The RinkWorks Lawsuit

Rafael: LOL! These archives are hilarious!
niekie: Rafael: which one are you reading?
Rafael: I'm reading the one called, Lipstick Express to Canada.
Rafael: Poor Sosiqui
Rafael: Wow. This is just plain cruel.
Rafael: But still hilarious!
Ghost of Sam: Raf: LOL LOL. I forgot about that archive completely.
Ghost of Sam: Leen ruled in that one.
Rafael: That whole thing was just perfect.
Rafael: Possibly my favorite one so far.
Rafael: Hey Sam, might I ask why there are no archives between 2004 and 2008?
wintermute: Because RinkWorks was on strike during that period.
Rafael: ???
Ticia: No one was funny then.
Ghost of Sam: The lawsuit didn't help, either.
* Rafael continues his ??? ing.
Rafael: Lawsuit? Strike? No humor?! How horrible can life be?!
wintermute: Yeah, turns out there's a patent on chatroom archives.
Rafael: I'm totally lost. I can't tell who's being serious and who is joking. Or if this whole thing is a joke.
Kysle: Just accept that you'll never know.
Rafael: I hate not knowing stuffs.
ThePhan: I too lie awake at night, tormented by all the stuff I do not know.
Ghost of Sam: There was a January 2004 archive called 'Secrets,' which was a conversation about people's most intimate secrets, such as one Rinkie (by court order, I can't say which) who has a psychological compulsion to French kiss sweet pickle relish, and another who once accidentally broadcast himself dancing to Kung Fu Fighting in his underwear via his webcam, which he thought was turned off.
Ghost of Sam: By posting the archive, 11 Rinkies (ten of whom are sadly no longer regulars here) filed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy.
Kysle: Why sadly?
Ghost of Sam: I loved them all.
wintermute: Sam: Even #8?
Ghost of Sam: Anyway, the case dragged on for four years, during which time there was a temporary injunction against the posting of new archives.
Rafael: That's horrible.
ThePhan: It was a dark, dark time.
Rafael: ThePhan: Good to know I'm not alone.
Ghost of Sam: The one of the 11 that's still around is the Kung Fu Fighting guy.
Ghost of Sam: Kysle: Do you still get down to that song?
Kysle: *aherm*
Kysle has left.
Ghost of Sam: Oh, sorry.
Rafael: ...
Ticia: LOL
ThePhan: I guess he's still a little sensitive.
Rafael: We all do embarrassing stuff.
Rafael: Wait. Was it really Kysle?
Rafael: So eleven rinkies filed for lawsuit, ten left entirely, and one of them is still around as a regular?
Rafael: And you aren't at all upset at this regular for filing a lawsuit?
Ghost of Sam: Right. I only lost three of the lawsuits, though.
Ghost of Sam: The others were fined for frivolous use of the judicial system. Those judgments paid for the ones I owed, so it worked out about evenly.
TalkingDog: That was funny when Athaleon called you a venom-spitting neematoad and had to be dragged out.
* Rafael still can't tell if this is all serious or just a big joke against me.
Ghost of Sam: One of the cases I lost was against WhizKid. He claimed that even though he was not a U.S. citizen and didn't have all the protections offered to citizens, he still suffered extreme and irreparable psychological damage by the posting of the archive, in which I quoted him as saying, under implicit contract of confidentiality, 'I like it when Ticia drools.'
Ticia: Yeah, that was fun, getting that subpoena.
Rafael: I thought WhizKid was a bot program. Like WhizHal or something?
Rafael: How can you lose a lawsuit against a program eh?
Ghost of Sam: Raf: I coded it too well.
Rafael: So this whole lawsuit thing is a joke then?
Rafael: Or just the WhizKid part?
Ghost of Sam: Raf: Yeah, I suppose I can laugh about it now. Pretty harrowing at the time, though.
* Rafael might a'splode.
Ghost of Sam: LOL. Okay, seriously, yeah, all a joke. The real reason there weren't any archives is that I just didn't find the time and energy to post any.
Rafael: ...
Rafael: Now I still can't tell if you are joking or being serious. Even after you said seriously.
Ghost of Sam: Although seemingly only a matter of cutting out a bit of a log file and saving it, I actually did a fair amount of editing to the transcripts. Not to change any content, but to cull out lines unrelated to the conversation, and re-ordering lines so that the flow of conversation is clearer.
Ghost of Sam: So, kind of tedious.
Rafael: Mmm... Now that I'm looking back and reading this, I can't believe I might have fallen for it.
Rafael: There's my embarrassing moment for the day.