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Crabby the crabapple by zzcoop. Official mascot of the AppleAddict forums.

AppleAddict Forums—abbreviated AAF—is an internet forum and community of people who enjoy Macintosh computers. It was opened to the public on February 21, 2002, three years to the day after its parent, MacAddict Forums, MAF, started. The story of AppleAddict is long, spicy, and involves many goats. Its mascot is Crabby, a crabapple that smokes a cigar. It lets members discuss technology, life, and games among other things.

History

The founding members of AAF came from a group frequenting the forums operated by MacAddict magazine. A characteristic feature of these people was a love for Unreal Tournament and as such a small forum for game organizations existed, separate from MAF. In late 2001, server issues at MAF forced the future members of AAF to hang out at the Unreal Tournament forums for an extended period of time. Eventually, our hero, Scott, led the charge to a completely dedicated community that offered the same range of discussions as MacAddict though with cursing, crabapples, and a lot more haiku.

Lord of the Crabapples: The Great Migration (in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien)

An excerpt from the forum-goers at AAF.

This is the story of the migration of the forum members from the MAF to the AAF. In this tale, the AAF members are referred to as asslickers. This story is critical to understanding the AAF experience. It underscores the importance of the shared history - be it real or imaginative. The AAF forums have been a breeding ground of goats and this story establishes roots in fine tradition.

Back in the second age, the Asslickers wielded more power, and all the races of the Forum prospered. All was well, for a time. Unbeknownst to the Asslickers, though, a great evil brewed all the while. Justine was building a great army of minions, bent on the destruction of all the free races of the forum. The time of the Asslickers seemed to be nearing its end.

Justine led the onslaught. No Asslicker was safe. Some peoples, such as the Turkeys, forged wicked alliances in order to remain neutral in the coming war. The Minions took no prisoner, and the Asslickers feared their doom was near.

While Justine and the minions flung their greatest attack yet upon the free peoples of the forum, a young Captain of the Asslickers held fast. Scott, son of Pappy, foresaw the impending destruction. He led the Asslickers to safety. "Come west with me," he said, "we will find peace in the Crabby Havens."

And sail west they did. The Great Migration proved to be a difficult and wearisome journey. The Asslickers left the shores of the Forum, leaving behind, with some regret, the neutral races, which were soon swallowed in the wave of darkness that stretched across the Forum.

The Asslickers reached their new home with little trouble. They became a simple folk, full of merriment and drink. As time went on, they grew less vigilant, and eventually gave up their weaponry in favor of mountainous mammals and pork products. Each week, the village fool would hold a gathering for the socially hindered folk to laugh and share their days' events. This was the beginning of the Good Age.

Major Players

AAF is administered by a crack team of moderators who have only brought down their justice hammer on a few occasions.

Administrators

Scott - pirate captain and resident genius
Alex A - resident genius number two, though MIA for some time
thin shadow - lover of fire and recent graduate

Moderators

pokey valentine - purveyor of lucky hats, also MIA
Chess Piece Face - sometimes pissy, though will do anything for a hoagie
Richie Daggers Crime
zzcoop - father of Crabby, known to have several identities, no longer MIA

Major Plotlines

Some members consider AAF to be a show in perpetual rehearsal. Scholars debate when the show will be ready to go on the road. Extremely positive and negative signs crop up all the time, so the jury is still out. Despite this, there are a number of key highlights in the boards' 3 and a half year history.

Among the several missing administrators, the beloved member gozer has been absent for many months. The search is ongoing and it is hoped that one day he will return. Gozer is characterized as Canadian, lover of his Asian fiance, and known for his huge penis.

The major group activity involves the game World of Warcraft, with a dozen or more members actively roaming the lands of Azeroth as The Order of the Goat.

AAF has one artificial inhabitant, Giskard, a scriptable bot confined to one thread in one of AAF's sections where he will respond immediately to any new post. He enjoys Gay Porn, milk, and is from North, very North. Giskard's role can be changed at any time, and is under Scott's complete control. Giskard has been known to follow specific members around. Proof of Scott's involvement is inconclusive.

Aside from Giskard, Gilgamesh likes to stop by from time to time. G, as he is affectionately called, visits very infrequently. It is unknown whether G = G!, G = CPF, G = Z, or G = ZZ. Explanations of his infrequent visits may involve his true identity remembering and subsequently forgetting the password. Investigators are hoping to work on the case once gozer has been found.

There have been two notable hacking attempts on AAF. Some time in 2004 an unknown party exploited the boards' phpbb subsystem and deleted the user accounts of all members that were signed in at the time. This lead to a very interesting loss of continuity when viewing old content as nearly a dozen members fell victim. It is assumed the culprit received a good brand of pirate justice. The other attack was a year in the making and struck in August 2003, coinciding with Sara Lee's official sandwich month. Representatives from Sara Lee refuse to comment. The impact of the attack was negligible.

Recent troubles with Wikipedia have led Scott to create a new wiki. With Blackjack and hookers.

Traditions

New members are asked to bring a fictitious covered dish with them as they make their first several posts. Doing so will allow the rest of the group to welcome the person into the community. Covered dishes featuring bacon are highly preferred.

Every Friday members get together to discuss their weekend plans in the Friday Night Roll Call. Other members hand out dating advice, help with car problems, life problems, decorating help, or help with any of the subjects that might come up. The purpose of the thread was for all MAF members to change their signatures to reflect the passing of another week and to spice the place up a little bit. The brand new AAF added avatar priveliges, giving users something else to customize. FNRC as it is known now consists of very few avatar and signature changes and focuses on the social aspect of the community.

Should a member that has been long since absent return, they are greeted with "and you are?", a bit of fun sarcasm. Though sometimes people really mean it.

To thank Scott for providing the server space for the forums at no charge to anyone, the members of AAF band together and buy Scott a nice present as a way to say thanks. Past presents include a second generation iPod, a Canon PowerShot S50, and a Sony PlayStation Portable.

In addition to banding together to get a gift for Scott, AAF members decorate an electronic Christmas tree and add in their own graphics that may include what they want for Christmas/Hannukah or an inside joke of some sort.

Though it forged the community bonds, the practice of entire threads written in haiku has died out. The practice started at MAF and pushed the then Ultimate Bulletin Board software to the limits, requiring threads to be 1600 posts or less or else data loss was certain. There are believed to be 6 official haiku threads, but none of them currently exist in their original locations, because the conversion of MAF from UBB to phpbb deleted all records of the haiku threads. Fortunately, before the original threads were lost, Alex A undertook a project to archive the haiku threads (http://stout.hampshire.edu/~aca04/ku/) and has largely been successful, although the project is not entirely complete. In the transition to AAF, an entire forum was dedicated to the haiku tradition, but it has not been very active.