Last night's "attack" may have been a joke gone horribly awry, but it alerted me to a knowledge-gap that exists on Everything2. When faced with an onslaught of trolls, crackers, and the clueless but ignorant, with no sign of any impending divine intervention, many of us mid-level users became afraid and disturbed that Everything had, indeed, been hacked and that actual damage was being done.

Now that everything's out in the open, we can have a chuckle. But that facet of the whole evening's entertainment which was so unsettling was that we, the very concerned members who have not (yet) been endowed with editorial powers, were unable to determine from where the attacks were coming, how best to minimise damage, or what to do about the situation.

I'm very proud of everyone who did what they could, and I'm impressed with Nanosecond's abortive but creative flare, and with Jurph's attempts to downvote the detritus into oblivion and to flood the invaders with messages which he believed they did not understand how to eliminate; but none of it had a chance in heck of working. I myself was only able to watch in horror as spam and garbage filled up the database, and code was altered to provide outsiders with millions of experience points, unable to react to the (seemingly) very real threat that these people would actually gain the ability to nuke extant writeups — a concern far more pressing than their actual spam. I took names, and forwarded them to dem bones, along with a lengthy and sincere message explaining what I had witnessed.

Dem bones told me that he felt kinda silly after he received my lengthy description of the night's events from the point of view of someone who really didn't know what to make of it. I told him, no worries; it's part of the fun that I actually believed it all.

Now that I know that it was all a joke, I can laugh about it. My pride's not hurt because it was a very well-executed prank, and I had done all I could as if it wasn't. But I think it's important that someone explain what the protocol might be if such an attack actually were to take place.

So, really, what is the best we could do? What is the worst that could happen? — In short, what would happen in the event of an actual emergency?

There is almost always more than one e2god or Content Editor on. We have a messaging system that lets us broadcast msgs to the whole group. We are well organized, fanatically devoted Gurkha troops. We have very tiny brains but the best interests of e2 and the users at heart. We don't often agree with each other, but we agree about that.

The April Fool's Day prank was discussed and planned. Caveats were issued (including by myself).

Many users rose to the defence of e2, including yourself and Nanosecond. Thank you.

If we're not around, we probably are but cloaked. (I see admin people.) If we are not noticing what's going on (in Chatterbox for example) just msg a few of us. The mighty and fearless dannye is almost always here. He is a force for good. I'm usually in and out. Demeter is a good one to contact. knifegirl, of course.

So. Who you gonna call? Just check the Power Structure of Everything2.