/sigh

If you're on a local network (a LAN) then you use MAC addressing (hardware addressing) instead of IP to communicate through your switches. [url= Yes, you can have a fully layer 3 LAN, but it's a huge pain to set up and nobody does it except maybe as proof of concept. If you're local, you're using MAC. Essentially always. ][/url]

Low address is netid. High is broadcast. Since you seem to be talking about classful networks, that's .0 for netid, .255 for broadcast.

This is really, really basic stuff, rt. This does not help your claims that you do computers. I can forgive anyone for not knowing the detailed stuff about networking, but not knowing when to use a logical vs a physical address? Not knowing which address is netid and which is broadcast? That's more than a little bit of rust.

EDIT: incidentally, the "broadcaster" you mention should be called a "gateway" and will not have the low or high address; it will have a host ID. If you try to set up your broadcast as your gateway, you'll either, depending on the intelligence of your switches/routers, develop a brutal packet storm, or just not be able to talk out at all. And your system clock will probably be wrong, too XD

I think I may have some pointers to answer the original question.

In principle, no, tinfoil theorists are not attracted to GOG. I don't see a particular connection between liking DRM free and older games and fostering conspiracy theory.

However, the lack of moderation and further forum 0.1 peculiarities may add to the spread of such conspiracy nonsense; and there may also be factors that make it look like the conspiracy nutter is far more common than he or she actually is.

(1) Downvotes: As we've recently seen in 'that other thread', at least one conspiracy nutter is using alt accounts consistently (and has been since early 2015 at the very least) to upvote himself and downvote others, and he's neither ashamed to say so nor to make six alts in minutes to demonstrate how damn easy it is. The originally strong anti-conspiracy nut voting, which concentrated on the thread instigator almost exclusively, has since turned into an all round downvoting spree that affects in partiular those who argue against the daily nutter update. Hence, it looks like the community is more in favor of the conspiracy crap than it actually is. This is basically a similar strategy that Putin's so called "troll army" employs.

(2) Hit and run: The thread in question isn't meant to be a discussion. It's meant to be a daily defamation dump, and not even that: It's just a collection of mere links to other conspiracy nutjobs. It voices the accusation, but not the explanation. It is, therefore, the king and queen of the conspiracy doctrine. If anyone spent his time trying to research all the individual accusations, a three digit number per post sometimes, it would still take a week if not weeks to properly rebutt each of them. During that time, a thousand new conspiracy theories of varying stupidity may have been posted in that same thread (and I'm not even exaggerating here).

(3) Fatigue: Many forum users are just plain tired of this stuff. And 'this stuff" unfortunately doesn't just mean conspiracy theory, it basically means any kind of discussion that scratches the surface of social awareness or even *gasp* politics. In these threads, you'll find members – in principle, worthy community members in a lot of other threads – that try to disrupt and destroy any kind of ungoing discussion. They're not engaging the topic any more, which makes it look more legit than it really is. Yet even though I sometimes understand these users, they're still damaging discussion culture. Most forums, for this reason, have a very clear cut guideline in place that forbids this kind of disruption. I call it the "good faith or good bye" rule.

(4) Lack of moderation: What GOG breeds with its hands-off policy is, of course, Chan culture in a nutshell, further perverted with a solid scoop of instant negativity via downvotes. I can't say "I have never seen", but I can say that I'm not active in any other forum in which members can pour out this level of abuse over others without fear of having posting privileges revoked. I'm not active in any other forum in which a user with a crossed out rainbow flag as his avatar would survive a single day without a permaban. At the core of very many conspiracy theories (by far not all) lies an instinctive hate against a certain group; that hate runs around on this forum without even a finger raised by the authorities. That's unusual, and that too makes the forum look like a safe haven for these sentiments.

While I am very happy for your comprehensive response; I really hate that because of your response, I'm victim to your (1) factor ONCE AGAIN. Not to say you specifically are the cause of it, but whenever I tend to receive certain responses from certain individuals I end up getting bent over by the knights of correction.

The downvoting doesn't bother me in the sense that it's just a number; it's the intention behind it.
To be honest, I take little notice of 'those threads' beside a quick glance, and I created this thread out of minor observation with a dash of 'fun'.

I like discussing, and I like debate; however, I find that anyone who wants to discuss anything with me will just downvote the post instead. I don't feel my opener was antagonistic to a dangerous extent, nor do I feel it was even interpreted correctly to begin with. Obviously I don't know what buttons I push, even around people who I thought were supposedly likeminded.

To end it all - I've willingly told support I've been unhappy with this place and I'd like them to ban me from it a few times. Ever since the whole nonsense that surrounded Victor Vran's release, my sense of joy, excitement and humour rapidly dissipated. The fact that you felt you needed to muster up such a reflective response when this 'conversation' was seemingly done and dusted tells me plenty about the mentality of this place. Once again, thank you for putting EVERYTHING into perspective and thank you for doing so in a thread I managed to put together on a shoe string... a thread was apparently worthy beside all others.

This is really the biggest problem, and is the reason why I would argue that theorists are indeed attracted to GOG - it's really the only "mainstream" gaming forum where fringe theorists can spew their filth and get a mainstream audience for it. When a given news forum gets hijacked by some fringe movement (usually the alt-right, but not exclusively so), the moderates tend to seek other discussion outlets. GOG is unique in that it is really the only PC gaming forum that isn't Steam-centric. That means the users are a captive audience.

The thing about Chan culture is that it manifests itself on forums and newsgroups that sane people rarely bother to look at, let alone contribute to. Most alt-right and alt-left discussions are circlejerks, and the perpetrators know it.

Now that you have foolishly unmasked yourself through this low level obviously fake trolling, everybody will know you for Illuminati reptilian Jewish secret agent mason from another parallel universe that you are. You will not fool the ones who can really see.

Oh. And no real human would like to see your naked reptilian go go dancers de-robing themselves from fake human skin. That is disgusting.

In other words, 'there's people here who have views that I disagree with, and those views shouldn't be allowed so that my time spent here is more enjoyable.'

You know, there's lots of chat rooms and message boards that don't allow political discussions at all, and certainly plenty of others (neogaf, polygon, kotaku, etc) that only allow 'correct speech' on theirs. Rather than witch hunting people you don't agree with, wouldn't it be more productive to spend your time and energy on fellow travelers or at least moderates who you'd have a better chance at influencing?

Last point. Pretty simple. Don't like the chatter in a particular thread, don't read it. There's hundreds of threads of here that don't involved politics. Goglins here discuss everything from music, philosophy, film, food, and of course video games. No one is forcing you to engage in heated political threads. And don't give me that 'I was tricked into clicking on this thread' argument. The conspiracy threads are quite plainly labeled, thus giving adequate warning.

Those who need external policing of human discourse are probably not very good at doing it themselves. There are people who say things here all the time that I disagree with, and you don't see me screaming for mods to come make everything happy and clean for my psyche. Surprise! Not everyone on planet Earth are going to line up with your outlook. Life sucks. Get a helmet.

I do not recognize the thoughts I voiced above at all. Which is usually the case in your reinterpretations (which are a stylistic device you employ in a lot of your posts, usually to build a strawman).

As the rest of your post is likely based on this incorrect reinterpretation, I found no motivation to read it, but will assume it's your usual "censorship" rubbish, with the routine false meaning attributed to the term.

You seem fairly at ease with the crossed out rainbow flag and the conspiracy mongers. Maybe we could ask GOG to merge all ciomalau posts and the conspiracy nutter thread into the gamergate thread.

I'm fairly at ease with anyone who has a passionate stance on anything. In fact, I'm fairly at ease with virtually any opinion a person might have about anything, so long as they're not trying to stifle someone else from expressing theirs.

And by the way, the first version of your reply was much shorter and sweeter. You didn't need to use that many words to signify your fascist stance on speech.

If you allow me to butt in...
I am at ease with pretty much any flag proudly waving or being burned; I am aware of the difference between symbol of the thing and the thing itself. I am trying hard every day to NOT be Pavlov's dog and I still don't understand why I should feel ashamed for it.
And by the way, the first version of Vainamoinen reply was so tolerant that I upvoted it. Now I cannot revoke my agreement without outright downvoting it, which should be too harsh by my standards. Bummer.

What exactly is the correct meaning of censorship then? And does it matter if its called censorship or not if its the removal of speech for the purpose preventing a subjective ''harm''? A dox or a plan for a terrorist attack is objectively harmful, but what elements of a random conspiracy theory post warrant removal?

I'm gonna try my hand at your game and assume something about the poster. You clearly see all discussion as either discussion with people you agree with and disagree with and both are the good and bad types of discussions respectively. Hence you lump in spam and conspiracy with a thread where genuine and good discussion did take place.

PS, Rainbow flag isn't trademarked or owned, it can be used as symbol of anything. So don't become too attached to it.