Reality Enquirer

Ok I am totally confused now. BB4-Online is back up with a nice message that seems to mean the site will be up for BB4, but kinda says it isn't.

BB4BBQ says the site will be up and running, damn the torpedos (and doctors).

So what's going on Nancy? Are you going to make a go of it or not?

Enquiring minds want to know!

I just found out that BB4-Online.com and BigBrother-Fix.com have closed their doors due to health reasons.

These mirrored sites were extremely popular during Big Brother 3 and were run by the sister team of Nancy and Sandy. They always had good news stories and a very active community.

They will be sorely missed during this season of Big Brother.

Hope everything turns out well for you!

I have had a few people write me declaring that the person that runs RealityTrash.com, Reality411.com, and BB4BBQ.com are all the same person and they are out to destroy the world. Well I have followed these sites for a while and looked into this, and here is the definitive answer - NO WAY!

The owner of reality411.com and realitytrash.com is the same person. She goes by the name Heylollylolly and CreditDiva (check out creditdiva.com). Essentially she looks for domain names she can link to her credit business to make money.

The original Reality411.com was one of the hottest reality websites on the net, run by a person named Kristiii. Kristiii had an argument with her host, who was supposedly hosting the site for free, or a minimal amount, and the host, SendAGig.com booted her off his servers and sold the domain name (he had it registered with his credit card) to CreditDiva. At first it was obviously used to point people to her creditdiva.com site.

Reality Trash was a site somewhat like this, run by some crazy that faked their death online. Its original address was realitytrash.5u.com (it still exists). After the fateful announcement, it didn't take long for Credit Diva to register the realitytrash.com domain name, and once again point people to her credit business.

A little bit of research in the public domain shows she is actually from Gulfport, MS and runs everything under a company called Storybook Group. Reality isn't her only game - supposedly she is a publisher, and there is a big scandal about how she purportedly stole the story of a blind man and published it and never paid him - see www.mikedanger.com for a very interesting story.

On the other hand, the person that runs BB4BBQ is someone known as Spamgirl, somewhat of an internet legend. At one time she owned spamgirl.com and had a reputation of crusading against spam, and more importantly against corporate retail injustice by organizing nationwide/worldwide denial of service attacks. She was also the owner of BanishKrista.com during BB3, and has been a member and/or moderator of TVClubhouse, Elites TV, and Jokers Updates, though it seems she has withdrawn from all three sites. Again a little bit of research in the public domain shows she is from Canada.

I have a little more recent evidence that I can't reveal that confirms this information. These two people are not the same, though I can't vouch that they haven't teamed up to destroy the world!

A mystic e-mail from someone who claims to know the truth about everything. Here are a few tidbits:

- CBS did NOT want the information about the twist out until HG's were sequestered.

- Realitynewslive has it wrong, they have information that was given to them by someone they think they can trust, but they can't.

More to come?

Reality Trash is back up and running. No, not the original, but the one run by CreditDiva or HeyLollyLolly. You know, the one that bought the reality411.com domain name from the guy who runs SendAGig and Reality LowDown after he closed down the original Reality 411 that was hosted on his servers.

Anyway, going to the URL doesn't send you off into some strange Never Never Reality Land anymore. Instead it takes you to the nice noir site that sporadically posts interesting stuff. I wonder if it came back up because of me?

Some people don't really like message boards, but like to get their news from articles. There are a few good sites out there that seem to have consistently interesting articles.

Probably the best of the lot is Reality News Online. They have articles on almost every reality show out there, including some really good editorials and interviews with the contestants. Likewise Fans Of Reality TV keeps the articles flowing and consistent, and seems to have a direct line to interviewing the reality people.

Of course Television Without Pity is probably the biggest - however it is a more general site covering all of television. On the other end of the spectrum is Elites TV which seems to focus its articles on just a few reality shows, but with high quality. And don't forget Manly Thoughts which is one of my favorites.

Of course if you are looking for a place to find articles all over the web, go to Sir Links A Lot or Reality TV Links. I have also noticed Elites TV has a nice selection of links to articles on their front page, some of which are not found on Sir Links A Lot or Reality TV Links, so I have been using it to supplement my reading.

I am sure there are some I have missed, so if you have your own favorites, or want to bring some to my attention, please drop me a line.

One member of Jokers Updates remembers the reason Stark left Jokers:

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From what I remember, something happened between Stark and Numfar, another moderator at Joker's. I think it had to do with the politics forum, they were going at it and Numfar used his moderator priviledges to do something, start a new forum or something like that. People complained and instead of punishing Numfar, who was clearly at fault, they took away Stark's moderatorship for being "problematic" and "causing trouble". This is Stark, the guy who completely supported Jokerette when she took over Joker's. Stark, who carried her along and helped the posters to accept her. Stark, without whom Jokers may not have survived.

So Stark realized they were using him and had no respect for him, and left. He is not the first moderator to leave because
of incidents like this at the site. You should hear the things people say in private messages and in their chat about each other - I'm surprised more people haven't left.

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Doesn't look like things are all sweetness and light at Jokers.

Of course the big question becomes which website will snag Stark for Big Brother 4?

I was checking out Elites TV and was stunned to find all the good stuff had disappeared. They used to have a lot of general purpose chit-chat areas that were usually quite entertaining. Especially lately when there seems to have been an influx of new posters which have clashed unmercifully with the old time members.

A great read was in their Virtual ETV area - a place called the Statehouse, where you could see real name-calling, flame-baiting, and general mayhem all under the guise of discussing current events. Nothing like a big argument to attract people to a site, and from the looks of things Elites TV must have been booming lately.

It didn't take long for me to find the missing content. Seems all the stuff not related to Reality TV was moved into their private members area. From what I can tell, all you have to do to join in the fun is register. And let me tell you it is worth it, in a bizarre, perverted kind of way.

While doing a bit of research on something totally unrelated I found this at Survivor Sucks:

jasbel
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Joker's has the best PbP summaries each week. There is a guy on there and if he is back (I believe his name is Stark) he does the best transcriptions...
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spamgrrl
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I'm pretty sure Stark will not be returning to Joker's this year - afaih (rumour mill), they ran him off...
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Well this was a surprise to me - Stark was one of the all time great Big Brother live feeders at Jokers since the first edition! A mainstay at the site, I am pretty sure he was one of the major reasons that Jokers survived the transition to Jokerette.

I searched the Jokers site and found Stark's last post on February 10, 2003. There is nothing stating he is leaving, but in retrospect it is definitely a farewell post.

So what really happened?

I was cruising the web and ran across Media Fiends. From what I understand the webmistress used to be the Admin at the now defunct Reality TV Fans, decided she wanted to run things a different way, so started her own site.

This site has live feeds, and I have been told they may be implementing a new way of rewarding the people who spend so much time on doing the live feed recaps. At the end of the season, Media Fiends will look at the people who have been consistently doing feeds and compensate them monetarily. The idea right now is to pick two day feeders and two night feeders - if it is really successful more may get paid.

Heck, I am thinking about getting the live feeds and trying this myself!

Just a few corrections that were pointed out to me.

1. The warning on the BB4 BBQ site about loading images to one's server wasn't directed at any particular site - it was a general request that if you were going to use the images, download them to your server and give credit back where you got them from.

2. It wasn't Reality News Live that went down for 21 hours - it was BB4 BBQ's webmasters ISP.

3. OK they really didn't call BB4 BQ a bad cook.

4. BB4 BBQ didn't tell the people on RNL to die - she just told them she hoped the thread would die.

Just trying to keep the record straight.

I don't know if any of you noticed the small battle waged recently concerning sites linking to photos on another site. You can find the story and see the photos on BB4 BBQ.

What we really understand happened was that photos that were posted on BB4 BBQ and We Love Big Brother showed up later on Reality News Live and Reality TV Planet. When confronted Reality News Live claimed that CBS sent them photos, when BB4BBQ & WeLoveBigBrother found them hours before, and in fact Reality News Live was linking back to the original photos.

Here is how we understand things unfolded:

The webmistress of BB4 BBQ found the photos on the CBS press site and told We Love Big Brother, and both sites posted them. The next morning WLBB finds the photos are being linked at the other two sites, BB4 BBQ says they should replace the images with the "bad sites steal bandwidth" image. She goes and takes screencaps of the offending sites with the new image in place, and puts a warning on the BBQ site telling the offenders to load the images to their own site - that they are stealing bandwidth.

RNL emails BBQ asking her to remove the images and screencaps, BBQ says she wants a public apology, which RNL says they will try. Supposedly RNL's goes down for 21 hours. When they are back up, they say they can't contact the poster, but please remove the images.

A thread is started on the Survivor Sucks boards, and a general Flame Fest ensues from both sides (this is an interesting read and I highly recommend it - other accusations are made). Someone on RNL starts a thread on that site calling the webmistress of BBQ everything from a slanderer to a bad cook. She posts and tells them to essentially die. Bashing continues then the thread disappears.

An article is posted about this on RealityTVChat.net (which I can't find). The battle moves to chatrooms, with lots of people causing trouble in the rooms. Someone comes in from RNL and apologizes, then everything is OK.

So that is the story the way I heard it. Seems everything is back to normal, but there are probably some animosities still lingering.

Some of you have been asking the purpose of this site. And some of you have guessed and hit the mark.

I was looking around the web, checking out some of my old bookmarks, and realized all the reality gossip sites were gone. The original Reality Trash, the granddaddy of reality tv gossip sites, is still there with its cryptic message about the fate of its owner, and no activity. The purloined www.realitytrash.com now redirects you to a totally strange place. The RealityLowDown is no more. And the Mecca of Razz seems to have undergone a religious conversion, and the posting has totally cratered to zero.

So I decided to step into the gap. I don't think I can ever be as good as Reality Trash, or as evil as RealityLowDown or the Mecca of Razz, but I am willing to make a go of it. So if your site, or the site you frequent, has something special coming up that needs to be advertised, drop me a note and I will post it for all to see. If you have some juicy gossip, I am all ears. If you have been wronged and want justice, I am willing to listen to all sides and present them to the public.

Like a good friend says "It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it".

I just hope it doesn't kill me.

There have been some rumours and other evidence that Television Without Pity will be shutting down.

I heard about this over a month ago - the story I heard was that the owners wanted to start charging a small yearly fee to help subsidize the site. The users reacted so violently to this suggestion that the owners were set to just shut down the site and forget about it.

There are some references throughout the forums about this - my favorite veiled comment being "I don't know if TWOP will even be here in 48 hours".

The site seems to still be running strong. I hope this was just a minor upheaval and that things have settled down. Write me if you know more!

Big Brother 4 is coming up in July, and the pressing question becomes "What sites am I going to visit to read the live feeds?".

Probably the longest running and most consistent site out there is still TV Clubhouse". The format is pretty linear, and the posts are usually fairly long, which isn't too bad a thing if you want to sit back and get a good read in about what the houseguests are doing. Personally I don't think it is the best place for breaking news, however, since you have to be in the right place and refresh your screen at the right time to catch it.

There are some old standbys - Jokers Updates is still around, but with all the chaos that ensued with the new owner last year, including multiple crashes and multiple servers, I gave up on it.

Elites TV used to have some pretty funny live feed posters, but it seemed to be way off its game during BB3. I will probably check it out this year to see if they have revived themselves.

There are others, but I think I am going to have to go with www.bb4updates.com (don't go there now - they don't open till July 7), a product of KeithX.com. Keith went back to the basics during BB3, gave us the style that the original Jokers had with its stability, speed, and integrity, and became the best, hot off the presses, live feed site on the net.

Sorry there was no article yesterday - something was wrong with Blogger and I couldn't publish!

Take a look at this: Big Brother Nation. Looks like a semi-explanation about the Big Brother Station split up. Well actually it looks like a sour grapes message from a 16 year old kid who got booted out of a good deal.

A good piece of advice though - "Don’t trust anyone". Correct Andrew - I wouldn't trust you now - anyone who "plays a little prank" with a virus is definitely not on my trust list.

A little piece of advice for you too, Andrew. Grow up, get away from your computer, and enjoy your life as a kid - it doesn't last forever.

Rushing through the web, I caught a tidbit that Marcellas Reynolds of BB3 had a brand new website at www.marcellasreynolds.com. I had to check it out of course.

Is it just me, or is this site taking the artsy approach a bit to far, to the detriment of user friendliness? It took me a while to figure out what/where some of the graphics on the left went, and even longer to figure out those cute little icons took you to a whole bunch of other stuff.

I am assuming the front page will fill up with blog entries as time goes on - right now there is just not a lot there.

Several clicks are worth it - check out the little bomb icon - he has two rants there that are amusing. If anyone knows which e-zine he is talking about in one of the rants, please let me know - I would like to get the whole story.

The other click is the little light bulb - get advice from Marcellas. This seems to have been taken over by Jokers Updates posters for their own purposes. This is not too suprising because I believe the webmaster is a Jokers regular, or perhaps moderator. Marcellas definitely needs to work on his tact however - when Jokerette (who runs Jokers) asked him the most fun on-line chat he ever had, Marcellas replied the one on Reality News Live instead of the expected Jokers' chat. I guess leading questions don't always work.

I was checking out We Love Big Brother and found the following:

"On June 1st, 2003, WeLoveBigBrother.com decided to break its partnership with BigBrotherStation.com. This decision was made due to false information being made by the other partner site. We would like to apologize for statements made from our partner site.

BigBrotherStation was a partnership between two Big Brother sites. Our site as well as BigBrotherNation.com decided to create one site. WeLoveBigBrother.com is now running by itself"

Trying to go to either bigbrotherstation.com or bigbrothernation.com brought me directly back to the welovebigbrother site.

I noticed that they were doing some stuff with BB4 BBQ, so I went and took a look there. BB4BBQ had a short story on the breakup, with little information except that one of the webmasters of Big Brother Station backed out and took all the good stuff with them.

If anyone knows any other info on this breakup, please e-mail me at realityenquirer@wildmail.com

Just stopping by the Television Without Pity site to see what I could see.

This is a sharp site and looks like it gets a lot of traffic.

I just had to see what was going on with Amazing Race. I know the Guidos used to post here a lot, and seem to still be around. They posted this news:

"For those of you looking for articles. The magazine featuring Reichen on the cover this past month, "Instinct" interviewed us yesterday for the August issue. The topic will be how we applied for The Amazing Race. Other Racers (Gay :) and Reality show contestants are probably also interviewed."

Cool.

If you like your television snarky, this is the place to read.

It was with some dismay that I discovered one of my favorite sites, Reality TV Fans, had bit the dust.

This site was one of the leaders in delivering news about reality television. It had a strong writer base and a very active on-line community.

I noticed something was wrong when the headlines quit being updated. Soon after the site went through a transformation that was very hard to follow. It seems that Miss Mary, the owner and editor, decided to make a major physical move, and turned the site over to a friend or coworker named Lauren. Unfortunately all the software, server space, and know-how didn't seem to be part of the package.

Lauren looked like she was making a valiant effort to take over the site, but she didn't have the resources that Miss Mary had. Changing portal software and discussion board software seemed to be more than she could handle. The site soon cratered, and somehow the domain was picked up by Reality TV Links - transfering all requests to www.realitytvlinks.com. I believe this site is a subsidiary of the powerful SirLinksAlot family.

But not to despair - at least one of the members of the former site (Loner) did not want it to die, and created a new site - Reality TV Fans Refugees. Though it is still somewhat rough, and doesn't seem to have any where near the traffic and posters of the original - it is still alive with some of the old RTVF gang still around.