Last year, with the abrupt end to underground news experiment Brian's Rumors Daily, the University lost an unofficial forum for gossip that had reigned for two-and-a-half years. But Brian Finkelstein (LA '00), the man behind the myth of www.rumorsdaily.com, has decided to re-post his infamous forum, causing a flurry of Tufts grads and undergrads to revisit a piece of their past.
"It does indeed seem like we've got something new here," wrote one anonymous user of the site. The thread - or forum post - continues: "I wonder who's still around to bother giving it a try. Who would have thought it? Is the forum really back? I'm sure it'll be gone in a day or two. So, who wants to play? I do. I do."
This anonymous author is only one among many who have discovered the rebirth of the site's forum.
Created originally as an alternative media source to campus newspapers, www.rumorsdaily.com was hosting 4,000 weekly visitors when Finkelstein finally took it down last March. The community forum had degenerated to crude dialogue among posting parties, including various racist and homophobic comments.
"The web page simply became too popular for its own good," he told the Daily last March.
After a ten-month hiatus, during which Finkelstein used the site to post cryptic messages detailing his everyday personal life, fans were recently greeted with the ever-familiar sight of a forum once again discussing Tufts rumors.
"How long will it last? How long before someone is stupid and says something stupid that makes someone else be stupid and whine and complain about a stupid thing?" reads another thread. "But I'm up for playing," an anonymous author wrote.
The reply: "That was kinda stupid...yet playful."
Now that the majority of students around in Brian's heyday have graduated, who exactly is writing this new string of dialogue?
"I think people who are more involved in the politics of the school," sophomore Flori Engler said. "I don't think it's representative of the school because most people don't know about it."
Those who were and still are visiting the site use it for different reasons. Many students used the site for entertainment purposes only. Junior Devang Dave only checked the site sporadically. "I just thought it was for fun and never took it too seriously," Dave said.
Before the site turned into an online free-for-all of controversial, anonymous commentary, it posted all campus news and rumors, confirmed or unconfirmed. A celebrated "rumor" that proved true - that Guster would play in last April's Spring Fling - spread four days before the same story was printed in the Daily.
Consistently false reports, however, undermined the site's credibility as an alternative campus media, earning itself the image of an illegitimate source of information. "People would exaggerate and use it to highlight scandals," sophomore Dorris Lin said. "It was equivalent to a Tufts tabloid."
The loaded postings that often found their way onto www.rumorsdaily.com raised the many issues of First Amendment rights, free speech, and censorship that have accompanied the new Internet global communication revolution. Those who were criticized for their writings responded in subsequent posts that they had the constitutional right to speak their minds. When statements started to personally attack specific individuals, Finkelstein tried to censor certain threads. When things got out of hand, the site went down.
"If it's just a forum for talk, they really can't censor anyone without being unfair," sophomore Aaron Weinstein said.
Fair or not, students' desire to vent quickly turned from playful to hurtful. "People were posting inappropriate comments," junior Brad Crotty said. "I have a feeling the University didn't like it either. If anything, it probably shouldn't exist."
Calling the site "one stop for all your campus gossip," Crotty did find something redeeming there. "In reality," he said, "I think it's hysterical."
