At first it was only Lack. Then it was Lack and his friend Twill (added as Community Manager May 7). Twill moved to Seattle at some point, but that won't matter until chapter 3.
May 22, 2006 - Andy Dufresne started as Foundry Foreman.
May 28, 2006 - there was the first "mod callout" here
This was a substantial thread for a few reasons. One of which is the response - 15 potential moderators. People wanted to participate in the life of the site (and they still do). There are two fundamental approaches to volunteer team building. One is top-down, in which you find a need and then look for someone to fill it. That's what they did in this thread. However, the seed was set. Because there was a lot of demand, they started finding jobs for the extra people to do - that's the bottom-up forum building, and usually works a lot better. You can see almost right away that the top down approach didn't work. They took so long trying to get a moderator that the Grievance system was long gone. It's also a fun thread because it has some gloomy foreshadowing of "chapter 3".
For an aside - the site started with an ignore list which was dropped for a grievance system. Then the grievance system was dropped and the ignore was brought back and a Feedback. then Feedback became Ratings and the Ignore List became Foe List.
June 17, 2006 - moz976 becomes a forum mod. He moved a few threads and then wasn't a mod and then was again and then he became the first Suggs & Bugs mod. He also helped write the very first community guidelines (credited as coauthor with Twill, and input from Andy and Lack). Those didn't come out until October though. Here they are:
[spoiler]Forum Guidelines
These guidelines are just that – guidelines. The CC staff try to take a fairly hands off approach to moderation but will step in if you get abusive, trollish or really bloody annoying. These are simple requests, please heed them and play nice.
Posting basics:
The Guidelines wrote:The “l337” poster knows to ask himself/herself 3 basic questions before pressing the all powerful “submit” button:
One: Is my post really necessary or is it just mental diarrhea?
Two: Am I trolling or feeding a troll?
Three: Really?
This last question should be asked at least twice but is often ignored because everyone likes to think that they are saying something ground breaking when in fact “GFYS muthafugging azzhole” and “you suck dick” are in fact not new and the only thing they will break is your reputation.
Specific Forums:
The Guidelines wrote:As many of you have - or hopefully will soon – notice, we have several different boards for your posting enjoyment. Each of these have some specific further guidelines which it is, in general, a good idea to follow. Specifically the two that are the most often misunderstood are:
“Flame Wars” and “The Off Topic forum" (under various changing names)
Despite common perception, these are not personal playgrounds o' spam, if we wanted that, then the forums would have been called “Spam Wars” or “The Mind-Numbing-Playschool-Throwback-Garbage Room” (really, we would have). When posting in these forums, please be sure to note any guideline stickies in that forum and always refer to the “Posting Basics” noted above.
Language Forums
The Guidelines wrote:The language forums are a place for people who wish to speak in their own langage to go, meet other players from their country and form a community around their language group. Posting spam, pretending you know the language when you don't and posting in a language other than that intended for the forum is just bad manners.
Oh, and the ability to use google translator doesn't mean you can speak the language.
The "three questions" of Posting Basics still apply to these forums.
The “Search” and “Edit” buttons and the "FAQ"
The Guidelines wrote:If you don't know what these are, stay at home...that is all
Yoshi's Note: I left the links off these. Search and Edit went to phpBB 2.0 instruction manual (which is no longer supported or hosted) and the "FAQ" went to the old e-ticket site.
Actual no-no's:
The Guidelines wrote:Yes, even we have to have some of these because, in the heat of delayed asynchronous-communication, people sometimes lose their heads a bit. If you are caught losing your head (because you would never actually mean to do any of these things) we will first request that you cease and desist as the say in “the biz.” If you cannot find your head, or continue to mis-place it, we will be happy to put you on a forum time-out to give you time to go looking for it and if REALLY need be we will remove that which seems to disagree with you – i.e. The forum. Not that we like doing any of these things, of course.
And now the list don't do's:
Bigotry (e.g. racism, religion-bashing, aggressively homophobic language);
Betting or gambling on, through, or because of CC;
Pornography in posts, avatars or hyperlinks;
Trolling (including multiple postings, spam, abusive content, and specific attempts to cause chaos, disruption or headaches to the community members or staff)
That's pretty much it for the no-no's – small list, easy to remember...and don't test the team, we really do enforce this stuff
Eye Candy:
The Guidelines wrote:As we all know, there are some things which make reading a forum just that much difficult on the eyes. They are often minor, but make all the difference when they begin to take over. The following are suggestions for the viewing pleasure of all:
- Signatures larger than 150 pixels high by 600 pixels wide just scream “I am compensating for something” and should be reduced in size.
- |337 5p33k (0r d00d 5p34k) 15 h4rd 70 r34d 4nd m4k35 y0u |00k |1k3 4 ch1|d 57uck 1n 7h3 80'5 4nd n07 47 4|| |337. Leet-speak just sucks, and we all know it, and you don't want to suck too, now do you?
- TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS JUST OBNOXIOUS AND DOES NOT MAKE YOU LOOK COOLER OR SMARTER AND PEOPLE WON'T READ YOUR POST MORE BECAUSE IT'S IN CAPS, IN FACT EVERYONE WILL PROBABLY TELL YOU TO “GFYS muthafugging azzhole” SO PLEASE USE CAPS ONLY AT THE BEGINNING OF SENTENCES AND FOR SINGLE WORD EMPHASIS WHEN REALLY NEEDED.
- The only thing more stupid than TYPING IN ALL CAPS is TYPING IN ALL CAPS IN A LARGER FONT AND ANNOYING COLOUR
Enforcement
[/spoiler]The Guidelines wrote:A warning from any mod is the same as a warning from Lackattack himself, asking mommy because daddy said no wont work here. If you chose to disobey a direct request from a mod, expect to be put on a 24 hour freeze from the forum. Further action against the warning will result in longer time-outs, and eventually permanant banning (banding as some would say) from the forum. A mod will always warn you of the consequences if there will be any.
August 11 Scarus was added and HighBorn became the first Tournament Director. September 28 AK_Iceman became a partner Tournament Director (there was no department head, they were both on equal footing). Well that was the official story although the truth is that Highborn was starting to burn out. His last tournament was abandoned. Highborn joined in February and by September had already posted 3000 times (those were the Bushwackers days too). So most people recognize and remember iceman as the original TD. That isn't entirely true, but it's close enough. By the end of the year Hugh.G.Rection had joined but once again he basically just flaked out without doing anything.
October 22 there was a big shuffle. Twill released the Community Guidelines (see above) then stepped down to a regular moderator. Andy became "Zoo Keeper" instead of Community Manager (but he was still Foundry Foreman too). This was also when moz became the S/B mod.
November 23, 2006 Scarus retired and then there was also the first 3 multi hunters: sully800, Master Bush and Fireside Poet
I didn't really talk about Andy this month. He'll get a big summary in chapter 4. However, almost 30 maps came through the pipe in this first year!
