Document:Q10331

This is an archive documenting a series of full-screen collaborative
visual hacks I instigated at dreamless.org, a semi-public bulletin board
for web designers created and moderated by Joshua Davis of
praystation.com fame.
The first hack was to a thread called "Faces to Names -- Part 2." There
had already been a "faces to names" thread with hundreds of designers
posting their faces for all to see. That first thread had gotten so
large that a second thread was begun to continue the process. Nedless
to say, it ended in tears.
This and subsequent "hacks" led to outraged objections within the
dreamless community, which led to more collaborative hacking, more
counter-hacking, and the eventual "hiding" of the bulletin board itself
(not from the hackers, but from the outraged objectors).
Technically, these are not hacks, since html coding capabilities were
purosefully allowed in these particular forums. Davis, the board's
moderator, was actually pleased with the hacks, which of course made the
outraged objectors even more outraged.
As each hacked thread grows in size, its code gets more and more
unstable, until eventually a visit to these "live" threads crashes your
browser. These screenshots were gleaned at various phases of interest
before each thread's inevitable demise.
Some of the collaged source images are called in from third party sites
out on the web. Other source images are created by the designers
themselves, specifically to be used in the hacks. These hack-specific
images are then stored on the designer's personal site and called in to
the threads by that designer when she posts her code. I myself like
calling in screenshots of previous collages. Some of these images were
animated gifs, and many of these threads had attendant Flash audio loops
(but of course the audio and the animations are lost in the
screenshots).
This is a work in progress. The "hacking" continues, and more
screenshots will be added when I have the time/inclination.