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17th Shard Now Brandon’s Official Forum


Chaos
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It is a bittersweet day, because Timewaster's Guide is closing its doors after many years. It feels like an end of era, but that just means there is a new beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel... wait, wait. Let me try this again.

Timewaster's Guide was the place where Brandon's forums were located. It was the place where I met a ton of amazing people. It's through this site that our staff met. So, with a community that has such history to it, I'm saddened to hear that TWG is closing its doors.

The reason was because the site got hacked. Now, don't panic if you were a TWG member. What happened was some jerk hacked into the site, and posted a gigantic spreadsheet of emails and passwords. However, the passwords were salted and hashed--fancy language to say that the passwords were encrypted. It would be theoretically possible to break the password (especially if the password was really simple), but I think the most important thing to do is, if your email on TWG used the same password as your TWG account, I'd recommend changing passwords. Ultimately, I would not worry. About the worst thing that could happen is you get some spam, because the emails are publicly posted. Just make sure your password is good and everything will be fine.

In any case, the Spriggan, the administrator on TWG said it would be challenging to fix the site due to the great deal of custom code on it. With that site closing, a few key communities vanish with it: Brandon's, Dan's, and the Reading Excuses writing group.

It is phenomenally humbling, then, to announce that we have now become the official forum for Brandon Sanderson. Check out the screenshot.

In addition, we are pleased to give Dan Wells's forums and Reading Excuses a home as well. It's only fair, because Dan was so gracious to give the writing group of Reading Excuses (which I have had the privilege to sometimes-moderate) space on Timewaster's Guide about three years ago.

If you've never been to 17th Shard before, welcome. I hope you will enjoy your time here as much as you did on TWG. We're slowly making the site better with each passing month (better server hosting is coming eventually!). The Welcome to 17th Shard topic explains all about the site, its features, the rules, and--most importantly--the meaning of the pretty colors some members' names are in.

And, um, welcome to the official Brandon Sanderson forums? Wow. That feels weird to say. I don't think we'll get over that anytime soon, if ever.

You guys know who Dan Wells is, right? He's this amazing author of excellent psychological horror novels. The first of his John Cleaver series is called I Am Not a Serial Killer, and if that title doesn't make you want to read it... you clearly have issues. And, believe it or not, the two sequels are blow that superb first novel out of the water. You're missing out if you aren't reading his stuff.

As for you Reading Excuses members, I've posted a topic in our new home about the transition. I’m going to send you an email shortly, but basically, if you submitted this week, go ahead and re-post it. We'll do this week's critiques like normal.

Some people have asked us if 17S is susceptible to a hacking, too. I would not worry. We are using very modern (and expensive) software in Invision Power Board. While it's always theoretically possible, I'm confident we will be okay, considering we pay for this stuff.

And if you're sad that TWG's data is gone forever, don't be! I'm working with Spriggan to get a backup of the forums going, which will be read-only. I'll keep you all posted about the progress.

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:o

I just joined TWG last week :(

It's a pity it fell victim to a black hat.

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While lame about TWG closing, us being brandon's official forums is a pretty exciting prospect. I fully expect it to get rather busy around here now :P

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Sprig choosing to let the TWG die isn't surprising, but it is sad that someone decided to hack it and sad to see it go. Dan's bacon thread will be missed. ;)

I am more than happy to call this home from now on. :D

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RIP Timewaster's guide.

Definitely get the relevant posts archived, it'd be a shame to lose that stuff.

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Congrats Chaos!

My biggest regret is that I'll never level up on TWG's system enough to reach GOD.

I wanted to reach god.

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Congrats Chaos!

My biggest regret is that I'll never level up on TWG's system enough to reach GOD.

I wanted to reach god.

Oh, yeah, that's true. That leveling system was my favorite.

If it makes you feel better, by gaining reputation points you can become a Shard. That's practically a god ;)

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Oh, yeah, that's true. That leveling system was my favorite.

If it makes you feel better, by gaining reputation points you can become a Shard. That's practically a god ;)

If that's the case I say we raise the required number of rep points to get to Shard to 1024 that makes it a real accomplishment :)

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If that's the case I say we raise the required number of rep points to get to Shard to 1024 that makes it a real accomplishment :)

Nah, that should be the rep level to reach Adonalsium status.

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Ad nauseum? That should be at negative rep.

Edit: Latin jokes are always funny, right?

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I guess I'll spend twice as much time lurking in the Mistborn and Stormlight forums now. ;)

Shame we lost all the nice fan-art from the original forums. Plus it was kind of a nice archive of how I met, wooed and won my way into Brandon's back pocket.

:lol:

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I guess I'll spend twice as much time lurking in the Mistborn and Stormlight forums now. ;)

Shame we lost all the nice fan-art from the original forums. Plus it was kind of a nice archive of how I met, wooed and won my way into Brandon's back pocket.

:lol:

That's definitely why I want to get an archive of all that data here. I didn't even think about that fan art, that's an excellent point.

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