Profile: Toomb

Toomb was a commenter who joined in 2017. His profile picture is a gif with many superheros such as Batman and The Flash. He is most notable for his jokes that he posted during the reruns that many commenters loved except for the Narwhales.

His jokes
Here are some examples. He posted his first one on January 22nd 2018.

Joke of the day: A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to the prom. First he goes to rent a tux, but there’s a long tux line at the shop and it takes forever.

Next, he has to get some flowers, so he heads over to the florist and there’s a huge flower line there. He waits forever but eventually gets the flowers.

Then he heads out to rent a limo. Unfortunately, there’s a large limo line at the rental office, but he’s patient and gets the job done.

Finally, the day of the prom comes. The two are dancing happily and his girlfriend is having a great time. When the song is over, she asks him to get her some punch, so he heads over to the punch table and there’s no punchline.

The Hate and Battle of Toomb
He recieved hate from the Narwhales most notably Arica Jade and Kittenz4life:

Arica Jade - I’d like to ask a question that I very much hope someone is able to answer. I’m not asking for an argument to start, but I do think at least some discussion on this is necessary (Preferably in a civil manner if possible). I’d like to ask all of the anti-polls this: Why are Toomb’s jokes allowed? This is in no way meant to attack Toomb, I personally have no problem with his jokes; I simply want to know what the views of the anti-polls actually are. Up until this point, I was under the impression that the anti-polls were against polls because they were usually completely unrelated to the strip, didn’t add anything to the discussion, and usually were just people trying to get featured comment. These were the main arguments used during the second poll war (other than random, personal attacks that had nothing to do with the actual “war”). This is what separated them from the Narwhals, and why any arguing happened at all. So, I ask you, why are Toomb’s jokes not only accepted, but praised? I’m asking this because I truly don’t want to believe that the Anti-polls are just hypocrites who believe in something only when it benefits them. I’d like to believe that they spent 2 months arguing over this subject because it actually mattered to them and they truly believed in what they were doing.

luna the kitten - I’d actually like to hear an answer to this myself. Up until now I’ve been terrified to post anything on this comment section, mostly because I don’t really agree with the ideals of the Anti-Polls, and I’ve seen how harshly someone can get attacked just for having a different opinion. I’ve seen people banned for asking for other’s opinions, I’ve seen a group dedicated to free speech be painted as the villains the conflict in several articles on the wiki. I’d like to think that their reaction to Toomb is a sign that they’re growing more accepting, but from what I’ve seen, I kind of doubt that it’s possible.

Narhwale - This is a somewhat dangerous comment to post. As long as the conversation remains calm and civil, I agree that this should be something we discuss, but previous discussions suggest that this will just end in insults and someone declaring some “war” if the discussion begins to look even the slightest bit like an argument. I commend your bravery though, and I hope you find the answers you’re looking fo

Arica Jade - @Luna The Kitten That’s awful to hear. I hate the idea that we’ve somehow managed to turned this comment section into a place that people are actually scared to speak in. Hopefully we can change that though, and I trust that we can as long as we finally start having actual discussions about what is truly best here. No more insults, no more unnecessary banning, no more alienating someone for their opinion. If we take small steps, fixing this one problem at a time, eventually we can get there.

Riley the Reader - @Arica Jade You’re ridiculous, polls were stupid, but this is fun and innocent. Why should we stop it?

Arica Jade - @RileyTheReader Sounds like someone has trouble listening to instructions. Is it really that hard for you to answer in a civilized way? Is insulting the only thing you know how to do? The whole point of this was to have an actual discussion, not simply throw pointless insults at one another. You make a nice example of everything that’s wrong with this comment section though, so maybe we can all learn from you.

Narwhal - @RileyTheReader You had several choices here that would have been better than this. You could have A) Ignored this comment or B) Responded in a decent, intelligent response. But no, instead you chose to respond like a wining child. All you’ve done is prove how toxic this community can really be.

0a1s2d3f4g5h - Alright here’s the deal. When Toomb first started his jokes, I objected, you can look back for evidence of that. But it seemed he couldn’t be stopped and things were peaceful, so it wasn’t worth stirring up trouble. But here is the main difference between pollers and what Toomb is doing. The pollers were all spammers only seeking featured comment and caused great harm to the comment section. Not only is Toomb also commenting on the strip, his jokes are not spam and are not necessarily ploys for featured comment. He has been getting it alot, but at least the jokes are funny, there’s nothing funny about a poll. I would prefer he didn’t post jokes, but they are very well received and it is not worth starting a war over something that is overall not hurting the peace of the comment section.

Link_O_Neal - If you’ll remember I was once on the anti-poll side during the second poll war and about halfway through realized that starting and continuing ignorant drama on a children’s comic comment section is and was pointless. I determined that I come here each day to have a chuckle at the daily comic and discuss it with other civil commenters and not to provoke a war. Thus I joined the neutral side and decided to not engage anything completely unrelated to the comic. So basically the reason I haven’t “taken a side” on dealing with Toomb and his joke of the day is because that isn’t why I come here. Like 0a1s2 said it is better to keep the peace, and he/she isn’t spamming to get featured although it’s clear that he/she wants to be featured. I haven’t engaged any of Toombs joke of the day and I don’t plan to. It’s reasons like this that I wish that there was a general chat room on GC for things like the joke of the day.

Arica Jade - @0a1s2d3f4g5h So far, although I’m sure you didn’t intend it, I see a very large amount of hypocrisy here. I’d like to remind you that during the early days of the poll war, one of the earliest arguments made by the Narwhals was that the pollers weren’t spamming at all, which I completely agree with. In the beginning, Marty just posted one, on topic poll per day, and yet the war still broke out. As to Toomb’s jokes being funny and polls not being funny at all, is that a good enough reason to tell people what they can and can’t say? If your opinion is all that’s needed to justify deleting a comment, that’s open to a dangerous amount of bias and misuse (It’s also rather ironic that the type of comment hated on asked for other’s opinions).

Arica Jade - @0a1s2d3f4g5h. Since I didn’t really make a clear point in my last comment, I’ll just ask you one question here: Why was Martysays worth getting angry over, if Toomb isn’t? Marty posted one on-topic question a day, Toomb posts one off-topic joke a day. One asked for everyone else’s opinions, one tries to make everyone laugh. Both seem like reasons to believe they want featured comment.

Luna the Kitten - @0a1s2d3f4g5h This kind of, worries me. You may not realize it, but the anti polls have an enormous amount of power here. We saw during those two months that the moderators will listen to when you ask for someone to be banned, and there’s easily enough of you to have any comment you want removed. That alone is enough to make me worried, but add on that it seems that there are no clear values or rules as to why someone will get banned or censored, and that just leaves your opinion as the sole determinant. I doubt there will ever be a time where it won’t be easy for you to ban someone, but I’m sure it would be better for all of us if you didn’t decide who got their comment deleted based on whether or not it felt worth it to you and whether or not you simply suspected that they wanted featured comment, something which is a massive problem all on it’s own.

0a1s2d3f4g5h - @Arica Jade & @Luna the kitten – You both make good points, but I feel I could have been clearer so let me rephrase. With polls, there was a history. Poll war I was devastating and it started with just one poll. After seeing that play out, I wasn’t going to let history repeat itself. And even at the beginning of poll war II all I was doing was asking MartySays to stop. It was only when he was revealed to be a troll and spammer that I contacted the moderators. There is no history of jokes causing problems, and, although I would rather he didn’t post jokes, I have no reason to ask for the removal of Toombs jokes. It is better for the comment section for us not to create drama. Now, if there becomes a joke posting frenzy in which every other comment is a joke, then I will definitely object and ask for jokes to stop, but there is no history of this and it hasn’t happened yet. I am willing to give this a chance in order to maintain peace. I can see why this may seem hypocritical, but it is not. It is just me being flexible in different situations and contexts in order to maintain peace.

Arica Jade - @0a1s2d3f4g5h. I’m going to repeat something here which I’ve said before. You all learned lessons from the first poll war, but you didn’t learn the right ones. From what I’ve seen, you all learned to have an extreme bias against polls because, as history was written, you all saw the one’s posting the polls as having all of the blame on them. This certainly isn’t the right way to handle situations like that. Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, but that wasn’t the case here. Rather than looking at everything that could have been handled differently, everyone looked to place the blame on the losing side, which was the pollsters. Nobody stopped to think “Was there anything the anti polls could have done differently?” or “What part did the anti polls play in starting the war?” because there were certainly answers to both of those questions. It seemed during the second poll war that you all seemed to start to learn some important things, but you didn’t learn fast enough. I’ll ask you something that both Narwhal and I have asked several times, and never received an answer to: What was the worst that would have happened if Martysays had just been ignored? Before you respond, just take some time to think about that.

0a1s2d3f4g5h - @Arica Jade. Sigh. Here we go. I have answered this many times. He would have collected a following, there would have been more polls, and the comment section would have been overrun with polls. How do I know? It is impossible to know for sure, but I saw it happen once and it is better to be safe than sorry. The first poll war was caused by pollers. The resistance only started after things got out of hand. I am so tired of this debate can’t we just let it go and comment in peace?

Arica Jade - @0a1s2d3f4g5h. The whole point of this discussion is that I truly don’t think this comment section can ever truly be what it’s meant to be if a group that, whether you deny it or not, has the power to censor whoever the want has no clear values and rules. As for Martysays, he certainly would have gathered a following should he have been repeatedly been given the featured comment, which he wouldn’t have been without the amount of hate he was receiving. Yes, it did happen during the first poll war, but if everyone had simply learned to silently flag comments or ignore them, the second war never would have happened, the anti polls never would have needed to have been formed, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place. You can argue all you want about whether or not Toomb will eventually lead to spam and copiers, that’s not my point. My point is that if you’re going to be able to form an extremely influential group who’s basic foundation is censorship, then you might want to make sure more than 2 of your members would give the same answer when asked what the values of your group is.

0a1s2d3f4g5h - @Arica Jade. I am sick of you drawing absolutes and vilifying the Anti-Polls. This is all so stupid. The Anti-Polls are not a real organization, and we don’t need a set list of values. We don’t hold any power we just generally object to polls and spam, and members put there own spin on that. We don’t censor, we ask for peace. Just put this all past, realize this is only a dumb comment section, and give up this stupid debate.

kittehz4life - @0a1s2d3f4g5h. Telling someone else that this is a dumb comment section and calling a debate stupid after you had a “war” for two months to “Defend the sanity of the comment section” because all of the bad people asked for other’s opinions sounds a little ironic

Narwhal - @0a1s2d3f4g5h. Kittehz has a point, it’s a little late to be telling other people not to take this comment section too seriously.

0a1s2d3f4g5h - @Narwhal. I don’t take it seriously. I didn’t start those wars. Just understand that at the moment there is peace and that is good, so this debate is pointless.

Narwhal - @0a1s2d3f4g5h. I’m curious as to why you bothered coming here and joining this discussion if you thought it was “stupid and pointless.” All that does is reflect the idea that too many people don’t know when to just ignore something

0a1s2d3f4g5h - @Narwhal. They asked an anti-poll to respond to this comment, so I did, and then got caught up in this. I really shouldn’t have.

hev1 - I’m not an Anti-Poll, but I think a reasonable assumption would be that everyone was bored of the comment section because there was no drama (several people have expressed that opinion) and there were reruns so they enjoyed Toomb’s jokes since they were an unorthodox commenting style. This may be showing a lot of hypocrisy, to be wanting drama after fighting against unrelated comments for so long, but many people had realized that it wasn’t worth it to fight over a comment section on the internet.

Arica Jade - @hev1. You see, that’s a good lesson to be learned

kittehz4life - @Arica Jade. Amen to that

ZooMThESavagE  - Toomb is trying to brighten everyone’s day with a joke, not trying to piss on their Cheerios like you.