the WORLD FAMOUS KANSAS JAYHAWKS? Two games in - we're already in first...LOL... love it!!!

What about any Shockers Lurkers? RCJH!

I miss all the comments when the old site would put "Kansas University" in the story...

@VailHawk Talk about the old site, it is sad to see what is happening there now. I remembered one of the reasons to have every users using their real names was meant to create meaningful, insightful and responsible KU basketball postings. If you cross over to the site now, on the topic about "Jayhawks go wild over Garrett’s goal", i saw a religious debate in the postings.

@Shanghai_RCJH

Those debates used to happen there before the change as well as i recall.

@cragarhawk All the well intended goals actually take place here at KUBuckets. JMHO!

@Shanghai_RCJH

Ive read just about everyone here at different times over the years. From that I surmise this. If there are arguements they atleast have insight and validity behind them rather than mindless squabbling. Haha

@Shanghai_RCJH

Is a Shocker Lurker a Shirker?

@cragarhawk Like our beloved Team, it is defined by its key players. Likewise, for KUBuckets or "The Other Site", they are also defined by their key posters. Without being names specific, I am sure we all know the difference. RCJH!

@KUSTEVE

Yeap. That be the one!!!

Speaking of Lurkers--I've stayed busy and off KUBUCKETS all summer, but I still have never seen a Oakville/Tony Bandle or an Alohahawk post. Did we lose those guys? I see Tony posting at KUSchwarz.com

If you like insightful commenting check out their Carlton Bragg comments. Great back and forth there. About as good as a jr high debate. Fb comments are common place on news sites now. And most news sites have low end comments. Think there is a correlation?

@Blown Oakville is still posting at "The Other Site". I remembered posters here ever urged Oakville to contribute at KUBuckets. To date, he has not posted any.

@jaybate-1.0 You're requesting "The Lurker"? Why didn't you say so?
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail129.html ↗ ↗

I've got a professional lurker if you need one, @jaybate-1.0.

@Jesse-Newell

LOL!

@JayHawkFanToo

I love it.

15,600 virtual lurkers!!! I didn't know we were up to that level. I remember suggesting to @approxinfinity to let them keep accruing, because eventually they would spike our presence on the web, but I wasn't absolutely sure it would continue. Amazing.

Is it any wonder our marketing and intelligence organizations cannot very reliably process the market research data and sigint they receive by flooding the online world with virtual identities and crawlers?

Imagine the lopsided, distorted data topologies that must result from releasing 15,600 virtual users into a site with 40 board rats!!!!!

Ah, I love the irony.

Someone is going to be able to make a hilariously satirical British spy novel/then movie/then serial watched TV/then graphic novelizations/then Xbox game about a site with three lonely Isle of Wight members writing about some arcane subject like crumpet mosaic making being mistaken for a terrorist site. Their site is flooded with 15,000 virtual US intel lurkers, then China, Russia, India, Israel, Germany, France, and Japan, begin flooding the site with millions of virtual lurkers, then all the Arab jihad world floods the site with virtual lurkers, then American conservatives get so nervous that they force the selection of a new US president with electronic voting machines with no paper trails, and stage a false flag event by North Korea in Bedford Falls, PA, killing the descendants of George Bailey, and blame it on this crumpet mosaic web site on Isle of Wight and simultaneously the US launches pre-emptive war against North Korea and the Isle of Wight. A sign version of Jean Baudrillard begins transmitting from The Void that "Bedford Falls actually did happen and that Crumpet Mosaics are signs of the end of the end of meaning!" Ferdinand de Sassure of course disgrees, and Roland Barthes insists that, well, its all become about anti-mythologies, so who cares.

And you know in this insane digital world we live in, in which the state feels so paranoiacally threatened by the world wide web, this will of course eventually play out somewhere, somehow sometime.

What was it someone said of Brit equivalent of Comedy Central's Jon Stewart: the most trusted name in fake news.

Howling!

As I was lurking around "the other site" Sunday morning, I saw one comment that said "all the losers" went to kubuckets.com.

Right ;-) !!!!!

@RockChalkinTexas you are a g👀d l👀ker(lurker)!

I'm guilty of lurking. If you define lurking as looking but not posting. I always love to read the comments and takes on issues on here. I need to make an effort to post more

@Crimsonorblue22 what do those xboxes mean?

@HawkInMizery miss all your bashing of the misery fans!

Does anyone remember the KU lurker "turkeysub" on KCsports? I miss that guy! Where did he go?

@RockChalkinTexas hahahah I"M BACCCCCCKKKKKKK my friend. I'll be more proactive with posting. Nice to know I was missed!

@HawkInMizery did you get married?

@Crimsonorblue22 I did indeed! Got married and almost cancelled my honeymoon so we didn't miss the parade if the Royals won the world series. I made an executive decision and decide I quite like my boys to be attached to my body and thus made the decision to go on the trip anyways. In hindsight it worked out for me I watched Game 7 from a bar beach side on South Beach and got to drink and party down there instead of wallow in pity here! Hope all is well with you!

@RockChalkinTexas
Losers? That's a laugh. This place is full of class.

@HawkInMizery you did the right thing! My boys went to the orange bowl and were joined by KU newly weds that were honeymooning in s beach. They joke about all of them honeymooning together. We have some royals fans on here too. Congrats!

Thank you! We actually ended up on a boat when we were headed out to our dive spot with another couple from KC who almost cancelled their trip because of the Royals, crazy the little coincidences that happen in life sometimes.

I guess I am a lurker? I am a KU fan -- grew up in Kansas watching KU basketball. But I have two degrees from UVA. Since UVA is a better team this year....

Welcome aboard mdm. I haven't seen them play, but UVA certainly has the respect of the pollsters.

@mdm7eb

Never have understood why they call it UVA? University of Virginia Agricultural? :-)

@jaybate-1.0

It is really UVa, where Va is the state code, although it is commonly spelled both ways..

@JayHawkFanToo

Danke Shoen.

@jaybate-1.0

Bitte schön,

Nice-I work for. German company but they don't know diddly about bBall. At any level.

@JayhawkRock78

You mean...they don't know Dirk? :)

@JayhawkRock78

You know, I had a couple early experiences struggling to relate to German professionals. They are polite, well educated, and clear and firm in my anecdotal experiences. But I could not connect and work closely with them. But what I learned was that I didn't get any overlap of their culture and ours. What I am about to mention seems superficial but I believe it is not. I finally found one overlap that has helped me bridge the gap and then relate. They love the old American westerns set in the desert southwest. They love the Monument Valley and red rock country of Canyon Lands National Monument for two examples. They like the old ghost towns and mining towns. Those are things they don't have in Germany. Germany is rugged. It is deeply imbued with wooded and mountainous nature, so nature is a big deal to them, but they lack a vast arid region. Once I knew they liked that it helped me relate to them, whether or not I made small talk about the American west. But then I learned something deeper about why they like the American southwest. Back in the 1880s, after John Wesley Powell lead the first expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, there were another expedition or two that included an noted German scientist of the time who wrote extensively and excitingly of his scientific and naturalist adventures in the Arizona and the four corners area. I forget his name now, but his writings were widely read and respected in Germany and this gave Germany a strong attraction to the American desert southwest. Further I came to learn that Germany has a number of times in the last two centuries had designs on making an ally of Mexico, or even conquering it. Both WWI and WWII saw Germany make strong appeals to Mexico to try to pry Mexico away from its alliance with USA. In part Germany lusted after the possible interocean canal at Tehuantepec. And before WWII, back in 1861-67 the great powers of Europe allied and invaded Mexico to recover some debts, get control of some precious metal mines, and may be get control of the Tehuantepec canal right of way. A Habsburg Austrian prince was installed as king of Mexico at the time. Germans and Austrians are close to some extent or other. What I found was that knowing this history of Germany's interests in USA and Mexico helped me see North America from their eyes and less so through the prism of two World Wars. It also helps to know that the Pennsylvania Dutch are just Germans that settled in America and that that community has maintained a long communication with Germany. Further, Franz List left Germany and came to America immediately after our revolution and then befriended and advised both Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson. He became fascinated with an idea that American was one central strategic point capable of controlling he western hemisphere and that Germany could one day Federalize as USA had federalized, and come to control the Eurasian centerpoint the same way that America would--with railroads and fleets and an interocean canal (through Suez in Eurasia and through central America in the Western hemisphere. List left America during the Jackson presidency and went apparently with Jackson's blessing and began proselytizing for Germany to federalize and create a center point strategy in Eurasia that would be a countervailing force to the Crown of Great Britain. And also there was the old Roosevelt connection with the Dutch and via the Dutch with the Germans. Remember New York was New Amsterdam first. And the Germans have always had a presence there. And the Dutch and Germans were very big on sending their children to the University of Heidelberg early on. So there is a deep connection there before the horrible holocaust events of WWII so polluted our relationship.vv .

When you begin to understand how Germans historical legacy makes them view USA and North America then it becomes much easier to relate to them, IMHO.

Just some food for thought.

@jaybate-1.0
Thanks JB. I learned a lot from your post. I grew up watching John Wayne movies filmed in Monument Valley and later made a point to drive through it along with stops in Moab, Arches, Lake Powell, and the Grand Canyon. I loved those trips.
I've never heard these guys talk about the American Southwest but will ask bring it up in the future.

@jaybate-1.0

Nice post on the Germans.

I have quite a bit of experience from living in Germany. Many Germans have the same infatuation many other cultures have with parts of America. They consider it the "wild west." Everything from lax gun laws to lax business regulations. And the attraction roots back to cowboys and Native Americans. They loveeee Native Americans. Some of the world's biggest powwows are in Germany. I have a few ounces of Native American blood and I got to know a Native American guy over there. He made a fortune with his horse doing shows and he begged me to join him. He even offered me one of his horses. He wanted to expand his show.

If you go on vacation anywhere in the world where there are beaches... you will always know if Germans are present. They dig holes. I learned this while living on Crete. An English bloke mentioned it to me one evening when we were walking on a beach and seeing holes dug everywhere... "this is German territory!" The Germans dig holes on the beach. And it makes sense... even on vacation, Germans like to work and build!

@drgnslayr

Thanks for relating that. The more @JayhawkRock78 knows about them, the better he will get along with them. All people are really quite like the French. They just want others to make a good faith effort to get to know them on a human/cultural level and they will then meet you more than half way.

I remember all the UK trolls. Those guys used to go everywhere on the net.

Back a few years ago, before UK won another NC (at our expense) they were feeling a bit inferior and felt like they needed to defend themselves and defend Calipari.

I guess they feel superior now. So they don't waste their time defending themselves to low life fans from other schools. Aaargh!

I miss Oak. I miss his lists. I'm not sure why he stays "over there." Maybe change is hard for him. His humor was appreciated by everyone over here. Once in a while I'll breeze through the posts "over there" and I don't see much of Oak any longer. I noticed he didn't seem to put a lot of energy into his lists, and eventually he just stopped (or reduced) posting. Such a shame. Stardom awaits him here!

@jaybate-1.0

True dat.

Northern Europeans are a bit more reserved than Americans, especially Americans in the Midwest. I've probably had 20 Northern European visitors come over to Kansas to visit me, and they all love Kansas! Some even cried when they left! They couldn't believe that you might strike up a conversation at the grocery store. People in Kansas (in general) are extremely friendly, and socially capable enough to exercise their jaws just about anywhere!

Here is a nice one. Part of our Kansas culture is to greet someone with a "how you doing?" They don't do that over there. So when you do that people are sort of shocked, often pleasantly, because it appears you care about how they are doing. They aren't used to that, and often, instead of receiving your typical Kansas response "I'm fine, how about you?" they will talk to you for hours about how they are doing. WARNING TO KANSANS GOING ABROAD!

We look at people like the French and we think they are unfriendly. Nonsense. It's a cultural thing. You go to Paris and you don't speak French... no problem. Just start your conversation with an apology for not speaking French and ask them politely if they speak English. Chances are they speak a little and will be happy to try it with you. Problem is... we go over there and just start speaking English. Imagine if they came to Kansas and just started speaking French? Right. So the French have some pride, good for them! I was always treated like a King in France. I can talk for hours about how French people went completely out of their way to help me.

@drgnslayr

Yes. He has a lot on the ball. I think he gave a lot to the idea of a central repository for The Legacy and found that splitting off for anonymous posting was not a valid reason for weakening the information legacy that had been built there. I never blamed him. Part of me agreed. I did not want to leave. But I strongly believed in the principle of anonymous posting to achieve the kind of information legacy I believed KU Basketball needed. Freedom of choice often produces these kinds of unfortunate subdivisions. Many Americans moved to Canada because they thought the revolution did more harm to the legacy of Americans than good. I have never blamed them. They did the right thing for them. And in the end we have all learned to be on the same team anyway. My only concern for OakvilleJHawk is that his health is okay and that he is happy with whatever he is doing. I know he dearly loved his wife and I suspect he has just committed more time to her and less to board ratting. What ever, he was a top notch human being that it was a privilege to have spent some time with. Rock Chalk!

@jaybate-1.0 Watching NBC Nightly News last night. They were interviewing French Jewish citizens about the recent happenings in Paris and just how safe is it for Jewish people in France. France has Europes' largest Jewish population with around half a million. On the flip side they have the largest Muslim population too with around 5 million. Some wonder if they're truly safe in France with how everything is set up. Well one of the Jewish gentleman interviewed said during WWII the optimist moved to Auschwitz, the pessimist to New York.

@mdm7eb my best mans' girlfriend went to UVa for undergrad and they both with to the U (Miami) for law school, so I have actually watched a lot of ACC basketball this year and they are the real deal. They look downright lethal at times. They got a little cushion in the ACC race last night by Dook getting knocked off.

It's nice to have a "good guy" to cheer for in the ACC. Nothing is likable about UNC and Duke.

Clearly, UVa is still learning how to be on top -- including its fans. this board is still the premier place to track college basketball (particularly if you are a fan of Kansas basketball).

When you grow up on Kansas basketball the habit dies hard (if it ever does) even if you alma mater is good.

I track college basketball in the following order:

Tied for 1st: KU / UVA
2nd: my wife's teams -- IU, VCU (actually -- I generally cheer against them)

The IU affiliation is more out of martial responsibility and allows me to dig at my brother who is at gradate school at Purdue.

Anyways... back to free loading.

@Kip_McSmithers

I have a lot to say about what is being done to France right now, but that is a largely political and economic discussion and most of the board members get on me, or anyone else when we veer off that direction. Suffice it to say that what appears to be going on there is not at all what it is being reported as, IMHO, so far anyway. Having said that, I will have to pass on expanding further on it, unless the community decides it wants to explore this crucially important situation that is IMHO of vital importance to all free, sovereign, representative countries and their free citizens everywhere. Rock Chalk.

@HawkInMizery

UVa under Tony is an emerging power.

@jaybate-1.0 Yes they are, he has turned that program around in a few years. That is definitely someone I wouldn't mind seeing strolling up and down courtside in the Phog should HCBS decide to hang up the suit anytime soon.

My impression of a lurker sometimes includes those who claim to be Jayhawks fans but remind me of this guy from Hoosiers:

!Chelcie_Ross_Hoosiers_Screa.gif ↗

@wrwlumpy

A beautiful ugliness.