Dearest Jet-Poop (and whomever else browses here):
I have decided to answer your call and these questions. I have tried to actually answer them honestly - at least, as honestly as someone like myself can muster. I do not particularly like introspection or even reminiscing and I like these things even less when I can barely remember what it is I am introspecting and reminiscing about.
1. What is your name?
mat catastrophe. No, it is not my legal name - that is on my driver's license. And marriage license. At any rate, it isn't anything that I am going to just spill out here. I might run for president one day, you know? Then what? Some bastard child of Glenn Beck figures out how to link me to this? Brilliant.
2. What is your quest?
I seek the Holy Grail.
3. What is your favorite color?
Blue. No, red. (How many of these other idiots did this exact same routine for you?)
4. How did you discover Everything, and how did you become a noder?
I doubt I could have easily answered this question in 2004, much less 2009. I seem to remember some mention of some project that some friend of someone from slashdot was running on one of slashdot's spare servers or something. That was the fabled everything.blockstackers.com. I cannot remember how many things I did there - I do know that only three survived the transfer to e2 and I also know that I must have left e1 at some point, because I didn't first write on e2 until January of 2000.
Again, I honestly do not remember what brought me back. It might have been a post on slashdot, it might have been a review of old bookmarks. It might have been God almighty. Well, ok, it clearly wasn't that.
5. What do you see as the most significant changes that have happened to Everything over the past decade?
I think the fact that the site changed from being a beta test of a content management system and slowly began to be about the content itself was the major change.
6. What are your favorite writeups -- both your own and from other noders?
I think Nathan, this is unacceptable is something more iconic than anything that came before or after. You could probably throw a rock into Pseudo-Intellectual's pile and hit something worthwhile. sensei had an excellent recipe for chai that I never tried, written for someone that I regret not talking to more often.
7. What are your favorite and least favorite memories from E2's history?
I started an answer to this question and then I stopped. I erased the answer. I had started looking back through old writeups for moments that held some meaning and I realized that all of the things I was looking for were bleak, barren, and sad. I have a child whose name in Sanskrit means "Beam of Light" and it bothers me every single day that I cannot truly appreciate the simple beauty of his name and how he carries it when my entire existence seems to be more the sum of miseries rather than the sum of victories.
Yes, I know. That sounds horrible, doesn't it? Don't worry, I am having the boy's name legally changed to "Doo-doo McDingleberry" next month in order that we may all, as a family, experience suffering together.
8. What keeps you coming back?
I occasionally have to return to check messages and/or to vent something in the catbox - the one truly open and creative outlet remaining for me here.
9. What do you hope for E2's future?
Um. A public option? Transparency in government? The repeal of raising the bar?
10. What does E2 mean to you?
It means Everything2. What kind of question is this, jet?
11. Is E2 a writing site, a community site, an online encyclopedia, or something else? What should it be?
As I said above, I believed for quite some time that this site was merely a blueprint to be used to create other sites. Some people actually did this but there were others who felt that it was easier to reshape the direction of an existing site (and easier than setting up their own webservers and learning something about apache and perl and sql databases) and the site morphed into something else. Unfortunately, it has never quite settled for itself what it is but it has completely abandoned all pretense of being just a jolly stupid place full of jolly stupid self referencing nonsense, all meant to help expand and develop some code that might one day be licensed out to web designers.
That was my idea, anyway. I am sure some people always saw it as something else.
12. Who are your favorite noders? Which ones do you miss the most?
Again, I can't really answer this question in any uplifting terms so I can't answer it at all. Certainly my list might be similar to the others but it would contain what might seem to be obvious omissions. They would not be omissions. I quite simply did not like everyone and not everyone liked me. That was an integral part of the fun here.
13. Who would play you in the Everything2 movie?
Wasn't this question answered in that node ages ago? I can't remember if I was even cast as a speaking part. I doubt it. I think I was rather hated around here at that point.
At this point, I'd like to offer David Tennant as a name considered to play me.
14. Any questions that I didn't ask that I should've?
You should have asked fled users why they fled. Maybe then I wouldn't have to answer that question every other month.
Everything2 Decaversary Interviews
If you have questions or comments, please contact mat catastrophe or Jet-Poop.