TheWolfWeb, also known as TWW or T-dub, is an unofficial message board for

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

(NCSU), created by Jacob Morgan (CrazyJ). It serves as a source of local (

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

, NC) news, as frequently posting members of the message board will provide both eyewitness accounts and frequent updates on events in the area, ranging from vehicle accidents to on-campus crime and suicide events. It has also been significant in transmitting many

Internet memes An Internet meme, or meme (, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through social media platforms. Internet memes manifest in a variety of formats, including images, v ...

through the NCSU student body (notably the terms

pwnt Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, or simply hacker speech, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflec ...

, bwn, and FDT). TWW is powered by the CrazyWeb software. This software was spun off and used to host a number of messageboards for other colleges across the country, federated under the "Party In College" banner, later known as CampusBlender.

History

TWW began as a single-board messageboard called "NCSU Forum" which opened in April 2000. It adopting the current "The Wolf Web" name later that year. In 2001 4 new sections were added to the website: Book Exchange, Ride Share, School Tool and Photo Gallery. Book Exchange was a marketplace helping students who needed to buy textbooks find the people who already owned those textbooks from the previous semester's courses. Ride Share was added just before Winter Break in 2001 and helped students organize carpools for those travelling home over the break. School Tool listed the university's courses and instructors across all departments. Each course and instructor could be reviewed by registered users. School Tool additionally aggregated course times, textbooks, grade distributions, reviews and would show what other TWW users would be in your class if they had also added the course to their School Tool. Photo Gallery gave each user a space to upload files. This was used for both hosting images intended for TWW posts and for hosting images posted to other forums. On February 26, 2004, News 14 Carolina, now known as

Spectrum News North Carolina Spectrum News 1 North Carolina is an American United States cable news, cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications, as an affiliate of its Spectrum News slate of regional news channels. The channel broadcasts rolling newscasts ...

, was subject to a prank by members of TheWolfWeb when it was discovered that the system used to report closings and delays for businesses, schools, and churches for inclement weather put submissions on the air without review. Members of the message board exploited this fact to make fictitious business ranging from referencing

All Your Base Are Belong To Us "All your base are belong to us" is an Internet meme based on a Engrish, poorly translated phrase from the opening cutscene of the Japanese video game ''Zero Wing''. The phrase first appeared on the European release of the 1991 Sega Mega Drive P ...

to containing lewd or obscene references be listed on the air during the channel's winter weather coverage. After the exploit gained national attention, many news stations, News 14 Carolina included, implemented or enhanced their verification and vetting processes for listing closings and delays as to avoid a repeat of the incident.

References

External links

TheWolfWeb

North Carolina State University

CyberJournalist article on the News 14 Carolina prank

WolfWeb thread that originated the News 14 Carolina prank

Racially charged comments on web postings upset NC State Students
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thewolfweb North Carolina State University Internet forums