Post by Teᴙa253 on Jan 7, 2009 13:28:51 GMT -7
For those of you who came on from avatar10.proboards91.com/, also known as Avatar10, A10, etc., I will clarify exactly what happened on that fateful night the forum died.
Please note that this story puts blame on both sides, it's not a one-sided story trying to make us look innocent. it simply tells what was going through our minds when blue-dragon and I [Tera253] did what we did.
It started way back in December 2008. aike (who shall be referred to as 'admin') was sharing power with blue-dragon (who will be called 'blue' from here on out), another member and a devoted moderator/administrator of avatar10. admin had made many previous claims that he was going to shut down the site, but at the request of some members, it was left up and open.
He then gave blue his password. since I [Tera253] was not involved at this point, I am not sure exactly what happened, but from my understanding, admin was handing his account over to blue. There was even an announcement posted saying that blue would be using admin's account.
on the evening of December 6th, 2008, blue spent most of the evening changing and upgrading the site. This also included changing the admin account's name to Blue-Dragon, as blue assumed that admin had handed things over to him.
The next morning, [December 7] the whole site was thrown into a state of mass confusion. Everything that blue had done the night before had been removed. In fact, with the exception of the boards and posts themselves, everything was gone, including the chat for a while. Apparently admin had not been very clear about what he had given blue, or he was an Indian giver and wanted it all back. The site was put into maintenance mode for this reason, and this left members confused.
The initial features, such as skins, titles, etc. were restored within the first 2 hours or so, but the site stayed closed unnecessarily for 4 more days while old posts that no one looked at were removed, finally being restored on December 11. The site remained closed for otherwise no reason until this time.
After this was all said and done, an announcement about forum contests and/or other gimmicks to make the site more active was made, and for a few days the site was more active. Perhaps the assumptions about admin that blue and I had made were wrong. maybe he WAS in fact becoming more active. Maybe blue HAD been wrong in doing what he did.
As a result of the contest hype, members got excited, and for a week or so, there was excitement. However, when no announcement of said contests was made, not even a date, hope began to fade. However, about 2-3 weeks later, near the end of 2008, an announcement was made for January 2nd. THIS, friends, is where the story of Tera253 comes into play.
in the chat I had made a joke that I was going to commence a hostile takeover of avatar10. I said that I was going to hack admin's e-mail and change his password, and I did so in front of him on the chat. This was obviously evidence that I was joking around, and that I didn't actually mean it.
However, that very same day, January 3rd, after the contests had ended, blue came to me stating certain opinions about the site and recent events. I will confess that I shared his views, and so when he said "you should actually do that hostile takeover" we talked it over and planned it out very carefully. we both acknowledged that we'd probably be banned for doing so, but we didn't care about ourselves getting banned as much as we did about making a better a10. as a result, we "took over" that afternoon.
Contrary to what admin says, there was no actual "hacking" involved. that was MY original plan, but blue had a nicer way of doing it. all we had to do was change his email and password, and so we did. since we did not want him to come back and delete everything like he did on December 7th, we had no choice but to ban his IP.
Once again, we did not do it as a hate attack against admin, nor because of a power issue. we did it because we wanted avatar10 to be a site with all sorts of fun things to do, neat features, and an altogether active and friendly community, and activeness also meant a need for active staff members. We were dissatisfied with admin's incompetence of running a site, so instead of whining and complaining like most people would, we decided to step forward and do something about it.
During the two or three days that blue and I [Tera253] were in charge, we spent hours making great changes. Why do I call them "great" changes? because maybe it was just a coincidence, but the site was slightly more active in those last two days than it had been in a while. we were both glad, because we figured that it would again be a fun and more active place to be.
Then came the foreseen fateful day when avatar10 died: the day admin came back and took over again, taking blue and I down--destroying the site that we had put so many dedicated hours into creating and maintaining.
As a result, some of the regular members were not very pleased with the shutting down of the site for the 3rd time in the last month, and so we got together and decided to make another site from the ashes of a10. I asked if anyone else wanted to make it, because again, this was not a power thing. I was chosen for some reason, and I assume it was because of my forum knowledge.
Anyways, this site, dubbed Avatar2009, A09, etc. then started up, with me at its head. To further indicate that this was not a power issue, I ranked myself right next to the other members, posting and behaving generally like they do.
Being an admin has never been a big deal to me, just like having 70,000 posts didn't mean a great deal to me. I don't care about admin status, I just want a site where people of all sorts can talk and not feel like there's going to be a site crash every other day. I just want to have an enjoyable avatar forum.
One last note: There was a controversial thread posted on a10 by a user named "Ammon" claiming that Nephi [me, AKA Tera253] had been killed. This was done by me ONLY as an experiment to see how people would react to my absence, since I would no longer be able to show my face at a10 without admin boobing and whining and banning me. I am not dead, but I am no longer on avatar10, so in a way, I'm "never coming back".
People generally do not care who is in charge of a site. As long as the site is run well, and the ones running it are nice, active, and able to listen to reasonable requests. I don't lord my power over anyone else here, and have no plans of doing so. I'm going to be posting on the forum just like I would on a10.
I hope that clears things up about what happened. I am not trying to say that we were innocent. I acknowledge that what we did probably could have been handled in a nicer way, but alas, it is over. I'm going to miss avatar10 as well, but with a someone like admin running it as badly as he is, there is no turning back. By swearing me out, taking over my account on a10 to spread lies about me, removing his two most dedicated members and destroying everything that they put devoted hours into creating, he is now my enemy; and as a result, I can no longer return to avatar10 with the exception of one last time...
That's the true story. Would I really go through all that time writing it to lie, especially to end by calling myself guilty? no I wouldn't. I hope everyone understands that.
Any Questions, comments, or concerns about this issue are welcome. just PM me, Tera253.
all the best,
~Tera253~
Please note that this story puts blame on both sides, it's not a one-sided story trying to make us look innocent. it simply tells what was going through our minds when blue-dragon and I [Tera253] did what we did.
It started way back in December 2008. aike (who shall be referred to as 'admin') was sharing power with blue-dragon (who will be called 'blue' from here on out), another member and a devoted moderator/administrator of avatar10. admin had made many previous claims that he was going to shut down the site, but at the request of some members, it was left up and open.
He then gave blue his password. since I [Tera253] was not involved at this point, I am not sure exactly what happened, but from my understanding, admin was handing his account over to blue. There was even an announcement posted saying that blue would be using admin's account.
on the evening of December 6th, 2008, blue spent most of the evening changing and upgrading the site. This also included changing the admin account's name to Blue-Dragon, as blue assumed that admin had handed things over to him.
The next morning, [December 7] the whole site was thrown into a state of mass confusion. Everything that blue had done the night before had been removed. In fact, with the exception of the boards and posts themselves, everything was gone, including the chat for a while. Apparently admin had not been very clear about what he had given blue, or he was an Indian giver and wanted it all back. The site was put into maintenance mode for this reason, and this left members confused.
The initial features, such as skins, titles, etc. were restored within the first 2 hours or so, but the site stayed closed unnecessarily for 4 more days while old posts that no one looked at were removed, finally being restored on December 11. The site remained closed for otherwise no reason until this time.
After this was all said and done, an announcement about forum contests and/or other gimmicks to make the site more active was made, and for a few days the site was more active. Perhaps the assumptions about admin that blue and I had made were wrong. maybe he WAS in fact becoming more active. Maybe blue HAD been wrong in doing what he did.
As a result of the contest hype, members got excited, and for a week or so, there was excitement. However, when no announcement of said contests was made, not even a date, hope began to fade. However, about 2-3 weeks later, near the end of 2008, an announcement was made for January 2nd. THIS, friends, is where the story of Tera253 comes into play.
in the chat I had made a joke that I was going to commence a hostile takeover of avatar10. I said that I was going to hack admin's e-mail and change his password, and I did so in front of him on the chat. This was obviously evidence that I was joking around, and that I didn't actually mean it.
However, that very same day, January 3rd, after the contests had ended, blue came to me stating certain opinions about the site and recent events. I will confess that I shared his views, and so when he said "you should actually do that hostile takeover" we talked it over and planned it out very carefully. we both acknowledged that we'd probably be banned for doing so, but we didn't care about ourselves getting banned as much as we did about making a better a10. as a result, we "took over" that afternoon.
Contrary to what admin says, there was no actual "hacking" involved. that was MY original plan, but blue had a nicer way of doing it. all we had to do was change his email and password, and so we did. since we did not want him to come back and delete everything like he did on December 7th, we had no choice but to ban his IP.
Once again, we did not do it as a hate attack against admin, nor because of a power issue. we did it because we wanted avatar10 to be a site with all sorts of fun things to do, neat features, and an altogether active and friendly community, and activeness also meant a need for active staff members. We were dissatisfied with admin's incompetence of running a site, so instead of whining and complaining like most people would, we decided to step forward and do something about it.
During the two or three days that blue and I [Tera253] were in charge, we spent hours making great changes. Why do I call them "great" changes? because maybe it was just a coincidence, but the site was slightly more active in those last two days than it had been in a while. we were both glad, because we figured that it would again be a fun and more active place to be.
Then came the foreseen fateful day when avatar10 died: the day admin came back and took over again, taking blue and I down--destroying the site that we had put so many dedicated hours into creating and maintaining.
As a result, some of the regular members were not very pleased with the shutting down of the site for the 3rd time in the last month, and so we got together and decided to make another site from the ashes of a10. I asked if anyone else wanted to make it, because again, this was not a power thing. I was chosen for some reason, and I assume it was because of my forum knowledge.
Anyways, this site, dubbed Avatar2009, A09, etc. then started up, with me at its head. To further indicate that this was not a power issue, I ranked myself right next to the other members, posting and behaving generally like they do.
Being an admin has never been a big deal to me, just like having 70,000 posts didn't mean a great deal to me. I don't care about admin status, I just want a site where people of all sorts can talk and not feel like there's going to be a site crash every other day. I just want to have an enjoyable avatar forum.
One last note: There was a controversial thread posted on a10 by a user named "Ammon" claiming that Nephi [me, AKA Tera253] had been killed. This was done by me ONLY as an experiment to see how people would react to my absence, since I would no longer be able to show my face at a10 without admin boobing and whining and banning me. I am not dead, but I am no longer on avatar10, so in a way, I'm "never coming back".
People generally do not care who is in charge of a site. As long as the site is run well, and the ones running it are nice, active, and able to listen to reasonable requests. I don't lord my power over anyone else here, and have no plans of doing so. I'm going to be posting on the forum just like I would on a10.
I hope that clears things up about what happened. I am not trying to say that we were innocent. I acknowledge that what we did probably could have been handled in a nicer way, but alas, it is over. I'm going to miss avatar10 as well, but with a someone like admin running it as badly as he is, there is no turning back. By swearing me out, taking over my account on a10 to spread lies about me, removing his two most dedicated members and destroying everything that they put devoted hours into creating, he is now my enemy; and as a result, I can no longer return to avatar10 with the exception of one last time...
That's the true story. Would I really go through all that time writing it to lie, especially to end by calling myself guilty? no I wouldn't. I hope everyone understands that.
Any Questions, comments, or concerns about this issue are welcome. just PM me, Tera253.
all the best,
~Tera253~