1. What is your name?
Eric Sprague, known around these parts as Locke Baron. The handle is kind of a fossil, though, and really makes even less sense in context - I was stuck in a sort of identity crisis at the time, one could say. You're far more likely to see me as jade_angel elsewhere - but that's Another Rant.
2. Tell us something about you, your background, and what you've been up to lately?
Well, I'm an incorrigible geek, a fan of random esoterica and a veteran. In the last few years, I've moved back to the USA from Italy, deployed several times, gotten out of the Navy, and gone back to work for them, as a contractor. Feels like a neverending storm of chaos, that it does. I suppose I might say my life is metastable now.
3. How did you discover Everything, and how did you become a noder?
I'm pretty sure I found E2 through either Slashdot or Kuro5hin, though it might well have been through random search-whacking. My net.activities were pretty undirected back then. Somehow I've stayed around on E2, while K5 has fallen off my radar entirely and Slashdot remains nothing more than an occasional read. It's the people, really.
4. What are your favorite writeups -- both your own and from other noders?
My own writings are all over the board. I think some of my best are probably factuals, but I'd be hard-pressed to identify one specifically.
As for other noders, I think Lucy-S, Sam512 and The Custodian represent some of our best, and even at that, I'm certain there's someone I'm forgetting.
5. What are your favorite and least favorite memories from E2's history?
I've been favorably impressed by our ability, as a community, to pull together and support our own, on more than one occasion. As for least favorite, I think our efforts at raising the bar were pretty much a resounding flop with adverse consequences. We survived that, but only by dint of having a lot of history with which to soak the damage. More than a little of what gave E2 color and character was lost in the chaos.
6. What keeps you coming back?
The fact that there's still an active community, there's still new content, that all kinds of things are welcome here, and that, for all the quirks and foibles, the essence of E2 is still what it was when it first got my attention.
7. What do you hope for E2's future?
I hope we manage to embrace the best of the old and the new. I've never been a fan of change for its own sake outside of a sandbox - but stasis for no reason other than "because it's always been that way" is equally counterproductive.
8. What does E2 mean to you?
E2 is... Well, liveforever described E2 as being akin to a tribe, and I suppose I'd have to concur with that. There's a certain camraderie here that I struggle to find elsewhere.
9. Who are your favorite noders? Which ones do you miss the most?
There are certain noders who always have interesting points of view. I'm hesitant to single anyone out as a favorite, but if I had to, I'd definitely have to extend a ton of credit to all the folks who keep things running around here. (See, ducked it again!)
As for who I miss... Well, I don't actually remember Hermetic, and I barely recall Sensei, but of those who have departed, living or dead, surely I miss grundoon the most. She was kind, insightful, and always had a wise, interesting or witty word. There ain't no justice.
10. Who would play you in the Everything2 movie?
Me as I appear? I think I'd have to settle for that guybrush that played Flankman on Salute Your Shorts. Me as I'd like to appear? Hmm, maybe Jennifer Connelly. Yeah, make of that what ye will.
11. Please fill in the blank: "E2 is to the Internet as ___ is to the world."
E2 is to the Internet as a hacker commune is to the world. Assuming we aren't a hacker commune.
12. Any questions that I didn't ask that I should've?
Nobody thought to ask why I was wearing a *calico* jacket?
Everything2 Decaversary Interviews
If you have questions or comments, please contact locke baron or Jet-Poop.