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Lich Coldheart
Stares into the Void

Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:44 pm
Posts: 985
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 3:37 pm 
 

I thought it would be interesting to have a thread where people can ask questions about certain aspects of the site and the forum. The topics may vary from certain habits (i.e. Who had the idea to have an annual April's Fool on MA?), certain users (i.e. What happened to Nightgaunt? Has anyone any idea why he's not frequenting the site anymore?) to almost anything related (i.e. Since Derigin is an admin why isn't his name displayed in the typical admin yellow?). Should the mods agree to approve the existence of this thread, I think it may actually thrive. I am sure there are users with more interesting questions than mine and if the users who possess the knowledge feel like answering, I'd like to find out the answers to my own questions I posted above. However, no suggestions and complaints questions are to be asked since there's already another part of the forum meant for that. :)
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BastardHead wrote:
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OpsiusCato
Mexican Metal Inquisition

Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:42 am
Posts: 3006
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 3:56 pm 
 

Lich Coldheart wrote:
1.- Who had the idea to have an annual April's Fool on MA?
2.- What happened to Nightgaunt? Has anyone any idea why he's not frequenting the site anymore?
3.- Since Derigin is an admin why isn't his name displayed in the typical admin yellow?

1.- I can't answer that. It was already a thing when I joined the staff.
2.- He has always been around. And he was around the modchat until recently. He's taking a break, most likely for RL reasons. Or he's off swallowing souls in the Dreamlands doing the kind of stuff Night-Gaunts usually do.
3.- While Derigin is an admin, he doesn't use the yellow color because that's only for webmasters. Azmodes, Derigin, Esoteric, Napero, and Nightgaunt are all admins and use red. HellBlazer and Morrigan are webmasters, and the only ones to use yellow.
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Uncolored, on being a law-abiding citizen wrote:
I'm going to an illegal AnarchoPunkfest in an abandoned disco near a beach. If I'm not here tomorrow look for me in jail.
PhiloFrog, making accurate statements as usual, wrote:
Opsius is Metal as fuck.

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droneriot
cisgender

Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:17 pm
Posts: 10812
Location: Spahn Ranch
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:04 pm 
 

I believe OlympicSharpshooter's rogue decision to add Korn was the first instance of such a prank.
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Lich Coldheart
Stares into the Void

Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:44 pm
Posts: 985
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:10 pm 
 

Thanks for the answers, Opsius. I had no idea Nightgaunt's always been around - his forum page doesn't even display when he last visited the site.

As for the third question, I thought only Derigin, HB and Morrigan were the only admins because that's what this list seems to be saying: memberlist.php?mode=leaders

Helpful answers, anyway. Thanks. :)

droneriot wrote:
I believe OlympicSharpshooter's rogue decision to add Korn was the first instance of such a prank.

And therefore the first idea of doing such pranks was his, right?
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BastardHead wrote:
I will pay a dollar to have Lich's custom title changed to "Drools into the Toilet Bowl"
Master_Of_Thrash wrote:
I like keeping my sword wet, like a young girl in her prime.

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PhilosophicalFrog
The Hypercube

Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 7:08 pm
Posts: 7631
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:23 pm 
 

iirc korn was the first, because it was insanely believable and the site was flooded with reviews...? but I don't remember it exactly.
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hats prices are at an all time low

Spoiler: show
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Diamhea
Eats and Spits Corpses

Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 pm
Posts: 9275
Location: At the Heat of Winter
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:27 pm 
 

Cool thread idea.

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Lich Coldheart
Stares into the Void

Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:44 pm
Posts: 985
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:29 pm 
 

Diamhea wrote:
Cool thread idea.

Thanks, man. :-D
_________________
BastardHead wrote:
I will pay a dollar to have Lich's custom title changed to "Drools into the Toilet Bowl"
Master_Of_Thrash wrote:
I like keeping my sword wet, like a young girl in her prime.

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OpsiusCato
Mexican Metal Inquisition

Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:42 am
Posts: 3006
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:37 pm 
 

Diamhea wrote:
Cool thread idea.

D. finding cool something? That doesn't happen everyday :P
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Uncolored, on being a law-abiding citizen wrote:
I'm going to an illegal AnarchoPunkfest in an abandoned disco near a beach. If I'm not here tomorrow look for me in jail.
PhiloFrog, making accurate statements as usual, wrote:
Opsius is Metal as fuck.

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PhilosophicalFrog
The Hypercube

Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 7:08 pm
Posts: 7631
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:42 pm 
 

besides Mikey, who were the other Butterfly sisters? Ozzy? I never remember that odd time.
_________________
hats prices are at an all time low

Spoiler: show
║\
║▒\
║▒▒\
║░▒║
║░▒║with this blade
║░▒║i cut those who
║░▒║disrespect
║░▒║Carly Rae Jepsen
║░▒║
║░▒║
║░▒║
▓▓▓▓
[█▓]
[█▓]
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10527
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 5:10 pm 
 

- As stated, OlympicSharpShooter's addition of Korn was his own lonewolf idea, but it was very successful and quite hilarious. I guess it prompted ideas for future pranks the years after that but there was no plan for "yearly pranks" or anything at the time he did that.
- Nightgaunt is still around in the IRC chat, at least on occasion. I haven't seen around recently though, must be busy IRL.
- Gold colours are for webmasters, but Derigin got some forum admin privileges because he occasionally works on maintaining forum software (such as editing phpBB skins, fixing youtube/spoiler tags and other features, etc.) so he needs admin access.

PhilosophicalFrog wrote:
besides Mikey, who were the other Butterfly sisters? Ozzy? I never remember that odd time.

This may answer your question. (Yes, I had to google, LOL)
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Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 5:22 pm 
 

Anyone remember the MA Soap Opera threads? :D I joined in spring 2008 right when the last (third) one went on; basically a giant story with each post building off the preceding posts and story. This of course was contingent on the more-skilled writers getting something rolling and ignoring the troll posts, but I thought it was a fun idea at the time. Don't know if it'd work now with the exponentially-larger user base or maybe I'm the only one who still enjoys dumb creative shit like that.
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Napalm_Satan
Ever-Opening Flower

Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:27 pm
Posts: 3811
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 5:24 pm 
 

Uh... butterfly sisters? There's a question for ya - uh, what are those?

EDIT: Never mind, a bit of trawling through old posts gave me the answer.
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:13 pm 
 

Smoking_Gnu wrote:
Anyone remember the MA Soap Opera threads? :D I joined in spring 2008 right when the last (third) one went on; basically a giant story with each post building off the preceding posts and story. This of course was contingent on the more-skilled writers getting something rolling and ignoring the troll posts, but I thought it was a fun idea at the time. Don't know if it'd work now with the exponentially-larger user base or maybe I'm the only one who still enjoys dumb creative shit like that.


Yeah I started using the forum right when the last one started up, so I didn't join in on the fun because I was a total noob and didn't know anybody, but it was the sort of fun silliness that you'd see back then. A lot of it just can't really work anymore, what with the userbase being so massive now and the owners/admins not being able to see and participate and shut down the shit promptly everywhere. Obviously everything stays well maintained and all but there's no way something like the MA Soap Opera would work nowadays I think.

I remember the glossary of terms and that was fun, too bad almost all of that is not in use anymore so obviously there's no need for the glossary. For the noobs, probably one of the best things that I juuuuust missed seeing in real time but was still around to know about was The Banhammer Challenge. If I'm remembering correctly, if users were squabbling for whatever reason, they could invoke the Challenge, upon which somebody would check things out and if the accused had done something banworthy, he/she was toast. However, if the accuser hadn't done anything bannable, the petitioner would get banned. I just loved the whole idea of "Don't fuck with the High Court unless it's totally necessary, and be aware that you'll probably get your own ass scorched if you're just being a whiner". We don't really need such a thing nowadays since everything is so well policed for the most part, but it's something I wish I could've been around for regardless.


EDIT: Actually, that thread Morri posted actually explains it in complete detail in the second post:

Nightgaunt wrote:
My predecessor, Esoteric, created (or rather "introduced", as the basic idea is far from uncommon) the Challenge during a particularly whiny period in board history as a way of discouraging users from privately contacting himself and other staffers with frivolous complaints and diatribes about other users (anyone who has been a mod, especially a board mod, for any considerable period of time on this or most any other website will surely be able to relate). The idea is so simple and straightforward that you may be disappointed to find out its specifics: in essence, it was just a public iteration (with a catchy name) of the common forum principle that if you're pestering staff and calling for other users to be banned without good cause, you're liable to be banned yourself.

Basically, the "Challenge" works like this: User A gets his unmentionables twisted into a knot over something that user B said/did. User A sends a private message to mod(s). The mod(s) check out the incident, and finding that user A is just being oversensitive or otherwise asinine, they see to it that user A is banned. User A is now said to have "lost the Banhammer Challenge." I suppose if user B in the example had indeed actually been doing something banworthy, then user A could be said to have "won the Challenge", but it was seldom referred to as "the Challenge" in that kind of case. Simple as that.

As such, the "Banhammer Challenge" is properly just a jokey little piece of nomenclature applied to one of the many common ways in which humans on message boards can (and do) make fools of themselves--in this case, privately wasting mods' time and in so doing eventually shooting themselves in the foot. The idea that the Challenge is some kind of arcane special event/public spectacle is a misconception; and one that has been rejuvenated on a number of occasions by board members (of varying degrees of renown) with an incomplete or incorrect understanding of the concept invoking "the Challenge" during the course of sundry board drama. The last really major incidence of such a misapplication resulted in both of the chief participants being temporarily suspended.

The principle of the Challenge is still in effect (and was before Eso even named it), but it's not so ironclad that all private complaints necessarily get you banned if the mod you complained to thinks you were just being a crybaby. And if it's not absolute now, I guarantee you that it wasn't absolute then--Esoteric was generally much more patient and agreeable than me.

Hopefully this explanation will dispel the lingering notion that there's some special procedure one can undergo to have a final, conclusive duel with one's board nemesis (whomever it happens to be this week).
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Oxenkiller
Veteran

Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:42 am
Posts: 3607
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:47 pm 
 

Anyone remember Witcher? He was the self-appointed band queue guy, and the chief moderator of the "why did x band get rejected/accepted" threads. Until, one day, he just vanished.

That "Bizarre Lattices" quote that Nightgaunt always used was from a mini-novel/short story by Karl Wagner- I finally looked it up because I never knew what he was talking about. Its a pretty good read if you like weird sci-fi/horror.

Fanfarigoule, OGMetal, and PhantomOTO are some other former red-titled dudes who have seemingly gone the way of the Witcher. Maybe they got tired of all the mallcore kids? I dunno. Its fun posting on this site and browsing it as a general user, but I would imagine it would take a lot of time and effort to help run it. And I suppose it is a thankless job at times. (so for those of you colored-named guys, THANKS for all the work you do.)

My one question was, I have heard some of the old-timers talk about the Symposium forum, but I think it ended right about the time I joined. (actually, I think I signed up around 2008, but didn't really spend any time with the forums until much later.) What was it, was it like the Tavern?

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:07 pm 
 

Basically the answer for "whatever happened to _________" is, they lost interest/got a real job/got married/had kids/generally don't have as much free time to spend on the site. There aren't any exciting stories of epic fallings-out or mods getting assassinated or anything like that behind the disappearances. People move on. Such is life.
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Oxenkiller
Veteran

Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:42 am
Posts: 3607
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:29 pm 
 

Fair enough, makes sense. Although I do seem to recall there was some kind of drama with an admin called "Christkiller" but that all went down before I joined the forum.

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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:26 pm 
 

Basically The Symposium was supposed to be the high-brow counterpart to the more lighthearted Tavern. Every topic somehow devolved into racist nonsense and everybody was stupid, the end.
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Derigin
The Mountain Man

Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 6:25 am
Posts: 5997
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:33 pm 
 

Oh boy! When I get home tonight, expect a long post!
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theposega
Mezla

Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:42 pm
Posts: 5263
Location: Neo-Allegheny City
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:56 pm 
 

Oxenkiller wrote:
OGMetal


He's busy running Dark Descent.
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hmi
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:24 am
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:01 pm 
 

Oxenkiller wrote:
Anyone remember Witcher? He was the self-appointed band queue guy, and the chief moderator of the "why did x band get rejected/accepted" threads. Until, one day, he just vanished.

That "Bizarre Lattices" quote that Nightgaunt always used was from a mini-novel/short story by Karl Wagner- I finally looked it up because I never knew what he was talking about. Its a pretty good read if you like weird sci-fi/horror.

Fanfarigoule, OGMetal, and PhantomOTO are some other former red-titled dudes who have seemingly gone the way of the Witcher. Maybe they got tired of all the mallcore kids? I dunno. Its fun posting on this site and browsing it as a general user, but I would imagine it would take a lot of time and effort to help run it. And I suppose it is a thankless job at times. (so for those of you colored-named guys, THANKS for all the work you do.)

My one question was, I have heard some of the old-timers talk about the Symposium forum, but I think it ended right about the time I joined. (actually, I think I signed up around 2008, but didn't really spend any time with the forums until much later.) What was it, was it like the Tavern?


IIRC Witcher was very banhappy and kind of a dick, he is not missed by all unless I have him confused with someone else. I doubt anyone leaves the site because of dumb kids though, more likely they get bored. It happens to me even with my favorite forums after a while.

I wonder what happened to reviewer cheeses_priced? I think I miss his reviews more than any single other reviewer.

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MutantClannfear
Blank Czech

Joined: Thu May 27, 2010 12:12 am
Posts: 3624
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:07 pm 
 

theposega wrote:
Oxenkiller wrote:
OGMetal


He's busy running Dark Descent.

More than that - he was removed from his moderator position. I'll let a moderator clarify further if they deem it to be something that can be discussed in public.
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Last edited by MutantClannfear on Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:14 pm 
 

Even in the mod forum, the ogmetal thing is mentioned in basically one or two sentences and asked to just let it be. So basically no, there won't be any elucidation in this thread.
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Derigin
The Mountain Man

Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 6:25 am
Posts: 5997
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:53 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
Even in the mod forum, the ogmetal thing is mentioned in basically one or two sentences and asked to just let it be. So basically no, there won't be any elucidation in this thread.

Well, it doesn't hurt to give a reason and be transparent. People develop other priorities in their lives - like in this case running a label - which may not necessarily work with moderating an encyclopedia.

Many of our moderators have stepped away from the job because their priorities in life change, and for one reason or another they want to move on. It doesn't mean that they didn't do great things here, or their contributions aren't valued, but that they no longer see it worth it or they no longer view the job as a hobby (like it's supposed to be!). Ogmetal sometimes gets a bad rap among some people here because, well, to them he went from a person they viewed as a friend to a sales person who only wanted them to buy his merch. But I like to remember him fondly. He was a good moderator who moved on to become a good label owner. He seems happy with what he's doing nowadays, and that's all that matters to me personally.

It's worth reiterating the point though, that this place is a hobby. You don't get paid. You don't get any special perks, really, beyond getting your reviews and band submissions automatically accepted. And even then they're still gonna get scrutinized one way or another (obviously if it's crap, it WILL be called out). Your band submissions are still held to the same standards as those of everyone else. Same with your contributions and your actions. Moderators do this as a hobby. We generally pick people who have already contributed a fair bit to the site - so they already see contributing as a hobby - and who would meld well with the way we do things (which doesn't always go hand-in-hand with being the "greatest" contributor). But, at the end of the day, the reason moderators volunteer and stick around is because they enjoy the work. And, boy, can there be a lot of work. It's one reason we've gotten the reputation of a site full of "autists" because, I suppose, the notion of volunteers willingly putting up with the busy work on the site is just ludicrous to some. All that said, though, being a "hobby" also means that the people who contribute don't have to be here. They're not obligated to work on the site. They do it at their leisure and only so long as they enjoy it. So, like failsafeman stated earlier, due to burn out, or life changes, or simply boredom and inactivity moderators eventually step down. Those of us who've been around longest are here only because we haven't (yet) gotten to that point. I'm hoping I never will. The vast majority of people brought up as "missing" left because they no longer want to be a moderator. It's as simple as that. Honestly, the vast majority of ex-mods could be welcomed back with open arms, in my opinion at least. But, more often than not, once a moderator has chosen to step down they are quite happy to no longer be a moderator. Some actually even stick around as active, regular contributors. It certainly is less stressful and more forgiving to not be a moderator, and just stick around as a regular user.

Regarding Witcher, though, well... to be honest, we don't know. He has a terrible legacy because he was highly confrontational and incredibly protective of his work space (particularly the band queue, which he dominated), but he was also a fiercely loyal moderator who generally acted in what he thought were the best interests of the site. He loved this place. He wouldn't have worked here otherwise. But, he disappeared without any notice back when we shifted from V1 to V2 of the site. We don't really know what happened with him, but my own suspicion is that he couldn't adapt to the new site, got busy in his offline life, or both. Wherever he is, I don't doubt he'd probably doing fine without MA in his life (and perhaps less angry!). And that's OK.

The way moderators come and go... it's not very exciting is it? More often than not, it's like watching a candle slowly flicker out. I'm just happy we still have the crew we have today. They're a solid crew.

Oxenkiller wrote:
My one question was, I have heard some of the old-timers talk about the Symposium forum, but I think it ended right about the time I joined. (actually, I think I signed up around 2008, but didn't really spend any time with the forums until much later.) What was it, was it like the Tavern?

Heh, BH kinda explained it (in short) but the long answer is, well, it was an idea gone terribly, terribly wrong. We've had a few of those "ideas gone terribly wrong" over the years - the earlier incarnations of the "Post Your Picture" threads are a perfect example of that. The Symposium was the "serious discussion" off-topic forum. It was dedicated, in principle, to discussing and debating serious topics - from politics, to religion, to sexism and racism and all that wondrous stuff. Sadly, like so many serious topics, though, most discussion devolved into chaos. It doesn't help that certain moderators thrive on that stuff, too, and so you'd get threads with endless arguments between regulars and those staff. You sometimes see that on the rare occasion here, too, but it was really, really bad. In any case, the Symposium was a nice idea on paper, but a terrible idea in practice. Drone and I were the two who advocated for it, and well, let's just say it disappointed us thoroughly.

Lich Coldheart wrote:
I thought it would be interesting to have a thread where people can ask questions about certain aspects of the site and the forum. The topics may vary from certain habits (i.e. Who had the idea to have an annual April's Fool on MA?), certain users (i.e. What happened to Nightgaunt? Has anyone any idea why he's not frequenting the site anymore?) to almost anything related (i.e. Since Derigin is an admin why isn't his name displayed in the typical admin yellow?). Should the mods agree to approve the existence of this thread, I think it may actually thrive. I am sure there are users with more interesting questions than mine and if the users who possess the knowledge feel like answering, I'd like to find out the answers to my own questions I posted above. However, no suggestions and complaints questions are to be asked since there's already another part of the forum meant for that. :)

Others have answered some of these already, but I'll give my two cents, too.

(1) The April Fools' jokes have kinda grown into a long-standing traditional... at least over the last 5 or so years. It kinda gives the moderators and users an excuse to have a bit of fun. Some of the jokes bomb and some of them are so good they get the attention of mainstream news (like the one where we faked getting a copyright takedown). That was perfect timing. We did it only a week or so after Megaupload (I think) was taken down and getting traction in the media. The Nickelback one was also really surprising, just because people were buying it. As far as how jokes are created, well, we bounce ideas off one another and usually just go with whichever one someone takes initiative on. This year's joke was brought to you, mainly, by TheStormIRide, for example. While that Meshuggah one years ago was Zodi's initiative. We'll see what happens next.

(2) Like others have said, Gaunt is still around but mostly in IRC. He's a busy man these days, but drops on by to chat once and a while. You could almost say he's in comfortable retirement, where his counsel is occasionally requested but where he no longer feels compelled to partake in his janitorial duties as much anymore. That's fine. The nice thing is that moderators are valued, regardless if they are the busiest and most active moderator at any given time. We don't ask them to do a minimum of work, because - at least as far as advice goes - you can't really quantify valuable input here. This kinda relates to a point alluded to in this thread about former staff. We've had moderators removed for being totally inactive (at their own choosing, or because they never get back to us). Maybe it's a testament to the fact that we don't choose fuckups. :D

We don't kick you out if you're busy, or you're burnt out, or you want to just give advice or provide support. Whenever possibly we DO ask you if you are comfortable sticking around, but we wouldn't push you into a forced resignation. Moderators step down when they want and when they are ready. I know some people might see this as horribly inefficent - because, well, "it means you would have inactive staff" - but you'd be surprised how common it is for inactive staff to step down on their own. And usually that's when it's really bad - like they no longer have any interest working on the site or they've disappeared for years. Gaunt and others are very, very far from that point. But it's one of the facets of this place being a hobby. It's work you do when you want to do it and how you want to do it. So long as you do something, you're contributing and that's good for the rest of us, and good for you.

(3) Blame phpBB3. The forum software requires that anyone with full administration access be in the "Administrators" user group. It also requires that the "Administrators" group is always displayed. In my case, I was added as an administrator for the forum so that - like Morri said - I could work on the software. However, that means I'm in the "Administrators" group whether I like it or not. The yellow coloring comes with the group. I could switch my name to that color on the forum, btw, but I choose not to. Not only do I not want that attention - I like operating "in the shadows" so to speak - but it's also a color that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the founders and webmasters, and so that's who gets it.

Feel free to ask more questions - even policy ones - I'm here all night long. ;)
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R.I.P. Diamhea 1987-2018
Live young, die free. Gone, but not forgotten.

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MikeyC
Official Greeter of Broken Hills

Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:16 am
Posts: 14205
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 5:02 am 
 

PhilosophicalFrog wrote:
besides Mikey, who were the other Butterfly sisters? Ozzy? I never remember that odd time.

Yeah, and I absolutely deserved it, too. I was a moron.

BastardHead wrote:
Basically The Symposium was supposed to be the high-brow counterpart to the more lighthearted Tavern. Every topic somehow devolved into racist nonsense and everybody was stupid, the end.

I never posted in the Symposium when it was around because I couldn't get into some of the more intellectual conversations, but pretty much all of the discussion eventually dissolved into madness.

theposega wrote:
Oxenkiller wrote:
OGMetal


He's busy running Dark Descent.

Yes he is, and what a fine label he has created!

hmi wrote:
IIRC Witcher was very banhappy and kind of a dick, he is not missed by all unless I have him confused with someone else.

Witcher was extremely confrontational, and any resistance to his decisions was met with such vitriol that I once called him out on it. I was not the only one to do so, and his disappearance is not surprising, given the amount of stress he put himself under. Or perhaps that's just his natural personality and it spilled over into the forum. English was not his first language so that probably didn't help. Nevertheless he was not a good communicator at the best of times. I still hope he's doing fine. :)

Derigin wrote:
We've had a few of those "ideas gone terribly wrong" over the years - the earlier incarnations of the "Post Your Picture" threads are a perfect example of that.

Actually I find it to be a miracle that this one works, considering the amount that didn't. Of all the forums I've participated in, Metal Archives was the only one that couldn't properly maintain a picture thread without devolving into some perverted weirdness until this current one. I'm not even sure what changed, haha.

Even worse than the picture thread was the "Photos of complete randomness" thread that worked for about 150-200 pages before people started posting jailbait. It was deleted entirely and for very good reason.
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ZarathustraHead wrote:
That person is me. ZarathustraHead.

ZarathustraHead wrote:
You can find me listening to the good, real shit. The real good shit. I'll be here.

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IntenseHatred
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:47 pm
Posts: 376
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 8:45 am 
 

When I started coming here in 2004/2005 it was a completely different atmosphere. A lot of fun times and fun posts. I used to be on here all night and chat it up with my friends. All the people I used to talk to are long gone. It has changed a lot, it was part of the reason why I stopped coming here. I realized how much it changed the first day I came back last year, when the first thread I made was locked. The core group isn't here, so I am ok with the rules. A little strict for a forum, but sometimes that's the way it has to be.
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:12 am 
 

There are two versions of the past here. One is that it was a ton of fun and so much more open and loose and now the forum is really strict and has no wiggle room for nonsense. The other is that the userbase in the past were a bunch of righteous snobs who were overly aggressive and openly hostile towards any noobs or people who had dissenting tastes from the majority, and it's much more friendly and welcoming now, with much less tolerance for blatant aggression and arrogance.

Both versions are true. Everybody sucks, especially you.
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Lair of the Bastard: LATEST REVIEW: In Flames - Foregone
The Outer RIM - Uatism: The dogs bark in street slang
niix wrote:
the reason your grandmother has all those plastic sheets on her furniture is because she is probably a squirter

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IntenseHatred
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:47 pm
Posts: 376
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:26 am 
 

BastardHead wrote:

Everybody sucks, especially you.

One thing that I am not in denial about.
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kingnuuuur
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:35 pm
Posts: 2325
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 11:12 am 
 

hmi wrote:
I wonder what happened to reviewer cheeses_priced?

Cheeses Priced was the pasteur'd son of Curd. One night he offered himself to be eaten by chews.
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Watch Dominion

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 12:04 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
There are two versions of the past here. One is that it was a ton of fun and so much more open and loose and now the forum is really strict and has no wiggle room for nonsense. The other is that the userbase in the past were a bunch of righteous snobs who were overly aggressive and openly hostile towards any noobs or people who had dissenting tastes from the majority, and it's much more friendly and welcoming now, with much less tolerance for blatant aggression and arrogance.

Both versions are true. Everybody sucks, especially you.

Honestly though, people got banned so much more easily back in the day. The notion that mods were much more allowing is kind of ridiculous - they were tolerant of SOME stuff, sure, but the issue was at the time the forum software had nothing between "no punishment" and "permanent ban" (that could be lifted if the admin cared enough to remember to do it manually). These days we use warnings and temporary suspensions much more liberally for users I know would've been banned permanently back in the day.

At the same time, the mods probably were more lenient toward regulars, since the core group was much smaller and everyone knew everyone else, especially back before 2005 or so when Esoteric retired. If you were part of the "in group" you were allowed a lot of room to do dumb shit, as long as it was funny or generally appreciated by the rest. But even then there was a limit, as in the case of Reaper (not to be confused with Reaper43).

The real issue was around 2006-2010 or thereabouts the forum population grew by leaps and bounds, meaning the staff had to start cracking down on certain kinds of behavior really hard to keep the kind of culture we liked around here. For example, for a while it was an instant permaban to post those kinds of "inb4thelock" gifs that used to be popular in doomed threads. Any perceived shift in policing is mostly due to the population shifting from a relatively small group of friends with a few outsiders trying to get in to a big, amorphous blob comprised of several different groups (like the Butterfly Sisters, the Symposium regulars, the H/P/S rec thread regulars, review junkies like Hells_Unicorn and Noktorn) who didn't interact much or even get along particularly, along with a shitload of strangers and transients.
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MorbidBlood wrote:
So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

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CardsOfWar
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:33 am
Posts: 856
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 12:05 pm 
 

I've heard whispers of a Metal-Mrchives image board or somesuch hosted on this site, but it got shut down for some reason. Anyone care to shed some light on that.

I feel like I missed the golden age of every internet community. :((
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Closing of the eyes - True vision!

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 12:07 pm 
 

What? No. There was never an image board.
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MorbidBlood wrote:
So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

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PhilosophicalFrog
The Hypercube

Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 7:08 pm
Posts: 7631
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 12:08 pm 
 

we had a thread, no? and it basically became /b/ so ya shut that shit down.
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hats prices are at an all time low

Spoiler: show
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║░▒║with this blade
║░▒║i cut those who
║░▒║disrespect
║░▒║Carly Rae Jepsen
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Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 1:15 pm 
 

There were at least 2 post-your-picture threads that got locked before our current active one; I also vaguely recall there having been an image thread too but I could be remembering wrong.
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Hexenmacht46290 wrote:
Slayer are not as uneducated as people think, some of them did know how to read.

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Lich Coldheart
Stares into the Void

Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:44 pm
Posts: 985
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 2:03 pm 
 

There used to be a time when theunrelentingattack worked in the review queue, right? I kind of remember him rejecting all of my early reviews...
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BastardHead wrote:
I will pay a dollar to have Lich's custom title changed to "Drools into the Toilet Bowl"
Master_Of_Thrash wrote:
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Diamhea
Eats and Spits Corpses

Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 pm
Posts: 9275
Location: At the Heat of Winter
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 2:10 pm 
 

Yes, he worked the queue a lot circa 2013-2014.
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nuclearskull wrote:
Leave a steaming, stinking Rotting Repulsive Rotting Corpse = LIVE YOUNG - DIE FREE and move on to the NEXT form of yourself....or just be a fat Wal-Mart Mcdonalds pc of shit what do I give a fuck what you do.

Last.fm

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 2:51 pm 
 

Smoking_Gnu wrote:
There were at least 2 post-your-picture threads that got locked before our current active one; I also vaguely recall there having been an image thread too but I could be remembering wrong.

There were image threads, sure, more than one. But that's not what he seemed to be talking about.
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MorbidBlood wrote:
So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

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OpsiusCato
Mexican Metal Inquisition

Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:42 am
Posts: 3006
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:16 pm 
 

failsafeman wrote:
There aren't any exciting stories of (...) mods getting assassinated (...)

Yet.

Remember, kids. Killing staffers is a bannable offense.
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Uncolored, on being a law-abiding citizen wrote:
I'm going to an illegal AnarchoPunkfest in an abandoned disco near a beach. If I'm not here tomorrow look for me in jail.
PhiloFrog, making accurate statements as usual, wrote:
Opsius is Metal as fuck.

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~Guest 98976
Metal Pounder

Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:08 pm
Posts: 8000
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:17 pm 
 

What was the name of that annoying, pompous asshole who had like three different names and ended up getting banned? BlackMetalFlame or something like that. He was always super pretentious and then one day he fucking said something and a mod just went ahead and banned him.

Opsius, I was about to make a joke about that regarding FSM, but I decided to withhold because my filter caught it before I typed and sent something I can't take back.

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Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:23 pm 
 

FierceBlackAndWicked, I believe.

Let's not forget his alter-ego LippyAssMajor and the great anal hair rant, which is probably the most recent thing I can think of on par with the insane stories (I've heard) of the forum's early days. (And what finally got him banned, I think.)
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Hexenmacht46290 wrote:
Slayer are not as uneducated as people think, some of them did know how to read.


Last edited by Smoking_Gnu on Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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~Guest 98976
Metal Pounder

Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:08 pm
Posts: 8000
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:24 pm 
 

FierceBlackAndWicked and LippyAssMajor were the same people, I think.

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