Community

[Psychlonic]

It's time for the talk again, ladies and gentlemen. You already know where this is going so let's just get straight to the point. While there are some amazing exceptions, the forum as a primary format for sharing stories and information has fallen heavily out of favor.

You already know that.

This can be seen in almost every hobby on the internet, forums in general are dying and it's not exactly a good thing. Decentralized internet users can preserve information more easily and can adapt to restrictive end-user agreements that suppress freedom of information.

Before proceeding, I just want to thank Secant for continuing to maintain this place despite that. This whole website now is a rarity on the internet and I think we all appreciate its existence. No matter where things go from here, I hope it remains as a last bastion of the community for years to come. Secant if you ever drop by to lurk, please give us some forewarning if you're beginning to think keeping it up isn't worth the money anymore. At the very least.

However, if we wish to even so much as maintain our meager number of active operators it's time to adapt. "Recruiting" is a lost cause, it's become quite obvious that nobody is interested in another bookmark to look at once a week and forget about. Especially when other communication formats are readily available that are active, convenient and most people today are already using them.

We need ideas.
For the love of night ops, log your ass on and weigh in. We need an entirely new system of communication. There's a lot more reading ahead mostly consisting of problems and ideas of this kind of community in today's world, so if you've already been contemplating this topic feel free to skip what follows and reply with what's on your mind.

Why bother?
Despite all of our dysfunctionality, I think the "stealth first" philosophy of our community is what sets it apart from other, very similar ones such as urbex. On a more personal note, night ops it seems will always have a special place in my heart. It's where a part of me that needed to develop was able to do so. We all share common threads in a way that are seldomly found elsewhere and so I find the community to be refreshing. I understand that there have been some recent interpersonal issues here. If this has been an obstacle with everyone moving forward together, maybe it's time to air the laundry.

Before I jump into my own proposals we should look at what the community needs in today's world along with the shortcomings of available platforms.

FORUMS

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Unfortunately, reading and writing are becoming a thing of the past. Attention spans and repertoires have gone to absolute hell. "TL/DR, LOL!", it was all fun and games until humanity collectively decided to go illiterate for the lulz because we'll jump off cliffs if that's what everyone else seems to be doing.

Having said as much, I think the forum is still the cornerstone. Maybe it's time to set it aside as the primary introduction to night ops, but I think a timeless community is important. It establishes tradition and acts as an archive. When all else fails, there is always the forum.

On top of this, the attention span required to read through these forums is probably an indicator of someone's worth as an operator. I don't say that to start any kind of contests, but if you're an aspiring operator trying to become better so you can actually infiltrate more interesting targets why wouldn't you read through tons of experiences and information? A user who later becomes active on the forum could be seen as more serious and less likely to dole out poor advice that's going to get others into trouble.

Speaking of forums - particularly this one - I feel like we've been letting extremities fly solely because of lack of activity. I'm seeing more and more garbage posts about sneaking around with literally full battle rattle, full auto conversions, some dude thinking he's the next Bin Laden... it's time to crack down on that. Over the last year or two, it seems like those have been cluttering up more and more recent posts outside of Experiences. That's giving this entire community the wrong impression on people. I have no problem with free speech, but keep ALL of that shit in Bad Ideas where it belongs.

DISCORD

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Centralized forum/chatroom hybrid. Probably the most popular alternative right now for operators. PERSEC is minimal, but if conversations aren't attracting attention it's acceptable as a less-hardcore satellite around whatever proper core we decide on. We need to decide on something.

I do think Discord might make a better first entry to the community than the forum for sure and would make a good link that can be added to videos and other content out there.

REDDIT

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Well, it's Reddit. Lots of cross traffic and lots of people who talk more than do. Still, any community of that size is bound to have adventurous spirits and they can certainly be found there from time to time. Like Discord, one runs into the problem of centralization. I'll elaborate on exactly why this is such a huge problem later. Also, one downsize I see with Reddit is the need for upkeep, otherwise we run into the same problem we face here - a seem lack of activity. In 2023 tribe mind thinking, if there's low activity it's not worth your time.

4CHAN

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Reddit but even crazier and far less serious. There are good people there, many who'd probably be interested in this site. Is it worth the inevitable, pointless arguing with its members? The idea is on the table.

TELEGRAM

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Telegram actually seems pretty enticing at first, an apparently secure system where a channel could be set up that encompasses night time operations. Only problem is, it's really no more secure than Discord and just like Discord, it's centralized. Signing in is also a huge PERSEC fault unless you take proper precautions which, for some annoying fucking reason, few operators seem to have the good sense to practice. Because of that last bit alone, I don't see this as a viable alternative.

YOUTUBE

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YouTube can basically become a community center for pursuits today. Obviously you're limited to what you would want to upload, but night ops and everything we stand for and practice is already basically on the site, just scattered loose through various channels. I think PERSEC issues would limit what one could post, but there's still a LOT that can be posted and much of the content could be fresh. Further, YouTube presents interesting cross-promotion abilities where multiple users could set up channels and reference each other. We're seeing this more today with bigger channels including one another as a way for both to grow.
Like most of the options above, it's a centralized system which presents risks. However, if we're going to be forced to adapt to such a system, why not choose the one that's better at what it can provide for everyone?

Well, these are just the most stand-out options available. Hardly everything, but the reality is we're spread too thin to try to create some proper full security site on the deep web or whatever. There's just not enough activity.

It's time for night ops to be reborn, even if we have to drop the "night ops" term. We have to truly start over and adopt something larger than ourselves again, we are not a community that can simply show up and bolster another community anymore, nor have we been for nearly a decade now.

CENTRALIZATION
Let's talk about it and why I think it's the elephant in the room. You see, besides our home here at NON, all* of these other platforms are profit-driven. Yes, even Telegram which has become ad-centric in its revenue. Ultimately, if you and your content are an obstacle for the place to make money, you've gotta go whether it's right or wrong. Companies won't want to invest in platforms that might hurt their bottom dollar.

With this being the case, none of these places will provide the level of candidness we can have here but at least we can actually discuss it with other people. Currently there's usually about three people who are going through a "NON phase" and active in topics here. Eventually the lack of activity drives them off until they randomly decide to show up and post later.

I realize and agree that NON doesn't need to constantly be "trending", but FFS the concept as a whole is fading and we're witnessing the entire internet slowly being herded into centralized platforms and collectively having its nuts ripped off.

CONTENT
At the end of the day, good content is what drives the scene forward. Stories, primarily. The evolution of an operator is basically going out > somewhere along the line you fail at something > you AAR yourself afterward and find out what failed. Wrong gear or skill issue? That's when all of the "informational " crap comes into play.

In 2023, video content is definitely king. Nobody needs to nor should they upload entire operations (though it is fun to see).

PROPOSALS
As a first foray into trying to resolve these issues, YouTube stands out to me as being the ideal olive branch. It's been made clear that this type of content CAN thrive there, it's all on the creator to responsibly create this content in such a way that they don't panic and take everything down a couple months later out of paranoia. We don't need to directly call it "night ops", now might be a good time to come up with something completely different.

Goofy or not, our main userbase has always been comprised of two major types:
1. The "get the mission done at all costs" operative who patterns themselves after the military.
2. The "way of the ninja" operator who idealizes philosophies and codes when conducting operations.

I believe we should look at these two main ideologies as our starting point for this new community structure.

As you might notice, I keep saying "I" and "our". However, depending on what's decided it could just as easily become "you" and "yours". It really doesn't matter to me who's running what, I'd just like to see the community start gaining some traction again.

Thank you for your time. Please weigh in.

EDIT - Technically, 4chan is "anything goes". However, the place is insanely high risk. Whichever direction we decide to move, just keep that in mind.

[V-S]

I very much agree with your point of overt wanna-be-criminals. It's a sure way to bring unnecessary attention, and it does not belong in what I think the philosophy of NightOps is. I usually just ignore posts like that. If you are doing something majorly criminal you would probably not talk about unless you are a try-hard showoff or as dumb as a box of rocks.

There is a discord channel going for NO at the moment, though it's been quiet of late. Discord could be good for causal NO stuff, but I do have concerns with PERSEC on there, so I am reluctant to say/show too much stuff on there. And I think anyone serious about PERSEC and remaining covert, would not use it all together.

I do find that seeing that when other operators have been out on missions to be inspirational for me to go out and do something, especially if there are images/videos to see. Otherwise I sometimes get side tracked with other hobbies. The videos that Xanatos are just so perfect, I really wish I could see more of that. Though I understand not everyone likes to show something that could potentially get them in shit. Personally I keep the serious ops I go on to myself and the exploring/training ones to show and tell about.

[Psychlonic]

Words

I'm with you on the videos and images, I even tried to make this topic pop out a little better to hopefully keep attention on it haha. Seriously though, I think video is a superior format. It's so much easier to learn from, too. I can't count how many times I've gone through text files and have had little idea what the writer was talking about. It makes for good supplementary material after you've gained a basic grasp on the subject matter, but it's like they say: a picture is worth a thousand words. A moving picture even more so.

Speaking of videos, that was a nice one you posted in experiences!

[Xanatos]

Discord recently updated their privacy policy, saying that they can now record voice/video calls as well as text chats. I don't see it as a viable platform for sharing stories or other 'incriminating' content. We can certainly discuss NO theories/practices because that can always be waived with the old "in Minecraft" excuse, but nothing at all personal should be shared on that platform.

[oldboy2049]

I'm sort of new here. I joined at the beginning of the year, and so far this has been one of the coolest forums I've been a part of. Of course, looking through all of the old posts eventually ended and as you said there isn't much new content on here. Aside from NO, I've started becoming more obsessed with decentralized websites in general.
I really wish I could do more for this site, but the past few months have been incredibly busy and I haven't had much time to go out. I did a few training runs in a local forest when I joined, but haven't followed through on any challenges yet.
I'm sort of starting to get back into it, but I'm about to have a super busy month coming up. Hopefully after I get a little more stable (financially) I'll be able to take more time off.
That being said, I would like to start watching more tutorials on youtube. I know that Stealth Technique is gone, and I did download an archive from a fellow member, but I still want to watch more stealth related content. If anyone has recommendations, I would appreciate them greatly.

[Psychlonic]

After more thinking on the matter, I think we can all agree that videos are the best. At first I'd envisioned a couple users getting the ball rolling by having separate channels make a few videos that reference each other, a site, discord/telegram/etc., making "night ops" more of a proper network rather than just a singular, isolated place on the internet. At least as a "face" of the hobby.

However, I don't want users being pressured into feeling like they need to become content creators to stay active in the community. Of course most users in the above model could just comment on videos and the videos themselves become the new "forum threads", but this would require a steady flow of such content. Considering as much, I'm not sure how well this idea would work in the long term. Your thoughts?

Still thinking. As someone who's long since stepped down from anything serious, I might be willing to set up an anonymous account and do up a few videos though once we have more solid ideas in place. There's a lot that doesn't translate well into text.

[Shadow Scout]

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[Psychlonic]

Yeah, no shit. But I've led efforts in the past plenty of times and it got a little old feeling like I kept having to come back to defibrillate the community. Today, everyone else is far more into it than I am and I think the community is a great outlet for people to share their stories. So, I want to help. I'm asking because I'm not willing to be the only person that seems to want to keep the community alive anymore though, so I need to know what others are willing to sustain. I will help get whatever ball rolling people want, though. I'll put full effort into it. If nobody is interested, fair enough.

[Mr. Edgyman]

Okay I'll provide an idea/plan thingy and them elaborate on why do this stuff.

This note is being written right at the beginning of the construction of this post as a reminder that I'm having a whole lot of trouble explaining things because I'm envisioning way more of an interconnected web than a singular thing and that is very hard to communicate through text, I think I'll try reordering the explanations, that might work.

I'll use words like "will" a lot but it's because it sounds better than "could be", this is very much a concept draft and you guy's opinions are very much appreciated.

Content creator operators will have Youtube and/or Telegram channels, there they will post content, content will take the form of whatever these operators want that is allowed on said platforms, but I'll recommend using each platform to the fullest and mirroring their content. On Youtube post videos of many kinds, operations, tutorials, training blogs, gear reviews, edits and shorts of you doing cool guy stuff because it gets shared a lot and can help grow the community, maybe even some gaming videos, use the community tab if you have access to that, there you can post text and an image as well as do quizzes and polls, lots of possibilities. On Telegram you post all the stuff you post on Youtube but also more, especially the stuff you can't post on Youtube for whatever reason, also a better place to blogpost as Youtube's community tab probably shouldn't be used for that. Also link other associated platforms and channels or your channel's and your videos descriptions as well. I recommend using hashtags on your Telegram posts as a ways of better organizing things and improve the user experience, things like #tutorial, #airsoft, #training, #edit, #fulloperation, that sort of stuff.

A Telegram Channel will be the main community hub, it will have it's original content but will also forward (kinda like a retweet but for Telegram) content of the creator operators as well as people from the channel's associated chat/comment section that is requested by the poster to be posted (or unrequested if it's really funny), good for people who don't want to fully embrace the content creator stuff. It will contain links for associated platforms as well as content creator channels. I'm thinking of naming it "Stealth Central", "Night Ops Network Central" or something like that.

The forum will be used as... well, the way it's been used so far I guess, maybe it could be updated it with links to stuff as well as an extra archive for videos and stuff.

Discord will be used as... same as the forum, the way it's been used so far with maybe some updates, I have no clue how that is because I haven't ever opened it due to not knowing of any way to use it in a secure manner.

Reddit. Never used it for anything besides solving random issues, no clue how it works or how it could be structured.

4chan could be used by creating some threads every now and again to bring people into the network, but other than that, can't really see much use to it as the content is gone after some time and can't be used with Tor or a VPN. Don't really know how the shilling threads would look like, but I do know making them look like annoying ads is a horrible idea.

Now for elaborations.

First, I'll explain the Telegram-centric approach. The shortfalls of Telegram aren't that bad. If you search for "Telegram without phone number" on Youtube you will be presented with methods of doing that, use Orbot for the stuff on your phone and download and install Whonix and Telegram Desktop for the stuff on your computer, this explanation is intentionally vague so you do your own research on virtual opsec and "git gud" (it would also be very long). "Oh, but it's not end to end encrypted and stuff!" Yes, but it doesn't need to be, you will be posting stuff on a public channel/chat, any person and glowie can look and see that stuff, they don't need to subpoena anyone to see what you're communicating. Censorship is probably not going to affect us because there are a lot of things on Telegram that are considered "unsavory" by most people and that stuff usually doesn't get removed, so some guys LARPing as ninjas or whatever won't be seen as problem, just don't do terrorist type stuff and you should be good.

For content creators, before posting any slightly more open aired image/video.
https://youtube.com/shorts/9dLqEdoGQBw?feature=share
Always assume someone is going to find out where that picture/video was taken, question yourself, "Will someone finding out I've been here or around a certain area be a problem?" If the answer is no then post it, if yes then think "Why?" if it's because of something time related, like appearing unmasked in some local shop's camera footage, then maybe post it after half a year, if it's a permanent reason then don't post it. This is important because although you may get paranoid and delete you channels, your stuff was probably archived somewhere else as well, so you'll have to go through the additional hassle of asking other people to delete your stuff, and there is always a chance you will hear a "No".

Actually, I think I'll use this down time I have from my knees hurting due to too much crouch walking and try to get that Telegram channel up. As for my own content, I want to finish my training so that I know what I'm talking about, afterwards I'll do tutorials on what I've trained.

As a side note, I'm currently rethinking what types of ops I'd take a camera with me, I mean, if were to get caught and arrested, the popo would probably take my camera, and even a low tier GoPro costs more than the rest of my entire kit, so I think it's just for low risk stuff.

The quality of this post seems to have degraded as I wrote it, probably because it took hours and I really should go to sleep.

[Erebus]

I used to go by Sicarius on here but I messed up my account somehow. When I first joined and participated in this community I was wayyyy too young and immature for this sort of thing, despite my then and current passion for it. I was mixing this community with other interests of mine and just didn't possess any maturity or humility of any sort. Just wanted to preface this by saying I've come a long way from that, resolving issues in my personal life and what not. I've been lurking the forum and discord and occasionally do an op now and then, slowly getting back into it more and more as other life aspects come together.

I agree with Psychlonic's idea about focusing less on recruiting and more on preserving and bettering what we have here, however I think we could implement a few low-key methods to potentially draw in new people. PERSEC is important and should be at the forefront of what we do, especially when using more modern commercial services. VPN's, private browsers, etc. Protonmail is a great free encrypted email service you can use for free, TextNow works well as a free phone number, Brave is an okay private browser, Proton also offers a free VPN. This is a bare minimum in my opinion for most people, you can easily build up more off of this. In my opinion, TOR is unnecessary but should be offered. I'm not the most experienced, but I kind of just see most of us as URBEX and parkour guys who like to dress as ninjas and watch LPL. If you wanna use the information here to commit crimes, go do and post that information somewhere else. Hypotheticals like pretending to be Batman or whatever are different than gun mods and explosives, and draw less of the potentially wrong attention.

In my opinion, the best social formatting for this content is a hierarchy. You have the main "private" website, whether that's something new or this current website. An extension, such as Reddit or Discord. And the video platform, such as YouTube or Telegram.

YouTube or Telegram acts as a method of reaching out with our content in a video format, whether it be filmed footage of an op, techniques, or whatever else fits. It doesn't even have to be an official extension of the "home site", but a few different channels from very active members who link back could work just as well or better. More reach, more sense of community yet individuality. YouTube works best for outreach, Telegram works better for privacy.

The extension, such as Reddit or Discord, IMO doesn't have to be done. If it was done, I believe something like Discord more designed for casual chat would serve a better purpose rather than Reddit. Reddit is better suited for longer posts, which would hopefully be on a forum or another "home site". Discord has been discussed as insecure, which I can agree with. We can use an alternative of some kind, accept the risk but take the necessary precautionary steps, or just ditch the idea for something else.

Lastly, the "home site", ideally the forum IMO, but another website or similar instrument could be used. This serves as an area for content with less filter and more depth to it. I doubt someone wants to post, let's say, a 2 hour video covering an op they did on a school, to YouTube. With how far AI, OSINT, and more has come these days its asking for trouble. Less serious stuff goes to YouTube or Telegram, more serious stuff stays at the home site. Content with more depth stays home, content that is more short form goes out elsewhere.

That's my opinion on that part of the subject.

Activity wise, we just need more people posting stories and writing up theories and opinions, as well as less conflict. I'm guilty of the contrary to all of those, so don't feel bad. There is a difference between a debate and an argument, and hostility over something so subjective and unexplored is stupid. I'm currently cutting weight and waking up at 4 AM to train so I probably won't be of much use for stories of ops for a little while, I'll write up anything I do though. If anyone needs help with anything, just let me know

[Erebus]

This note is being written right at the beginning of the construction of this post as a reminder that I'm having a whole lot of trouble explaining things because I'm envisioning way more of an interconnected web than a singular thing and that is very hard to communicate through text, I think I'll try reordering the explanations, that might work.

I like the ideas you conveyed here, I'll have to look into Telegram more.

[Shadow Scout]

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[Intruder]

First things first archive what you have. The solid documentation is more valuable long term than any stumbling numbers. Frankly what has been built here is too valuable to ever lose. It's bad enough with the dead internet and all platforms becomming walled cities. (Seen twitter links lately? And that was meant to be seen by everyone)

Youtube is a hole and discord is tencent money sidelined from the start. Telegram is admaxxing and 4chan isn't as free speech absolutist as they used to be due to jannies being on recruit loop and the fact that there is no faster way to get filed into some obession oriented neckbeards cavefiles. It's not just high risk it's basically getting the eye of sauron on you.The last thing you want is a chan organised focus. Especially here.

As much as I like discord in general there's a permenancy issue with having everything in a locked room that can be deleted, seized and surveyed. I've been in many that have flat out been deleted because of relatively benign banter and inoccuous gear trading.

I would suggest another stand alone site, something like this but as a backup and a paralell. I have an idea and will DM Psychlonic.

[Psychlonic]

Reply sent. To reword some of it here:
I don't think there's any platform out there that's legitimately secure, supportive of free speech, and has high traffic. Every platform becomes unsatisfactory for one of the two reasons: it's too insecure or there's not enough users.

So basically, as a community this needs to have a presence on most of those platforms to act as a sort of rabbit hole anyone can go down. Or not.

Considering this, Shadow Scout actually I think what you said is kind of the best thing we should consider to survive and bring together the rest of the fun people left on the internet. Why not? Why not just open up and become an all-encompassing stealth community? Day ops, stealth camping, urbex, making your car invisible to radar, fuck who cares?

Why not? Afraid we'll be competing with that other big stealth community out there? The fringe forums are all basically gone. There really ISN'T a big fringe community anymore. That's a big part of our problem, we used to get tons of new members from those. Let's just become a sprawling multi-platform community then. Low security? Casual content. Turning into Batman and hate your daily life, just thinking about the next night op? Somewhere you can access through Tor where you'll find the other likeminded hardcore members.

I think it would be fun as shit.

[Shadow Scout]

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[Xanatos]

I'm all for it, honestly. Whatever your walk of life, the skills, techniques, ideas & ethos we try to harbour here are transferable across multiple disciplines. Stealth shouldn't just be about burglary, urbex, vigilantism, espionage, hunting, military or living a double life. Stealth should be applicable to anyone, anywhere anytime.

[Psychlonic]

Just to clarify, I see no benefit to modifying NON itself. I think it's fine for what it is and don't see expanding it to appeal to a broader group any more likely to draw new users.

Regarding that,

My life is a little on the busy side again for a short time but when things are settled down I'm going to try to get some video content up. Should start appearing by late fall. Another member is working on a full guide in private, I know little about it or progress but it's in the pipes. Regarding the video content, it will be overall stealth and most videos will be where you'd expect to find them. If I want to make a video and don't want to dance with their TOS, I'll probably open a sister channel at the shadier video site.

EDIT: Also, if anyone else gets something off the ground I'd be happy to do a link exchange and all that once I'm up and running.

[V-S]

If anyone does decide to compile or make an updated PDF of information on NightOps let me know and I'll send you a heap of notes that I have personally put together. Most of it is incomplete, I tend to keep updating it as I learn more. Happy for this information to be altered and used without credit.

[Psychlonic]

I feel like that's an underrated issue with making a guide of sorts. We're always learning more and more. I wonder if there's some clever way to be able to post and manage these notes, AARs, etc. without spreading them out across an ocean of topics. Something along the lines of "NSEFIOT" but for one liner tips and tricks we've considered. Suppose there could just be a NSEFIOT...thread... somewhere for this. Still, there must be a method of keeping it organized and easy to browse.

[Secant]

This post turned out to be mostly offtopic, skip to the last two paragraphs if you don't want the lecture.

Just so y'all know, the forums aren't going to disappear one day. If I decide to shut down, there will be time for everyone to figure out what to do next. Of course, there could always be something like a legal situation that forces an immediate shutdown, but that has been true since 2005.

When activity first started to really die out, NONET stayed online out of nostalgia, and to preserve a link to the really decent folks I met here. These days, those things are still true, but I also operate NONET as a fuck-you to the shitty media companies that stole the Internet from the people. Small, decentralized sites like NONET don't exist today, because why on earth would they? These days, the internet is structured to funnel you into setting up shop on a platform... where discussion and exchange of ideas can be manipulated or shut off when in conflict with the platform's valuation or ad revenue. NONET is my small and ineffectual contribution to the war on a system that oppresses us all; there is a grim satisfaction in knowing that not all is lost.

Related,

Speaking of forums - particularly this one - I feel like we've been letting extremities fly solely because of lack of activity. I'm seeing more and more garbage posts about sneaking around with literally full battle rattle, full auto conversions, some dude thinking he's the next Bin Laden... it's time to crack down on that. Over the last year or two, it seems like those have been cluttering up more and more recent posts outside of Experiences. That's giving this entire community the wrong impression on people. I have no problem with free speech, but keep ALL of that shit in Bad Ideas where it belongs.

I'll reiterate this. An explicit design goal of NONET is to stay under-the-radar. The compromises this entails are necessary because I am not a multinational corporation with an army of lawyers, nor am I going to fall on my sword to protect your right to say dumb shit on the internet. Think before you post, and keep your bad ideas in Bad Ideas. I am not a "free speech absolutist", forum-killing problems are inevitable if you can't all be cool. You are each individually responsible for holding on to your spaghetti, mods are free to do what they think is appropriate.

OK, so back on topic... Aside from generally agreeing it is a social good to inculcate an opper/urbex attitude as a response to today's world of constant surveillance, and that we would need to go where the people are to make this happen, I don't have much to add. Psych's analysis of Youtube seems reasonable, and our impromptu cross promotion a while back was successful, so that makes me think opportunity exists there. Youtube (and Google in general) is in a decline right now, though, so if you're considering to make videos, expect friction and carefully consider your PERSEC before uploading.

NONET can certainly play a limited role as bunker, out-of-band communications, and library for guides and other written works (that, naturally, nobody wants to read anymore). I've always thought that dare ops could be effective to engage people who might be interested in ops or urbex, but have yet to find a way to lower the friction without committing time and effort that aren't available to spend.

[Psychlonic]

Ok so... I just had an idea. To be honest, I can't believe I had it hahaha. Only the old fucks on here are going to understand this one.

So, back when search engines began improving they really helped us find whatever we needed but before that there were other systems used to try to find all the crazy shit on the internet. One of those systems was the "web ring". You fuckers remember those? A bunch of like-minded sites that agreed to link to each other basically and have themselves listed somehow. Search engines had rendered these obsolete but I think they might actually be able to make a come back here.

Thoughts? I've found a couple of intact fringe forums that aren't ridiculous. On that note, just a general larger web ring for all of the free thinking communities left on the internet might be a good idea. Maybe something to think about down the road, that's tomorrow's problem.

Any of you ever read up or watch a video on Calhoun's rat overpopulation experiments? I feel like western society as a whole is entering the "beautiful ones" phase.

[Mr. Edgyman]

I've seen some imageboards using webrings before, I don't think it's an obsolete idea if the purpose for their existence, the inability to easily find those sites, has made a comeback.

[Secant]

Webrings... haven't heard that one in a minute. I like it. Implies a certain degree of vetting and relevance that is characteristically absent from modern search engines, and the ad-hoc self-organized way they operate and the behaviors they induce are very much in keeping with the spirit of the independent web. Who knows how useful a webring would actually be in practice, but as a statement of intention I really dig it.

Rats and humans are different beasts, but as an analogy, the social patterns precipitated by Facebook (as one example) are definitely a behavioral sink.

[Psychlonic]

Social media as a whole for sure. FB is kind of old news, now the ante has increased with the platters that are Instagram and TikTok. FB is single moms and all the family kids don't want snooping on their posts. It seems as though the masses are under collective insanity and on an unsustainable path that'll lead to ruin. Meanwhile, those of us seeing it are starting to gear up more and more for that world so we can adapt without getting ran over by the mob.

I think a webring would help, but yeah I don't know how much.

[Ghost]

There’s a lot of good discussion in this thread, so I suppose for the love of night ops I’ll log in and add my $0.02. I’m going to echo the idea that a more generic “stealth” community of some sort would be great, provided it has good terms of service and a decent admin/mod team to keep the Bad Ideas posting under control. Personally I’ve used discord a fair bit over the last few years as my forum substitute of choice, so I’m a little biased, but ultimately I think the medium is less important than having a broader scope, and making it accessible to as wide a range of people as possible. No one wants to spend time posting on a sketchy honeypot community, but one in which all the discussion is more or less legal gives an air of legitimacy that I believe we here have lacked over the years. Most likely due to our roots at &t, and of course users like myself posting/alluding to less than legal activity.

[Psychlonic]

My video work will most likely be delayed until next year as a safe guess, this fall and winter are tied up. Best I can say publicly is that I'm making moves in my life that benefit me and there's no time for both while I'm doing so. This little update is purely to avoid looking like I skipped my intention, next time the idea is brought up there will be an accompanying link.

[Psychlonic]

Apologies for the double post, but a heads up. I've decided to adopt the general concept of making night ops more "legit" again and being anti-"bad ideas". As such, I will be removing or editing certain posts that are out of line with the scope of true night ops in a week or so. If there's any shady crap you want to archive personally, now would be a good time to save pages for your library.

[V-S]

A good start would be the mention of AR-15 Full auto conversions. It's interesting, but not exactly NightOps related. (I'll delete this post later (nevermind, I can't))

[V-S]

Also, just confirm you're talking about the more extreme stuff and not just any post that include theft or vandalism? Because they are interesting reads honestly.

[Psychlonic]

Ah, I should have clarified but I meant I would be editing and deleting my own posts and topics that have no real place in the hobby. I haven't been an active admin or moderator in a few years now due to the randomness of when I'm around. Plus with inactivity I don't want users feeling like there's an overabundance of authority nor do I want users feeling like they need to tiptoe around my presence.

However, I completely agree with the sentiment. Essentially, non-NO petty crimes can go in Bad Ideas. Obvious red flag topics... honestly fuck'em. I'm all for freedom of speech but Secant has drawn a perfectly understandable line and on a more personal note, it's 2023. The instructions can be found elsewhere for those who are interested. Plus, that cookbook type shit is kind of Busch League anyway. People are better off going to YouTube, learning their action inside and out, and then it becomes self-apparent how to modify whatever you want. If it doesn't become apparent, the end user is just blindly following instructions and hoping they work as advertised.

Secant and Xanatos will have to weigh in as they're the active authority here, but I say trash that shit. Also FFS just get rid of basewatcher entirely.

[Xanatos]

I'm kinda split... while I'm all for advocating NO in its purest form (i.e: non-destructive stealth & exploration) I also understand the growing levels of censorship around certain topics on the internet and our unique position as a bastion of said information. Keeping obviously bad ideas in BI is a good call, but I wouldn't advocate for an overall ban.

[Psychlonic]

I understand the concern and feel the same way, but is that really the scope of the site? "Bad Ideas" was opened primarily to cater to the petty theft many (including myself years ago) committed. I can't help but feel like the other content is pushing potential users away from the site and to what benefit? I'd rather have two complete novices who are active and trying to learn for every one who just shows up to show how extreme and kewl they are.

Is there anyone who reads those posts and thinks "Wow that's amazing I need to go out and practice so I can be like that!"? I know I don't, but sometimes I read an experience - from anyone - with chill vibes and nice pictures and I think "Yeah... that sounds nice." It invokes the things we talk about - the sights, the sounds, the damp scented air, a slight chill... and absolute freedom. Not a care in the world. Is that a projection on my part?

[Intruder]

Side note, Reddit is one of the most hper locked down and easy to get detonated social media cancers that ever existed. Discord is the meta. Just don't try to sell firearms or trade in full on hate speech tier stuff. It's actually a better side bar for chat more than a storage place for stories and posting private anything- which should not be anywhere. You can apply Persec to discord without having to chase the cryptodemons.
Just insulate your ID, leave some fake crumbs etc. Locations are always the biggest compromise. But generally that's not a problem. I think discords are honestly the way to go as I've been in a bunch of them that are dubious and a few that have been canned over content. There is a right way to do it and it's not that hard. It's just avoiding the typical hotbutton flavours of the month issues. IE don't trade in firearms parts or do doxxing fests. Most places have a long shelflife.

The next thing is I really think that Night ops isn't dead- it's actually kind of worse. It's beseiged by non discoverers. We don't have the trickle chage of slow members showing up like old non gated communitioes were in say, Geocities and XP windows eras. Everyone just flees to reddit.

4chan is my fav alt. Not becuase it's safe, but because it's full of people who actually do stuff. Especially /Out/ /K/ and /X/ to a lesser extent. There are people there who do insane things and they are valuable if you can find a single competent person.

https://substack.com/ Substack as a good archival placeholder for a nice front end has a basic social connection aspect. Basically more of a blog post version of telegram like environments. It would make for a very useful - but seperated - guide. I think a big aspect would be to not advertise this place, but create something that has stealth practice as a baseline.

You can always make infographics that start with say
"My weird hobby: A 101 guide" for example. People are very monkey see monkey do.

Retention of old members is a big of a crapshoot as people age out, get hardline jobs and generally disperse among the new walled gardens.

The best way to solve censored speech is to advertise where they don't want you, in order to leave a bread crumb trail to places that they can exit and thus escape from places that do censor. Redit, 4chan etc have massive amounts of talent most who aren't really self starters. If they were they would be making placeholders on Telegram and things like Substack.

I think the most practical step you can do is to set up a bunch of alternative fronts, in places like having a discord for 4chan, a substack for reddit and other options I've talked about privately and don't wish to spill here for fear of spectator sabotuers.

What we should do is each go out, find a person and get them into the hobby, then after a few sessions tell them that it's not just us. That makes it more person to person. That's always useful and it keeps you in practice.
Next we should do all we can to find communities that are adjacent to the hobby. That's going to need some brainstorming.
Urban explorers, locksporters, squatters, hikers, long distance travellers, alt forum users, and some martial arts crossover exists.

We need a more expanded demo reel library and the guide being worked on is great news.

1 We need to go where the people are, both offline and online
2 We need to vet them for retardation and non compentence or whacky behaviour
3 We need to get them active in doing something before revealing community so that it is like a big club type surprise. They should feel the wonder of realising it's not just them that there is a whole other dimension out there that exists. The subculture effect.

I'm going to try and find at least two long timer people I know who get up to some stuff to come become contributers. That's something I can do this week.

A substack as a front end that is insulated from this place would do wonders for having feelers out in the world. Just a place you can point and say, OH you are into this? Well you should check out this Substack my friend manages, he will hook you up.
This way it goes to something less daunting. Basically making the first encounter go down easier. Old forums are something people usually only encounter when looking for especially old and esoteric mechanical knowladge or some kind of niche topic. The irony is a lot of those forusm, like here are the ONLY places with people who know thier stuff. So perhaps making the guide public would be more of a draw than anything.

Just look at how many arrived here from legacy Totse vs Stealth Techniques little editing link in one of his nice vids. That had a front end. It was you tube. You could even try something as simple as an Alternate reality game vibe to draw people in. Who knows? There's a lot we can do though. So don't get discouraged.

Go find people. If they aren't comming here, go to them.

[Psychlonic]

I'm going to leave that up everyone else. Or, nobody at this rate. I got to really thinking about it more recently and realized I'd rather focus on getting quality information up. If people want to re-rally a community around it, great.

[Fabulous_Fabio]

I can grow YouTube channels (faceless) I have lots of experiences with them, in fact I run several. If admins, mods, psychlonic and general public wants then I can!
I am very fascinated of making Nightops popular!

[Sleven]

I can grow YouTube channels (faceless) I have lots of experiences with them, in fact I run several. If admins, mods, psychlonic and general public wants then I can!
I am very fascinated of making Nightops popular!

Mind if we ask what type of faceless content niche? Or several?