Too many moderators?

Number of forums: 901. Number of members: Upward of 120,000. Number of moderators: 123.

Hang on, 123. Why does that number come into play as far as management is concerned? The common justification is that there are enough forums on the board to warrant a staff that large, yet counterexamples seem to be everywhere. For one, we have PKMN.NET, which makes do with seven administrators, three active super moderators (Bre and Continue don't count) and really one active page moderator; things move smoothly since there are more people who are prepared to intervene in conflicts on the forums (whilst the others work on main-site projects), including a few who act in times when the big boys are out to lunch; the only weakness is that all active staff members (except one) reside in the British Isles. Then we have the Pokémon Community, which, I've come to observe, probably has a larger staff than it really needs (I'm pretty sure some other moderator could whisk my post away, especially given what's happened with a bungled rule in OVP and the stalking issue); we have more than twenty page mods and we end up having the higher staff doing the bulk of the work. In all honesty, I personally believe the site could run quite fine if a couple more higher staff members were added, a couple of page mods who do their job enough stay at post, and all the rest cleared out in a mass lay-off.

And now the subject is SuperCheats. It's got 123 moderators among 120,000 members or more and 901 forums. What seems to be the problem?

I remember having a disagreement with a new, haughty member over the subject, but in a way he had a grain of truth in him. I'm not sure as to what the genesis for the mod application idea was when Rich decided to implement it (I only remember being told in advance of a democratic system), but after it was implemented, the vast diversity of the forums seemed to require it. Many of the 901 forums aren't venues everyone on the forum can access and relate to — and I don't mean small differences such as between the Pokémon TCG and Game Boy games, but individual games from all different franchises altogether. One person who has enough knowledge in games of one franchise, say, Grand Theft Auto, that he can help others progress through the games and mediate discussion thereof is bound to have as little enthusiasm in Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts as he has much in Grand Theft Auto, so he probably would not be an excellent candidate for a position to moderate a large swath of video game boards (although he could stand a chance as a super moderator, but that's a different story). The natural response to such a deficit would be to hire someone with enough interest in the Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy games.

If the concept seems to work, why isn't it? The problem isn't in the diversity of the games, but rather in the number of people assigned to one specific game forum. And mind you, forums are not set necessarily by franchise, but by individual product. That means you have a forum for Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas with a different moderator or two for each. Add the different forums for different platforms (I don't know whether this issue has yet been covered) and you have an ideal maximum of 18 posts between the three instalments and the two platforms (PlayStation 2 and Xbox), with a maximum of three mods for each instalment. Occasionally you'll have more than one of these posts held by the same person, but often the ones holding the posts are vastly unique.

I'll be blunt here: There are simply too many moderators, and they're causing too many problems for the site. And it's not necessarily the application system, but the number of people Rich wishes to have working for him. These days, unfortunately, we have plenty of skirmishes over who's going to get the last toss-up for a general board position (each of which usually has five spots); the most recent one was for Team and Clan Boards, which I'll admit has a few management issues. The facts are clear, as in the aforementioned sites: A better choice would be a set of well-rounded staff members who know enough about franchises and can easily go through a set of forums labelled under one franchise such as Grand Theft Auto. Failing that, we could probably use a couple more super mods who come around more often; we're down to three already.

Here's the type of overhaul I'd recommend, in short: Reduce the number of normal moderators on the forums and increase the amount of moderators who can easily work in more than one forum by adjusting to the expectations therein. PKMN.NET has it right.

Vote for your favourite member!

...not elected officials, as I missed doing as my birthday was on Election Day.

Rather, I'm talking about class superlatives. As seniors, we're involved in the creation of a student yearbook, printed and bound as well as video. on Thursday, we were handed out leaflets polling us on whom would fit for superlative categories. A few weeks earlier, though, I had approached the head of the yearbook development department and made a decision that shattered everyone: I asked her to omit and substitute my name if it were listed as a superlative. Only two weeks ago I had fought with my parents to not have my pictures taken, which I found to be extremely stupid in retrospect (I ended up getting them taken in the end). While the latter turned out to be calamitous for me, the former decision both surprised and infuriated the seniors. As people ticked off the leaflets, I found that my motive could have been justified by two details:

• Two members short-listed me as 'rudest'.
• I had, as I told Brandon on PC, done a right job of deceiving and berating people in a daze of thought of my own academic prowess. In reality, though, my grades were standard and I had been found to be unfairly advantaged by my middle school in the conclusion of a peer mediation session. I even found myself to be an entity apart from the rest of the class at times. Finding it hard to admit this, I simply wrote a short Word document and printed it to hand to my homeroom teacher in what was probably cowardice.

Not a decisive detail, though, was the declining respect I had for such a system. Back in middle school, when I was voted to be the most intelligent and artistic male, I saved face simply by not voting for myself or even skipping categories. These days, though, the desire to have a photo in the section became more and more compelling. One of the guys went around as we typed up paragraphs in the library and asked people to vote for him as the most attractive male; in reality, he was good-looking, but a pregnancy by him as well as his ostentation, which annoyed me chronically but not severely, beset him. One of the girls even shouted in response, 'If you go around asking people they won't vote for you!'

Point well made. Then, however, I realised that this was exactly what happened on forums, or could happen. As many readers know, the Pokémon Community manages to get away with Member of the Month threads without a mass of hype that would come as it did with the yearbook, even considering that there are less than 60 people in the graduating class. Some months, though, this is due to lack of interest or a narrowed field of acquaintance. Elsewhere, and I'm sure PKMN.NET has experienced this, such threads start generating 'VOTE FOR ME!' spam. Although such resorts indicate that the person behind it isn't nearly as qualified as those that would naturally be voted for (and it's a proven fact — do you see Forest Grovyle trying to champion her work?), they still do it, and the threads are eventually canned.

Although I don't like the system, I still go to the Member of the Month threads and vote. Over there, the honours are temporary and are unlikely to reflect the real person as known by real-life friends. In the yearbook, though, it'll be accessible to those in the family who want to inquire about the past, especially the kids. If it's seen in the yearbook that you were recognised as the rudest, it will reflect off anyone voting it. If it's seen that you were the most intelligent or artistic, they'll probably challenge it — and all they'll get is a subway or alley map. For that matter, they'll challenge you on your intelligence — Stephen Hawking, regardless of whether he had the honour in his yearbook, is probably challenged so many times. For me, the fact that I had made such a big point of my intelligence makes me cringe even today — I'm bombarded by questions even at the register, there are girls who appear to like me on the grounds of my supposed intelligence, and there are the guys at the corner who try to make me recall an image with my eyes shut or prophesy something. And I've done it for so long, sometimes arrogantly. And it needs to stop. But the cost of leaving it behind will probably mean the loss of many admirers, but maybe it is worth it if they're there to challenge me....

Blazing comments

It's a disappointment to Blaze, evidently, that the Community failed to collapse after the hacking, but he had hopes for Shinou.com to surpass PC in some time due to either a lack of funding for the server or lack of general linterest. His aspirations have gone so far as to create a blog — one that now has the Community Staff kicking up a fuss.

Blaze's blog has contributions from many members of Shinou.com, including BGTFamily, who owns the back end site Total Pokémon. In his post 'Guest Blogger', he allows BGT to post what seems to be evidence of Shinou.com steadily overtaking the Pokémon Community and provides numbers courtesy of 'some fellow fans', while the numbers prove, on further examination, to be completely fabricated. BGT rates the Pokémon Community to have 3,344 members against Shinou's 2,060 at the time of writing, but a quick look at the PC boards will tell you that the number of registered users — not active users, since the article doesn't say that — is currently 20,839, the day after publication of the article.

Another piece of information contributed by kind Blaze is a review of Paul's PokéJungle project. Upon hearing that the domain is 'Spinarak', he jumps and yells that Spinarak is a trademark of Nintendo, which it is, and warns against removal of the domain. It may seem like a shrewd warning, but wasn't it Blaze himself who took the domain Shinou.com, another trademark of Nintendo? Any sane person will know that copyright laws don't extend to the use of these domain names for fan sites, which Shinou.com and the Spinarak domain are.

Then there's a quip below that article: 'While we were at this once amazing forum, we were in talks with Kwesi (the humble and quite rad owner of PC) to co-pay for a server for PC/TotalPokemon.com. Approximently about Five Days after Kwesi paid for the Server in full, did we pull out of the agreement due to the arrogant PC Staff who did not like the idea of us having control . . . [and] decided that they rather pay for the Server, then have us have anything to do with it. Apparently they didn't keep their word, because about a few days ago PC once again has ads featured all over the forum.' They broke the word when the agreement was broken, so they had no choice. This post is effectively bull.

Most unfortunately, I'm not the first to report on the sleight of hand and otherwise plain and simple tosh that this blog offers. Remember FandomObserver? While he refuses to reveal his identity (and there have been calls for him to do so), he's become a good contemporary of mine. While he maintains the idea of just reviewing the fandom as a whole, he's gone in and criticised Blaze, something I should have done long ago, closing the first part of his latest review with a title, 'Misguided Webmaster With A Big Ego'. All I can say in addition to that specifically is that Joe's eating his heart out right now.

So what is Blaze? Does he have an ego? Yes. Does he remain true to his contemporaries, especially Erica, whom he said would be the only one out of PC's staff administrators to get any staff holding? No. Does BGT? No, he relied on ridiculously inaccurate statistics (Alexa, which is generated by users using the site's toolbar) after three months of quibbling with the rest of the PC staff.

It's a good thing Nicola's not including Total Pokémon in her collaborative 'Autumn Always'.

Not gone

...and I bite my tongue at my thoughts since the last post.

Not only has Blaze initiated Shinou.com, touting it as a replacement for PC when it goes down due to intrusion or lack of funding, but PC was hacked yesterday. Last night I learned that someone had been using Steve's account on the sly, but now was when it was really time they did stuff: When the smoke cleared, all of the super moderators had been removed, all super mods except Jake had been removed, and the entire population fell to 225. That number remains at the bottom of the main index but is soon to be fixed. During that time, I admit I had no desire to return to the forums if they came back, seeing as it was, to me at that time, a summation of a horrible server and faulty practical security working as one. Of course, now that I realise that they could just go back and grab a backup of the forums as they had done two weeks ago, although it'd cost them records after 4 September, I now see myself as an idiot.

The first guess was that Blaze and BGTFamily, the owners of Total Pokémon, were connected to it as they had been hounded out of the Community and Shinou.com was opening right around the time of the hack. Yet both contended that they weren't, although Blaze foresaw the hack after a chat response warning him against a friend of the sender coming to take down the site and PPN, which is slated for removal from the fold soon anyway. The decision to remove PPN, though, and leave just SIVPH, was the genesis for Blaze's guess that Shinou would survive and eclipse PC once funds falter.

There was me thinking that PC would have to obtain yet another database, as they did in September 2003 when their old database failed. Instead, Kwesi insisted on moving house — the URL became www.theud.com/pokecommunity (the old URL will redirect — in fact, the URL was redirected the night of the hacking, right when the boards were ready to go public again; that may have been a factor) and mods had to fix up glitches that resulted from the move (which were generally confined to broken images). Of course, a backup of the boards from 4 September had to be put in — the boards were down completely for five days at that rate, so little difference was made.

Oh, and at time of writing Shinou.com was still closed. I'll say that by tomorrow night they should be open. I guess having bilingual forums and a hassled agenda went quite a way.

Pokémon Community gone?

Update: It's not closed. Kwesi moved the board, but records after 4 September have been wiped clean. I will reveal the URL when it comes time.

Original announcement: Nearly a week has passed since the Pokémon Community has been out of order. Many thought it another denial-of-service attack, but what with Kwesi not speaking and Steve telling no-one but Matt where he's been over the past months and why the Community hasn't been brought up to order, it's now best to guess that, amid the rumours of a relaunch and Total Pokémon leaving the fold, the Community may have met its end. For the second time.

In a conversation I had with an insider, I was told that Jake had tried to have BGTFamily, an administrator inaugurated in June, demoted. Blaze, a co-owner of Total Pokémon, had had that end of the stick when the forum for Total Pokémon had been established on PC, with the excuse being that his representation didn't warrant the right to have full moderation rights to those boards or the right to be in the staff dominion. Blaze was reinstated shortly afterward. As a result, when it became the accepted rumour that PC wasn't returning at all, Blaze and the folks at Total Pokémon started their own forum, Shinou.com. According to this insider, none of the petty administrators with the exception of Erica was invited to maintain their rank at this new board due to Jake's alleged belligerence, and forums were going to be switched around and original mods furloughed.

The board, the insider says, should be open sometime next week or so.

Smilies

Okay, I screwed up yet again.

I'd been under the impression that non-graphic smilies were some sort of redundancy, but as far as MSN conversations go, as demonstrated in this field test with Lily, those of you who actually have me registered will experience the feeling that I may not be who you think I am.

Lily says:
CWWWWW
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Hmm?
Lily says:
Was Nami-chan on today? o.o
=D?
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Not to my knowledge.
Lily says:
...;_;
'kay, thanks~
! by the wya
way*
Your way with words..is almost like a male version of namine O.O
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
'CWWWWW'....*chuckles*
Lily says:
keep typing~
What about CWWWWW?
:3
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Nothing. *innocent look*
Lily says:
Not working for ya.
XD tell!
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
No, I just found it funny.
Lily says:
Can I ask why? =P
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Nah, just made me chuckle, nothing much ado.
Lily says:
...>O
Fine.
I'll think of more nicknames for you in the future.
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Okay, okay, it was because it sounded as if we were married.
Lily says:
XD!
XDD!
XDXDXD!! Wow.
XD!
That left me laughing irl
What about CW-chan? XD
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Yeh, that'
ll do....
Lily says:
;;
Be happy.
Be h a p p y
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
*laughs with head hooked down*
Lily says:
You always sound so formal.
>___>
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Oh, sorry....*remorseful look*
Lily says:
Speaking of formal,
your blog
descibing the usage of tilde..
XDD
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
What's so funny?
Lily says:
I never knew someone could actually explain it that way. XD
Usually we take it for given, y'know?
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Yeah, we sure do. XD
Lily says:
...
.....
y-you typed XD.
o_o
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
...I did? O.o
Lily says:
o_______o
YAY
omg.
XD! yayayay
you typed XD
>=D
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Thought I'd try something new.
Lily says:
I think that's really cool~
Now..
if only I can make nami-chan do the same.
she never typed anything more than ._. and ^-^
..you suddenly went silent
*weep*
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Oh!
Sorry....
._.
Lily says:
Welc-
you typed ._.!!!
*HUG* 8D
<33 awesome
XD and ._.
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Oh, lord, I'm chuckling at this.
Lily says:
XD and ._., CW-chan
=D
How could we like, NOT celebrate? 8D
Why chuckle?
>O
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
No, no, I just find it funny.
Lily says:
Well, CW
pretty soon
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
How you rejoice at me using something other than 'o.o' and a tongue smiley.
Lily says:
I'll have you typing 8D and ;D and ;3 and ;< and all those Lilyish smilies.
welcome to the life of pair ups. ;D
You disappeared again ;_;
Sorry
I'm very
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
No, no, still here. ^^
Lily says:
attention seeking to-
DBIADBAID
^^?!!
O__O
O______O;
Who are you and what have you done with CW? >=D
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
No, no, this is the real CW here. XD
Lily says:
Awesome
You typed
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
Yes.
Lily says:
three
smilies
today.
I think we've accomplished a lot, wouldn't you agree?
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
I only typed those to make you happy. ^^;
Lily says:
;;
Everyone does that, nowadays!
Do it for your own personal gain, not me.
:3
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
I just wanted to see your reaction. Not as if I'd abandon them that quickly, though.
Lily says:
I see..~
You intimidated me at first. o_o;
So formal. >>;; XD
Crystal Walrein — PNG transparency on Internet Explorer 7! says:
This is being blogged. XD
Lily says:
>=o
XD

Welcome to the twilight zone, folks. :P

Old PC, new PC

The underlying matter of the Wikipedia situation last month, as brought back to me when Paul himself contacted me yesterday, was not a simple matter of spammers going off and retaliating, as they had done when TPL formed out of a coup on PKMN.NET. Rather, it was about the Pokémon Community's past, one that many members have tried to hold on to in the midst of what seems to be the new administration.

If you look at the Pokémon Community forum index, you'll notice that there is a board called 'Pokémon Community Reference Library'. (Of course, you can also get there by clicking here.) This library actually is an archive of the old Pokémon Community board with most posts as of the migration still intact. (The board was commuted to SMF for archival purposes as, from what an administrator tells me, it was impossible to transfer a licence to the new board and leave the old vBulletin board up.) Here, according to conversations I attended with people that have become disgruntled in the face of the current administration, was what was often referred to as the 'soul' of PC — back then, they say, there was an administration that respected others on their time at the board. Indeed, the fact that more than 1,000 members were immediately shunted from this old board to the current vBulletin one (and a look at the member roster will match the ID numbers of the members there to the numbers on the new board, creating the illusion that the accounts were transposed) has caused a massive rift between the members shunted in to the ones that have just arrived.

Seeing as I joined in September 2005 (two years after the migration) and have no real experience with the old board, I can't really judge on how that board was; rather, I've had to interview mods and old members to get a view of it. But Paul was a remnant of the old board and views the administration as a shadow of its former self. Shinin, with whom the administration had a war about the Wikipedia article (and recently caught being Zone on PC), called the mods 'n00bish'. Even Kahoshi, who joined in May 2004 under Suzu (there were no name changes allowed then), was enamoured by the old life and eventually resigned after Kura was promoted to moderator on the Daily Chit Chat merely because she couldn't cope with the current administration what with Chairman Kaga on indefinite leave, so Kura got control of the Other Chat area in her place. With that being said, this distinction between an 'old' and 'new' PC is awful to say the least. These people don't change. They merely have carried on about how good the old PC had been and how incompetent the moderators today supposedly are.

I myself remember when Super Cheats went through the stage. Weeks after the forums opened, it came under attack by Gaming Update members — as it turned out, there had been a forum on the site before, as well as on PSXGamer (which was the most active out of the lot), and one on Gaming Update. The Super Cheats board in that day merged with the other forums and eventually became the Gaming Update board. As a result, PSXGamer's clientele has been sourly low, and when Super Cheats acquired forums once more it was regarded as a hotbed for immature spammers, which prophetically started to develop after the attacks stopped. Since then, we've had mod fights and even a massive dirt bomb shower by Ilovemissyelliott and Bleepman, both of which carried out the attack using Bleepland as a base after Dave criticised their administration and their comments on Super Cheats over there.

Here's something to chew on: Does it really matter how the forums used to be run? This is today, not yesterday; unless you manage it civilly, you won't restore anything. Plus which, you'll have to cope with anyone who becomes mod or is promoted once the years wear on. Anyone who is clinging on to the old PC needs to grow up and adapt or leave. While this is defence for Jeroen against Imperial Dragon, unthinkable in the past, it's also a little message I have for Paul and Shinin themselves.

Update: Kahoshi has been removed as the focus of this article due to a contradiction of conveyed opinion here.

PC and Wikipedia

A few weeks ago members of PKMN.NET tried to get the site posted to Wikipedia. In doing so, unfortunately, they received a remark from the staff that it disgraced them to have an article about them written poorly and with emphasis on partial commentator opinion. The page was removed within a few days.

Later I have seen that the Pokémon Community is going through something similar in fashion. As was seen in the Pokémon Community's Daily Chit-Chat, Digital Phoenix, a banned member, had created the article from the get-go and filled it with content that attacked the administration. Immediately others came in and added their leftist views, and soon afterward the page was open to deletion. (One moderator I contacted, who has requested anonymity, was able to determine him as the original author of the article and the author of the comment to my rant about the Community, partly due to his trademark contempt and his having been a moderator in the past.)

At first I thought the marquee was enough to bring this out, but now I see that this extends well beyond the fact that the forum has received unwarranted space on Wikipedia. I have seen Paul try to be banned once more by agreeing with the revisions of the article (thanks to Chibi-chan for clarifying that) that the moderators' judgement was to blame for a bad reputation. Unfortunately, this has only caused the moderators to show their more respectable side as people that exist to keep the Community glued together. Yet, unlike the PKMN.NET admins have (yes, I still believe this, even after seven months of clemency), they haven't ever had the intentions of making themselves targets because of political affinities. That's where the spam traffic going between both forums start to divide; we have Richard Mansfield trying to recruit Blue Mew into spamming on PKMN.NET, whereas spam (the DCC notwithstanding) on the Pokémon Community is not as prominent.

It's strange to see that one member, whom James would say resembles me in the respect, will go out of his way to try to unmask the forum for bias. Wikipedia entries are definitely not the way to do it; posting such would only cause a far worse reputation for theposter than any decrease in reputation for the afflicted forum. I wonder if a similar attempt has been made for SPP?

Update: Below is the inquiry into the matter:

Blue says:
There
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Eh?
Who would David be?
Blue says:
Axel
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Oh....Hello there.
Let me guess, you decided to introduce me?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'm a ghost >o
Sorry bout that, I'm a little exhausted. It's kinda getting to me
Anyways, hey
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Oh, so why did you want to speak to me? Is this about Wikipedia?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Not really, I'm trying not to worry too much about it. You just seem like an interesting person to talk to
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Ah.
Well, I have to say that you lot have the right idea once again....
But to be honest, I never expected the article to be this hot....
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I just can't stand banned members, of all people, critisizing us. XD
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So Jorge, you haven't registered your opinion on the matter yourself....And you were around for the article being spawned....
Blue says:
To be honest, I don't really care about their opinion if that's how they're going to act on the matter. So I see no reason for me to waste time replying to childish insults.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Ah, I see.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Oh sure, make me sound irrational >>
Blue says:
Can do
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Well, I have his assurance that he agrees with me, at the very least.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'd like to ignore them, but it's just come to the point where It's hard
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
I even discussed with another mod the possibility of having an inquiry into possible bias.
Blue says:
It was easy for me not to ignore them when I first became staff and it happened all the time. After a while though, you learn that a lot of these people really are just bitter.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I owe too much to the community in its members to let it take insults like that
and its*
I guess in some sense, we're being bias ourselves, since we're being attacked by them
Blue says:
Not really
If you can look at it from an unbiased POV, then you can admit your own faults, but a lot of what they're saying isn't true.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
That's why I was thinking of an inquiry. get to the bottom of the matter and see what drove them to believe that you lot were biased.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
A lot of the members in their group are banned members who got themselves on the bad side of the staff. However, they break obvious rules and then claim we ban them because we dislike the,
them*
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Still, I need to know what the initial offences were before I make a judgement.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
It'd be hard to track down every single thing again
Plus we aren't aware exactly who is on their side
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
We can at least start with Shinin, Saniigo, and Dakota.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Shinin was a loooong looong time ago. I dont know if his offences are even recorded. Oo
Saniigo just asked to be demoted and started spamming everywhere
As for the reason, we are still unaware
Blue says:
Dakota's is a loooong story
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'm still not even sure what'd up with Dakota. Oo
what's* I am having a horrible typo night
Blue says:
Basically
It started about a year ago
He was become too inactive and when he was on, he wasn't modding, and hardly posted. When he did post, it was really on the spammy side. Eventually he was warned for messing with the user titles in the admin CP. He kept saying he messed up and didn't mean for it to effect all the members, but it did and the fact still stands that he shouldn't have done it. Then he was warned by a former admin, Claire, for general spamming. Then the nail in the coffin for him as a staff member came when it was decided that he was far too inactive and wasn't contributing enough to PC.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
was becoming*
Blue says:
Yeah
After that, he flamed Claire a lot because the two used to be paired and something happened to him that made him think nothing that happens online matters at all. He was warned again for that, but for some reason he thought he could work himself back up to the S-Mod rank. All the higher staff said no to his remodding, so he got mad and said that we backstabbed him and should have at least told him he was up for demotion. Someone said that he needed no warning and that someone who's been at PC for nearly four years should know by now what should and shouldn't be posted. So then he flamed some more, got himself banned. Said the banning was unjust, when he was unbanned...he got himself rebanned pretty fast. He evaded which lead to him getting his original ban time of two months doubled to four months. A bit before his ban was to be lifted, he was saying that the moment he got back to PC, he was going to mass spam. He didn't, but he flamed and that was basically it for him.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So we're never seeing him again.
I never liked him myself. Ignorant ass.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Chances are, no. I'm pretty sure if he didn't learn his lesson after 2 bans, he certainly wont change
Yeah, he was quite ignorant
Anything else you'd like to know?
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Do you believe he could have coaxed the other people into making these remarks?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
No, he doesn't talk with many people. These ideas came from a totally different source
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
I just thought that he would be the only one to trip across the blog, since I have a huge link to it in the sig.
Blue says:
Ty's already said why he did what he did. Paul's just bitter about being banned.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Ty gave reasons?
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Second time for Paul, isn't it?
Well, I think it was Signomi that told me that Ty was the culprit.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
He created the originally wiki thing, yes
Blue says:
David, yeah. He basically said that a lot of his friends were making fun of him for being banned from PC and stopped talking to him for that reason
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...so?
Blue says:
So...he was kinda pissed
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
And tripped over into the hole again.
Blue says:
Basically

Sothe「サザ」 was added to this conversation. Handwriting is no longer supported because not all participants can view handwritten messages. Handwritten messages will be sent as text.

Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
All right, Jake wants his say.
Blue says:
Though the way he said it did make me feel bad for him
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Yo, Jake
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
We got into the Dakota incident.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
He's pretty... silent
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
That's odd....
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Maybe australia sink into the ocean...
sunk*
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Sorry. XD
Dakota incident?
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
There goes another theory of mine out the window...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I want America, or at least Washington D.C. to sink. D:
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...washington is pretty far inland to sink... XD
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I know. D:
Blue says:
Hey! I live in America!
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
But me and Jake don't =D
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So do I, and I should be concerned due to the fact that I'm on an island.
Blue says:
Can't wait for people to bomb Australia and Canada...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
o_O
Jorge! D:
So "what" about Dakota?
Blue says:
Canada's easy, all you need is two water guns and you've doubled their military power
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Who would bomb Canada? We're worthless, other than the oil in Alberta D=
Which America will probably tap...
Blue says:
...that sounded so wrong
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Jorge, you have a dirty mind. D:
Blue says:
Yes, yes I do
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Only you could make a conversation about oil sound wrong
Blue says:
You said tap!
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
And living on an island is evil, Crystal Walrein.
Blue says:
I need sleep
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Jorge, you find all the excuses in the world. XD
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
No, he's always either tired or sick when he screws up. XD
Sothe「サザ」 says:
First saying that one said "tap", then saying you need sleep. D:
Blue says:
I screwed up? XD
Even if I had sleep, I'd still say what I said XD
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Anyways, back on topic
Love how that just killed the conversation...
Sothe「サザ」 says:
What were we talking about?
Because I'm unclear.
So, I decided to be quiet.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
Crystal Walrein is inquiring as to why the anti-staff may think us to be bias
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Ah.
Well, most of them are banned.
Blue says:
...
And that's basically all you ever need to know.
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Our policies are less strict to accommodate such opinion holders, but they still take it too far anyway.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
It's the more obvious reason, but there are probably others we aren't aware of
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Which is what concerns me.
I think this staff can pat themselves for a job well done, but I still need to see what went on behind these members being removed....
Because all I see is that the banned members are accusing the mods of hypocrisy and people like Paul and Dakota being banned....
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
well, the wiki page was finally deleted
Sothe「サザ」 says:
Members are banned for reasons. Most of them like to call us **** for small moves and such.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
It was?
/me checks
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
yup
Sothe「サザ」 says:
It should've ended in a week.
Ah well.
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
So Steve finally did something for once....Or maybe the dissidence was too great....
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I guess ending it early was okay.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
It was 98% Delete anyways
Sothe「サザ」 says:
There was doubt the two days would accommodate more againsts than that?
Guys, remember to "search for PokeCommunity" to stumble across any revenge articles.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I still don't understand why they accuse us of hypocrisy...
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
I had a word with Steve when he was planning to revise the article to make it less biased, but I think I convinced him to turn his back on it.
Sothe「サザ」 says:
[. . .]
Articles on PC have been deleted 3 times. Inclusive of the recent one.
Ironically, none of them have PC's proper name.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
XD
Sothe「サザ」 says:
"PokéCommunity", not "PokeCommunity".
*poke*community? XD
Crystal Walrein — Now a blood donor (and a SuperCheats administrator)! says:
Haha, you'd think that they'd try to disguise the article as such.
(-David Eddy- New bus: 18S-) - Moving tomorrow says:
I'm just going to grab a snack
Sothe「サザ」 says:
I don't think people even know how to type the darn é.

Update: As stated accordingly above, Chibi-chan has told me that Paul himself was not involved in the creation of the article and that his ban was attributed to his defence of the statement only. I regret the error.

Blood and spam

A gruesome title, but today I have a hearty tale for all of you. Actually, two.

The first tale is of a forum. It's the Pokémon Community, yes. One of the subforums to Other Chat is the Daily Chit Chat forum, which I discussed earlier — and according to Naminé, on of the members that hitherto was a regular poster in the area, it was now officially a spot for people eligible for the derogatory title of 'n00b'.

DCC isn't too fitting for Naminé and that she shall only hop in back and forth from the rare time to time... DCC is only meant for two kinds of people: those who lost all of their brain cells, and those who are too tired or lazy to use their brain cells~

Those of you that are familiar with the Banned Topics list on Super Cheats will recognise any forum without a fixed title as de facto spam. This was done in the wake of Spam Fest, as old-timers will remember, which basically caused the entirety of the forum to be enveloped in the stuff that destroyed the regular flow of conversation. Here, people have now started to commit themselves to shorter threads due to the fact that longer threads would incur needless replies that would in turn cause the direction in the thread to be turned for the worse. As the Pokémon Community designed it, however, there would actually be a thread for nearly every forum in which uncontrolled chat could go on, as long as it remained within the confines of the forum subject and the forum rules on top of that. Then, there is the forum, in which a Chit Chat thread would be created on the month, in order to foster conversation for people that don't have access to, or do not find any convenience in, a message programme.

I admit that I do not myself like the idea of there being a rule like that. It's difficult for everyone to communicate, since for the most part more than six people are online at the same time on that part of the forum. What it boils down to is a massive IM conversation for those without the aid of MSN, YIM, or AIM. The topic swings back and forth, it's hard to keep up if you've been away to sleep, and the variety of opinions and styles of writing makes it difficult for one sound decision or judgement to be made.

Even so, it has a benefit: There is little or no rigidity. In this conversation, everyone at any level of attendance can participate without the fear of being shoved out, except if the opinions in the head amount to something that goes against the entire forum itself. You'll see the New Users' Hangout full of new members that are welcomed wholeheartedly by others, and once they say hello they move forward and do their business.

The bottom line is that whether a thread of this genre is appropriate really depends on the ability of members to participate in such discussions, as well as the magnitude of the content allowed by such threads. Give them a forum to spam in, they go berserk; give them a few controlled threads, things get much less messy and the potential for major spam outbreaks — the Ilovemissyelliott ban comes to mind — is minimised.

Now onto story two, which blows apart the assumption that I once carried that most of the school was against me some way or other and the kids from the nursing academy were the worst at it. As can be seen from my MSN title, I gave a pint of blood at a blood drive today; when it became apparent that I was apprehensive before the procedure, I was sure that the sophomore lot that was volunteering were paying no attention to the plight — until one asked to hold my hand. Although I turned it down, the effects drowned out the sear of the needle. I was accepted after all. After three years of labouring under hatred and spite, I can say that my rant on the society there is no longer applicable. What an idiot I was until now. I'm going back the next time they come to take the next pint; it's too much to say that the rest of the school could scrape off my removal.

So that's two problems solved. First was that 'chit-chat' threads had a deeper reach than providing a spammy domain; second was that, contrary to all my ranting beforehand, I was not hated after all.

Update: Naminé recanted:

Let's not get unrelated harmless people like Mr. Crystal Walrein or ________ into this matter. Though Naminé appreciates Mr. Crystal Walrein and ________ concerns about her wellbeing, it's probably best to let Naminé post for herself. Afterall, they shouldn't lower their social status to associate with someone with such small numbers within her PC profile. Thank you for caring, though.

For Ms. Chibi-chan's reminder about the posts in the morning, Naminé read the post a long while ago in the afternoon when she came back from school, but at that time DCC already moved on to yet, another new topic for the day. So, she thought that it would be best to simply leave the matter. In theory, as long as Naminé doesn't post anything in the DCC until she struck a rare moment when she reads something that completely interests her, and then post at late night to avoid the other members, things might have been fine. Guess that Naminé's thinking is overly simplistic, and she would have to confront things directly...

Naminé had a bad day which resulted in her being highly moody for the entire last Sunday. Her self control is weak and inexperienced with her own emotions, and she said somethings that she really shouldn't... She should have realized that there are many different worlds out there, each with preferences of their own. Naminé shouldn't have forced her beliefs among those around her here in the DCC. Please pardon Naminé and accept her apologies for her terrible hauntiness, undying hubris, unjustified pharisaicalness and the total incapablility to detect the changing times and atmosphere within the DCC itself.

And in order to ensure that this post ends the entire mess, it is preferable if no one quotes this post or comment on it any further... Read it, and nod if one decides to pardon Naminé's foolishness, or unleash the fits of rightful rage at Naminé via PM instead of posting in DCC further.

Naminé shall not interfere with the DCC's growing future any further... She'll read the posts in DCC occassionally by herself, and rely on private messages in order to comment on posts in DCC if she is so strongly interested.

The Family

A few days ago I had to stand witness to a moderator of the Pokémon Community being rather upset that her pair had pulled out, and after testing to see if she wanted to pair once more, it turned out that she was holding off on it on a permanent basis. There are also another moderator and a petty administrator that have decided to treat their pair declaration as a bona-fide relationship and, judging by records of events in which they actually met, are seemingly on the road to bliss with things headed in their current direction. However, there are also people that have claimed actors, singers, animé characters, and Pokémon as 'bishies', or virtual dates, on Serebii.net; there is a member on the forum named Yori Ryu that even creates vector-image dolls that are popular as medallions of bishie claims.

Going beyond relationships, I have recently been pulled into a 'family' headed by Egyptian Sphinx of the Pokémon Community. The objective of a 'family' is to group together people that have considered themselves to be in very close ties and wish to identlfy themselves under the guise of nuclear families on the Pokémon Community. One other family designates the young petty admin Kylie-chan as a grandmother, a sign that age is disregarded. And often some people will create 'evil twins' to designate people that think parallel to them.

Oddly enough, it reminds me a lot of the MySpace dilemma. This is for everyone reading that still has a profile there: Go back through your friend lists and try to identify each and every one as best you can. The site mimics a youth summit, so not many will readily make information available, which means that you will not get the full benefit from having a true friend. In fact, a detective went* under the guise of a college student named Matt and 'befriended' three girls from Middletown, Connecticut, USA — and later leaked their profile habits to their parents. (One of the girls had previously been ordered to destroy her profile.) After that, the owner of the profile himself encountered the three girls in the Dateline interview.

The interview tells you what can happen if you don't play your cards with online contacts right. Fortunately, PC families are based on sound judgement of the members involved, which is why many of the families happen to comprise staff members. Because of this, 'families' and 'pairing' are rendered marginally safer than friend lists, yet the very natures are so similar that they need similar judgement in consideration. Pairing and bishies don't afford you anything more than status. Why do I see, then, people declaring marriage on the forum? There is no bonder or rabbi. And what are pairs? People that have a relationship, emulating the dating scene at school. It rarely works out; aside from the mod and petty admin aforementioned, Articuno and Lugia have defeated this rule. And some have, of course, been taken so seriously that we hape people weeping when a pairing is annulled. And some are wise enough to debate this.

Both are inherently outlets for predators, although the latter pronounces it significantly more and constitutes cliques. So if you still have the urge to be part of the group on the Pokémon Community, just form a 'family' and, if possible, review anyone inducted carefully.

* Requires Internet Explorer 6.

As things turned out....

Regarding the post I made on the April Fools joke, it seems everything has gone back to normal once more in the worlds of Pokémon Palace and Pokémon UK. After talking to some officials from PPN, I learned that there was more to the hysteria than creating a black skin and spooking with spam — as it turned out, all of the bannings and the frustration by the moderators were feigned!

• Jedi_Amara has revealed that the 'March Mod Lounge' — an odd attribute for a forum — was set up prior to April Fools and posts from the actual moderators' area were moved there to make it look like it was the active spot for people in administrative positions.
  


• Lily admitted to doubling as Todoroki — which explains her mysterious assertions that Kylie, Saniigo, and Kazuhito were up to be banned. This meant that: a) CP access was not restricted after all; b) the moderators knew that the bans were part of the plan and decided to feign frustration over having to cope with Todoroki.

And as for the PKMN.NET joke that I promised to reveal, it was a false method to obtain Celebi. I myself was involved in the making of that trick, whose objective was to fool people over on Serebii.net. Judging by the anger on Ed Elric's face and the gullibilty of the person that started the topic heralding the method (which was at least funny compared to the mere change of banner on the main SPP site as well as disability of avatars and sigs), I think we've made quite some progress in being the fun-loving people we are. And to think that over a year ago I spoke out against everything when the name 'Vennblomster' was filtered and made myself look like an idiot.

Very funny

1 April. The day on which people were insulted for not changing to the Gregorian calendar back in the old days. Now that it's turned into timed fiascos over the past years, some Pokémon sites have decided to capitalise on the ability of members to get scared.

At 10.30pm, when I signed onto the Pokémon Community, I noticed that the lights had gone out. Every CSS colour, save for mod and admin labels, text fields, and dropdown menus, had been set to #000000. Only icons could be seen, which helped me navigate to the scene of the crime — word had broken out that PPN was brokering a merger with Serebii.net, and a spammer named Todokiri had apparently opened the Mod Lunge to the public (although we could not reply) and was busy tantalising everyone on the Questions and Feedback board.

As soon as we had resigned ourselves to typing in bright text, the lights went on. The theme was changed to the PokéLink Blue Variant, but the header had been scratched out to say 'Todokiri's Community'. At that point the chaos was reaching its peak, and minutes later the moderator Lily was expelled. A minute later Kylie-chan was also expelled, followed by Saniigo. At that point the hacker calmed down, and the chaos came to a standstill even as Other Chat, Questions and Feedback, and the Daily ChitChat flickered in and out of view. When the smoke cleared the following morning, the Rules page was gone (it was restored today) and everyone was mad. And when PPNSteve came out and locked one of the threads that was in hysterics, it exacerbated everything. I was right in believing that Steve had opened the Mod Lounge to Todokiri and toyed with him whilst keeping in Invisible mode on another computer so that he could toy with the forum settings. The moral of the story: Steve was a git, and I won't be surprised if Kylie and the others have lost faith in him for this stunt.

On a lighter note, PKMN.NET is currently at work on their forums, filtering 'Pokémon' to be 'Digimon' and working with other words as well. (One member, who is Iza on the Sky Temple, was even led to believe that a hacker was loose and so deleted her account.) It's also rumoured that they've got something else on the site going on, and only I, apart from the administrators, know what it is. What it is, I shall tell once it's exposed by the admins themselves.