MetaFilter

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it?

It's from playing Civilization II a lot as a kid. I got tired of the default city names quickly, so I started altering what they gave me to make it sound more exotic. My favorite was Rhaomi -- a corruption of "Rome". I always liked the sound of it. (It's pronounced ROW-mee, by the way; the "ROW" rhymes with "cow." Or as jessamyn put it: Rhymes with MEOW-See. Rhymes with PLOW-Fee. Rhymes with TAO-Wii. Rhymes with WOW-Me.)

After going with a futuristic Earth (from a Halo 2 trailer; desktop version) and the "all-purpose animal" Ralph (from the great film in this post), my avatar is now Felix the Cat doing his signature thinking-man's pace. Because I love classic animation, and Felix is old-school cool.

Tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

I started out on *gasp* AOL, and found cool things online via the *double gasp* Yahoo directory. Lots of quirky vintage 90's stuff in my old favorites list. Best of the web, it was! Or at least a decent FPP, if I ever took the time to dig it up.

Friends at school introduced me to more and more interesting sites -- Zthing, Homestarruner, Freearcade.com. But nothing really of substance. And not a lot of interactivity, either. I think that making a profile on Bungie.net on the eve of Halo 2 was the first time I forayed into any kind of online community.

That forum banned political discussion, which was becoming my passion, so I jumped to the General forum General Forum for NationStates, a geopolitical roleplaying sim. I had some fun there, it was an OK community. But it was also very... cramped. When I got banned on a technicality (NEVER link to Encyclopedia Dramatica on a forum that allows kids), I didn't bother starting afresh.

I first heard about Metafilter while following the "The Purification" web experience dealie. There was a looong thread on AskMe chronicling the unfolding puzzle. After it ended I forgot about the site, but was reintroduced by Lifehacker's regular "Ask Metafilter Round-up" feature. After lurking moar (and diligently reading the wiki), I paid a fiver on Halloween '07.

It's been great so far. People are generally civil and intelligent, and it seems like everything under the sun has been discussed in great detail here. And though it kinda sucks when every cool, obscure doodad you've ever encountered has been posted and double-posted here, it kinda rules when the same is true for every burning question you've been afraid to ask. So, on balance, it's neutral. And the hilarious snark more than pushes it into the happy zone.

And I'm glad to be in the happy zone! Really.