Jul 18
The Dark Knight: THE Summer Movie
So for the past few months, you may have seen me sporting a Batman avatar or talking about The Dark Knight and how much I was looking forward to it. On July 1st, I headed over at 10:30 am and bought tickets for the 12:01 am showing on July 17th. I am so very glad I did. Before I go into the review itself, I want you all to appreciate just how big this was.
My theater had 10 screenings. Around 2:30pm yesterday, I called over and asked just how crazy it was. I could hear the noise in the background. At that time, 6 screens were sold out and 1700 tickets had been sold and they were close to selling out the 7th. By 10:30pm, all 10 screens were sold out. I wanted to get there an hour and a half early. Thanks to my friends being their usual late selves, I got there an hour early.
And it was packed. I had to park far back and walk over. Inside it was a messy mob of people. I had to push my way through. When they were taking tickets, everyone was pushing one way or the other, the people taking the tickets (4) were ripping as fast as possible. You should have seen the stubs piled on top of the desk. Getting in there relatively quick, we weren't quick enough. most of the seats were filling up. Luckily my friend and I got 2 seats on the end of the mid row towards the top. For this theater, that's really good seating. And I do love the aisle. Unfortunately, there was no 3rd free seat so I called up my other friend and let him know. He decided not to go. Unfortunate for him as he missed a great movie.
We were in our seats around 11:20. With over a half hour to go, I smartly brought my mp3 player. I ended up watching Batman: Almost Got 'Im for 20 minutes. Then I fired up Batman Begins and watched the end again to refresh myself. By that time, the theater was nearly settled. They didn't start the movie until 12:07 (6 minutes after the posted start time). The previews were nice but as always there were too many and I wanted to kill someone by the 7th.
From here on, I shall place everything in a spoiler tag:
Keep in mind this discusses the plot and a lot of detail.
Do NOT read if you want to remain spoiler free! I discuss most of the plot!Spoiler: click to toggle
Now that I've finished the VERY spoiler filled portion, I'd like to give a nonspoiled review on the actors.
Let me start by saying that Heath Ledger does deserve a posthumous oscar win. BUT Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart definitely deserve a nomination as well. Both excelled in their role as the two men trying to save Gotham. The trinity they had with Batman was just fantastic.
Oldman in my opinion has slipped under the radar because of all the talk of the new cast additions (Ledger and Eckhart) But he did a fantastic job as Jim Gordon and portrayed a Gordon we never saw in the old movies. This was THE Gordon I had been waiting for. Smart, determined, Uncorruptable. Oldman was perfect.
Eckhart had probably the second toughest role. How do you introduce a character and then portray his fall in the course of one movie? Thanks to his acting and the script, he did it very, very well. I really can't say anymore about him without spoiling it.
Ledger as I mentioned in the spoilers was fantastic and is such a shame that we'll never see him again. He really was one of the best actors of our time and had so much talent to give. He was positively delightful as the Joker. Absolutely fantastic.
Bale was overshadowed by the supporting cast at times but he brought the same great talent and he had in the first one to this one and did a great job balancing the three roles: Bruce, Batman and the real Bruce.
Morgan Freeman had a perfect role. He perfomed it well and balanced the depression with a little bit of humor and kindness. He was a perfect Lucius Fox. It was nice to see someone who in the other medium is a very minor player be given a larger role.
Michael Caine seemed to have the least amount of screen time for some reason. Yet he was in plenty of scenes. His role was not really reduced, but he sort of took a backseat. What he did do was fantastic as he kept Bruce going. He protected the protector as I mentioned in the Spoiler part.
Lastly, Maggie Gyllenhaal was quite good. She wasn't quite like Katie Holmes, but she performed well enough in the role that it did not matter. However of the other actors, I'd say she was the weakest. Part of that is that she had to replace another actress while the others were either reprising their role or were just being introduced.
Now then:
GO SEE THIS MOVIE.
I intend to see if a few more times for sure.
May 07
Adios Senorita Rory
On June 14, 2003 ; Brandon announced a test to see about making a graphics team. As a freshly new member with little graphic talent, I watched from the sidelines. Several members entered this contest including one talented graphic designer named Naughty by Nature.
Brandon's test was simple: Create a set of Team Icons for the Support Board.
Naughty by Nature won the contest and the icons were used. He was promoted as the first member of the graphics team. Raven and Dranzer followed. The graphics team lasted a bit but eventually it, like the skinning team was phased out. Naughty by Nature by this time changed his username to his real name: Rory and when graphics were disbanded, he became a Community Moderator. He and Seth were always joking around in the community and making fun of themselves and each other. Rory was very active in the community and a friendly, approachable guy.
Around mid 2004, I had come up with the idea of Invisionfree Trivia. I pmed Rory for his permission. He had no problem with it and helped me by closing topics as needed. He, Seth and Brian actually joined the second game. Midway though, I was promoted to Community Moderator. The final 3 contestants of the game were Rory, Seth and Spurius. Seth lost. Then Spurius and finally Rory got it right and won the first ever Invisonfree Trivia. His winners speech is still the best:
- Quote:
on a parting note:
HAHAHA, seth didn't win! mwhahahahaha, sucks to be you
Between the first and second game, rory gave me his MSN. He was the very first staff member I added. We talked many times on MSN and it was fun. Just like on IF, he was a fun guy to talk to. When I first was promoted, I went to him the most for advice. Whether he realizes it or not, his example taught me a lot and it was in turn passed down to future moderators.
One of the many recurring jokes with rory was the fact that he got drunk a little too often. But the more famous one would have to be the Pink Revolution. I honestly can't recall how exactly it started, but Rory suddenly had a signature and avatar that said Pink Revolution. For April Fools of that year, he had made InvisionPink, a pink IF skin. It was a blindly piece of IF history that was used again in 07.
Rory's greeting to new staff members and to any member in general on Com Chat or IRC was Hola Senorita. For a brief time on IRC he and I would say things like Hey girlfriend and he'd or I would reply with hey baby girl. When you did something, at times he'd say good girl. These were the little things that made Rory so unique.
As a staff member, Rory was not always goofy. But his good nature was infectious. When he gave his opinion, it was always valuable. He had a way of pinpointing the issue. Other times, he just made others feel better with his funny comments. He seemed to remind us all of why we did what we did. When we were frustrated by this thing, he'd find a way of reminding us what we should be. One thing I will always admire is the fact that he never held back what he thought. He would tell you the truth even if it hurt. And sometimes, we needed that wake up call.
I wish I could tell you all everything Rory did, but part of being staff means not being able to share everything. But suffice to say, Rory was a great Community Moderator, A great member of the staff and a great great friend.
Despite his recent inactivity due to college, when he did log in, he was the same great person. Offline he was very similiar. I think we were all impressed when he mentioned he'd be running a marathon. That's something that one just can't help but admire regardless of how well they do.
Rory is a talented, funny, fantastic person and I will so greatly miss his name in green. While I'll see him online and on the boards, it feels like the Community has lost a piece of itself. To me, Rory was the heart of the Community for so many years.
Adios Senorita and long live the Pink Revolution!
May 07
A look at things from the side of a staff member
Since 2004, I had the joy of being staff. At times it was great. Others, not so much. Words can not truly describe the talent and dedication of everyone I've worked with for this time. The amount of tickets completed by Seth, Ben, Brian, Nicola, Ryan(Quimby), Alcario, Phrank, Jay and the numerous others is incalculable. IF Support has gone 24/7 since it opened, only going down when upgrades or the server had trouble.
And as dedicated as we are, I truly have never seen one as dedicated as Brandon. And through it all, he's retained his (outdated) sense of humor and good nature. I've said it before, but I really don't think it can not be expressed just how hard Brandon worked on ZB.
I can recall when it was just a thought. We knew that we weren't going to be able to upgrade IF to IPB 2.0. We were faced with several options. Constructing our own software was the one that allowed the most growth, but it also would take the longest amount of time. To the staff at the time, it made little sense to choose the other options. We all knew that IF was destined for big things and that there was only so far we could push the existing software. Could we have added a shop, rpg and some other bells and whistles and called it an upgrade? We could have. But it would have limited the potential of this service greatly. So it was an unanimous vote that we make our own software.
I realize I say we, but really it was Brandon for 95% of the process. The other 5% went to Seth and his designing with Nicola. The first phase of this new software, was to get the ideas down. I can recall Brandon telling me he had a notepad of all feature requests and his plans for several features (Some made it and some did not). I can even recall my first look at this software. A white background with black text. A screenshot of the admin cp Brandon was working on back in late 05, early 06.
It became apparent fast that as only 1 man was doing the job, it would take a long time. We tried to buy as much time as possible by referring to the upgrade as IPB 2.0 at first when we thought we were upgrading. When we knew we weren't, we gradually phased this out by calling it just 2.0. Then IF 2.0. Gradually we adjusted our information so that members would realize they weren't getting IPB 2.0 for free (which some had already realized and had been questioning about the license).
That bought us almost a year. But we still had a long way to go. Brandon had been managing IF, Premium Services and Restorals at the time. It became apparent if he kept up this way, IF 2.0 would not be out for a very long time. So he stopped restorations. And basically for that time, the staff just left him alone most of the time and took our day to day things to Seth.
Finally around Christmas 06, we were ready for the first beta test. Then server 13 went down. It had already been going down a lot but two or three days before Christmas, it went down and stayed down. IF 2 came to a screeching halt while Brandon dealt with the Data Center and the staff spent time trying to moderate the forum. There wasn't even support being given really. The hundreds of disgruntled users and 200 topics took up all our time. Once that was fixed, Brandon resumed work on IF 2. We had our first beta the last week of January, First week of February.
Just like the admin page I'd seen before, this was like IF without the skin. And boy were there bugs. Only register and log in were fully debugged at the time. Throughout the month of February, that beta gradually got more and more debugged and had a temporary skin thrown on. We saw more and more of the new features and really got excited. Things looked good. Seth had started making mock up images, Nicola had started skinning with Seth. Brandon and Brian had settled on a name for this new software: Zetaboards. Brandon announced the name on the 23rd of March. After 2 years of no information, Brandon finally had something to share. With classes ending soon and summer around the corner, it looked like Zetaboards would be ready that summer.
It wasn't of course. But that didn't stop everyone from revving up. Staff poured over the beta looking for every bug possible. The skin started to take shape and Brandon continued to debug and finish up the software. Believing we were close, Seth and Brandon announced the need for a Documentation team. Many applied. Only a few made it: Nicola, Locke, Scotty, Pete, Potter, James C and Verminox were all chosen. Unfortunately for the Doc Team, the board was changing daily with the features being added, changed or debugged. It was several weeks before they really got to work. The docuwiki had been finished and Seth had given them access and away they went. By this time, the big bugs were squashed. There wasn't much for the rest of us to do but to deal with the members and stall for more time.
The second closed beta was announced in October. Users who had stood out in the community were given the chance to test the new software as a reward for their loyalty to the service. I can't recall all who participated but I believe Dale, Kezzie and Das or Dennis were part of it. They went to work finding bugs that the staff had missed. I should mention that the public beta was on a new board. Brandon made a brand new board for this test and so bugs that had been fixed, popped up again. Things were looking good in October. Then in November, s1 crashed. This was probably the second biggest crash. Server 2's complete loss of members remains the worst. It is only from memory then that I recall the time of March 23rd (the day Brandon announced Zetaboards) to November 18th. But it was an exciting time and the staff were putting their all into getting this thing done. But most of the work still came down to Brandon. And he was chugging along until s1 took his time.
The New Year saw a lot of progress. By the end of the month, the first public beta of Zetaboards was nearly ready. Brandon had a tease in his signature for a week. He had planned to release it late Friday night but in his sleep deprived state, made a big error and put the data on the wrong database. So it was released after midnight on Saturday. Seth, Scotty, Nicola, myself and others spent that Saturday on a new test board that would be the support board for the beta. We uploaded attachments, promoted staff and made forums and rules. Everything was set. Once the beta was changed over to another site however, there were some bugs at the release. The notable bug being that moderator options did not work. Keep in mind that this public beta was just this one board at the time. Members could not yet register their own boards as the admin cp continued to be the buggiest part of the whole software. So at the time, all members could see was the new skin, custom profile fields, joinable groups (which i nearly broke because of the ACP) and a few other goodies. The software was met with mixed reaction.
A month went by of members just getting a look at the board and giving feedback. Finally on March 3rd, members could register their own boards. Again, the software was met with mixed reaction. Some didn't like a feature, Some wanted a feature that wasn't there and so on and so forth. The spring and summer were spent killing bugs and fine tuning the skin and features. A few new features like the blog and shoutbox were started by Brandon. Finally in November, the board was ready for release. There were some technical difficulties that prevented Brandon from releasing it earlier in the month, so registrations and the new support board were not released until the beginning of the week after Thanksgiving.
In order to appease the members on IF who had waited so long for this software, Brandon promised information on the auto converter within a month. In December he announced conversions would begin in the next 1-2 weeks. On January 15th, he made the announcement that the ability to opt in to convert was available. That week, he began manual conversions.
As with Zetaboards itself, it quickly became apparent that Brandon would not be able to finish the auto converter if he kept manually converting boards. And so, the auto converter took priority over all else until s15 started to act up. Then at the end of March the Servers were defaced and we had to call Brandon away from his much deserved vacation to fix things. Upon returning from his break, he dove back into the auto converter and at the end of April, the Support Board was converted. Currently we await the final killing of bugs before the full release of the auto converter.
Why do I tell you all of this? Because for the entire process, we've had negative comments thrown our way. Until they saw it with their own eyes, members believed that Zetaboards was a lie and didn't exist. On the night of release of the public beta, the amount of "This is what we waited years for?" and "it sucks" comments were unbelievable. Following the full beta, the comments against the admin cp and how the css was "too hard" were made. Following that, were complaints that the beta had taken too long and that it should be released. Following the release was the demand for boards to be converted. Following that were demands for the auto converter. Following the conversion of Invisionfree Support, were more demands for the auto converter.
I have read comments that we announced things too early or we jumped the gun. In retrospect, at times announcements were made prematurely. But there was a very good reason I assure you. First, many times, we expected things to happen much faster and were nearly certain they would be ready. That was not the case. Second, the amount of server troubles throughout this ordeal (s13,s1,s15) greatly impacted the time spent on Zetaboards. Third, these announcements were made to appease the vocal members who wanted information. We didn't dare give detailed information because so much changed during the beta phases. Even the skin and the logo changed by release. That said, a lot of moderators and admins DID give little bits of information whenever we could in topics. We didn't make a big announcement because it wasn't announcement worthy. But when we could pass on some information, we did. The Q and A topic regarding the conversion was 10+ pages long. Ben, Nicola and I went back and forth to Brandon and Brian getting answers and posting them. We then continued to condense the topic into less then 3 pages so members didn't have to read through everything.
So saying that no information given is a bold faced lie and with the search feature on both support boards, I can prove it.
Throughout this time, members have blamed the staff (not Brandon) for misleading them. We've delivered the information we had in order to appease others. We probably should have never said a word, but that wasn't possible. Every other day, a new IF2/ZB topic was made. Tickets were the same way. It has been that way for 3 years. And so, we gave what info we could. At the time it was accurate. But that changed.
The staff have come across as rude at times because we were met with rude attitudes. And most of the staff had been here for a shorter period then myself and they only saw the half of what actually happened. And they were getting frustrated. Being a staff member was no longer fun. A lot of the Support team burnt out from the bad feelings and general unpleasantness from the feedback forums. One can only take so much negativity.
I have not burned out. I've come so very close. It is only through the fact that the people I've worked with for this long are so great that I kept going. I write this blog in the hope that you can truly get a glimpse into what this entire process has been and if you really look at the timeline, you'll see that the wait for each little thing are truly not as terrible as one might think. And the hard part is done. Zetaboards is out. The converter is due any time and any feature following will be added far faster. And at the end of the day ladies and gentleman, this is still just a free message board provider. It is not life or death and it is not something that should have you so upset. Brandon has proven that he delivers. He may not make it in the timeframe he or you want, but he does deliver and he does his best to do so as soon as humanly possible.
Mar 24
Thank You
Unless you lived under a rock until reading this blog, you're aware of what happened this past Saturday night. The Servers were defaced. And I want to take this time, to thank all our members (with the exception of a few troublemakers) who remained calm and allowed the staff to focus on the situation and not waste our time moderating. Because everything was pretty calm, the 4 hour period that the servers were defaced was not spent trashing endless posts and suspending users. We asked you to remain calm, and you did. And we truly appreciate it.
The second thank you is to Ben, who immediately called Brian once it happened and who quickly wrote a tutorial to change the domains as well as keeping everyone informed. There are few people as great as Ben. He dealt with a lot behind the scenes things on Saturday and we all extremely appreciate it.
The third thank you is to Nicola, who kept control of things on the board, kept the staff informed and who answered many of the support tickets that followed. She was always thinking several steps ahead as things occurred and stayed up far too late. (It was 1am for her).
The fourth thank you is to other services, who rather than revel in our misery as some might, offered their sympathies and helped quash untrue rumors about what had happened. All the major board providers acted very professionally when the news hit and kudos to their staff for that.
The fifth thank you is to Seth who provided some very important information and help during the attack. Sorry for freaking you out at first Seth.
The last and obvious thank you is to Brandon who immediately got on and started to restore things even though he was on vacation. Certainly not something you want on a Saturday night. But thank you to both Brian and Brandon for acting so fast once you got the call.
There are times on here where the comments members make are truly unbearable, where at times you lose hope in humanity. While it is unfortunate that it takes events like that to bring out the best in people, it should be acknowledged. Unlike Server 13 where hundreds of members basically united against the staff and took out their frustrations on us, you all had a common enemy in the attacker and united against them. But most importantly, most of you listened to our directions and did as asked. I can not emphasize how important this was to those of us on so that we could focus on the matter at hand. One 20 page topic is so much better then the 200+ topics we've had in the past.
Feb 20
What Color is your name?
If it's Orange or a reddish orange, congratulations you are an administrator of Zetaboards and can essentially tell everyone what to do. If your name is Brandon and your orange, than you know everything there is about Zetaboards. If you don't, you can simply alter Zetaboards so you do.
If it's a dark shade of blue, congratulations, you are a member of the Zetaboards Support team. You answer the Support tickets for hundreds of boards. Members look to you to know everything about Zetaboards. Your answer is final. If you don't know, then you don't know and you ask the big guy in orange and reply when you do know. Anyone who claims they know and is not orange or green or blue is wrong.
If it's a nice shade of green, you are in the best group of all, the Community Moderators. You are the enforcer of the Board Rules. You know every do and don't on this board and you enforce it like any law. You are the best friend to those who follow the rules and the worst nightmare to those who don't. You may dabble in support but you don't have to. You are knowledgable in just about any area of Zetaboards and just like Support, if you don't know, you ask the big guy in orange and reply when you do. If people complain, you can just slap on a suspension.
If it's black, you are a member. You know only what you read from the other staff or members or from using the software. When it comes to the future of Zetaboards, you are hardly an expert. You know only what you read. Sometimes what you read is outdated or inaccurate at times unless it comes directly from Brandon or a green or blue staff member offer the post as a fact. If you are in a topic and the staff member has already answered the question, you should be thankful as it's one less thing for you to do. Move on to the next topic. No need to reply to this one.
If it's grey, you've been a bad boy or girl. Santa won't be giving you any Christmas gifts this year.
Feb 10
Nicola Rocks
I was planning to do this on Valentine's Day along withand some of the other former female staff but I felt like writing it now.
Next to Seth and Brandon, I don't think I've ever met someone as hard working and dedicated as Nicola. She has devoted endless hours to making great themes and images for this board, for invisionfree skin zone and for other miscellaneous projects. She always strives to do her best and is very much a perfectionist. And the result is always stunning.
But for most of you, that's all you know. You don't know how hard she worked as a member of the doc team when meticulously making the theme documentations as easy to follow as possible. You might know how hard she worked at the skin zone as one of (in my opinion) their best administrators they've ever had, but I doubt you know everything that she did for that board and its staff.
Unless you're in IRC, you might not know how funny she can be (though her Pi joke is still terrible
As a member of our support staff, she's the sole reason theme tickets are answered so fast. No one knows more about the theme then her and she can pinpoint the problem fast. In many many cases, she's gone out of her way to fix bad code that members had put in. In addition to theme tickets, she also helps out in the theme support forum, always doing her best to get others to strive to perfection. Why use a bad code, when you can do it right with the correct code?
As staff, she's done plenty of moderation as well and taken a lot of flack from members who were foolish enough to get caught. Rather then accept their mistakes, many have tried to wage war on her. And she doesn't stop them. She might correct them if they have the wrong staff member, but she let's them blow of their steam. Contrary to what some think, she's hardly vengeful. She won't suspend someone for attacking her or get them banned. If you were suspended by her, you deserved it. Mostly I'm just jealous that she always beats me to the suspending
She's always striving to make this board better by doing her own personal best and nothing less. You'll find her up til 2am at times answering support tickets or posting in a support forum. But in addition to this forum, she also answers the IF support topics which many of us (including myself) neglect at times. She does her best to help everyone. She is a very very giving person and has sacrificed innumerable hours to help make this service great.
So in closing:
Nicola Rocks!
Jan 29
Everyone was New once
I recall when I first joined Invisionfree on April 3, 2003. I had registered my board on March 31st and had been going through the documentation by lightsup55 and using the search feature for whatever I couldn't find answered. Finally I reached the point where I could not find an answer to my question, so I registered and account and asked my question. So I did, and I received a correct answer from a fellow member. Very helpful and friendly. I made further topics that were, when I look back "stupid" but I was new and I didn't know everything and at the time, the documentation was not as thorough as it is now. Thankfully the support board was still rather small and my topics weren't buried. Lightsup55, Seth, and quizbiz (Nir) were some of the staff who helped me with getting my board up and running through their patient posts in support topics. Lightsup as I recall actually installed a code on my board for me and Nir helped me with my learning the CSS.
It's because of helpful members and staff that I stayed on the support board and actually gave support where I could, always making sure my answers were correct and thorough and above all friendly. Unfortunately (for me, not the service) Invisionfree continued to grow and eventually topics were being made by different members every minute. Members who didn't get an answer quickly started to bump their topics or grow impatient. This led to those members answering to try to answer more topics in less time. Quality was sacrificed for quantity. Eventually more people so this as a way to gain fame in support by answering lots of topics. And I would find that in the time it took for me to type a thorough answer and post it, 2 others would have posted an incorrect, half-correct or sloppy answer. After numerous incidences like this, I stopped giving support.
As time went on, everyone grew tired of trying to "fix" support including the staff. When I joined the staff, it was bad, we did our best to improve it numerous times before the staff finally threw in the towel and stuck to tickets only. Without search and the ability to view posts, we relied on members to report what they saw. With no reports, people were getting away with poor support for months. That's why we eventually moved support over to a betaboard so we could have more control.
When we were planning for Zetaboards, we decided how important it was to start support of right. We are going to be (and have been) more vigilant in stopping bad support. With the return of search and find all posts, we can catch problems and stop members much quicker. With autotools, we can restrict a user very easily from the support section. But in truth, we don't want to punish. We want members to give quality support.
So to the point of today's blog post. Everyone was new once. I have said before how much I hate the term n00b, newbie etc. It's always amusing when I play a game online and members call me a n00b. In several cases, I've played the game for years under different names. A perfect example of don't judge a book by it's cover. But in terms of this board, no matter how stupid you might find the question, if you can help the poster, we ask that you do so. Post the correct answer and be polite about it. No one benefits when make fun of someone for asking a question.
Jan 23
Aretha Franklin said it best
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Respect. Something that all members expect rightfully from the staff and something the staff should in turn expect from the members. Yes? You'd think. Speaking of think:
Think! Think about what you're trying to do to me! If you get disciplined by a staff member, know that we thought it out. Contrary to what you might believe, we don't hover over the board like vultures looking to pounce on the first troublemaker. We see a problem and we try whenever possible to politely but firmly remind members of the board rules, forum rules and pinned topics. As the previous blog emphasized, you are expected to read those items. My pity has run out long ago for those who ignore what's in front of them and then blame a staff member.
And on that note, 4 years of being staff here, I don't care what members say to me or what they think of me. Either you will be my best friend or my worst enemy. IRC people know where they stand. (And in case you're wondering EA, you're on my nice list
So with all that said, I don't care what you think of me. I do however care very much how you speak to my fellow staff, especially newer staff who are doing a great job managing this board. As the board rules state, if you have a problem, contact an admin. Do not dare drag the matter into the open as several of you have tried to do via signatures, blogs and posts. Because it is my opinion that the moment you make the matter public, you waive all rights to privacy and I personally will make all your indiscretions known to the public if you do.
As I stated in another blog, I have little respect for anyone who uses profanity. I have 0 tolerance for anyone who uses it against my fellow staff. Not only does it show your maturity level and the short range of vocabulary, but it also shows you have no respect for the staff. No staff member uses profanity when contacting you via personal message or email. What gives you the right to use profanity? Staff volunteer their time for free to help you. I recall when server 13 crashed and the sheer amount of grief you gave us. A lot of you lost my respect when that happened. That was probably the only time I was ever so hurt by members at this service. Not because of the comments I received (although plenty were quite colorful) but because of the comments aimed at the other moderators. For 4 years, the people that have come and gone from this staff have been some of the most talented and most kind people I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I still recall Sam helping with s13 while she had a migraine headache. She will always have my respect and appreciation for that time as will Aaron who, like Sam had only recently joined when server 13 crashed. Nicola has done a lot for this service in the past year and a lot of it has been behind the scenes and unacknowledged. She is the theme support ticket person. Going in there, every ticket had a response the week Zetaboards was released. Before it's release she was hard at work on the most detailed and easy to follow guide to theme editing. She has put up with my constant pestering for holiday events and delivered great work with this past winter theme. We are truly fortunate to have her. Without her, Potter, Scotty, Pete and Sani, Zetaboards documentation would have been a nightmare. The doc team did a great job and put up with a lot of disrespect from members for it. Christina, Rory, Aaron, Phrank and Hazel have been invaluable over the past year. The reason the Community is so safe and fun is because of these people. They keep thinking up new ways to get the community involved. They help me with my latest crazy idea and they make sure the rules are enforced without any public humiliation.
A while back, I made a topic in IF Discussion that was pinned saying: Respect us and we will respect you. But the truth is, we do respect you. We always have. If you lose our respect, while we may be sarcastic and rude (by the 4th or 5th time we've warned you) we'll never use profanity, so again, why is it ok to use it with us? Where is our respect?
Jan 19
For the love of God and all that is Holy, READ!!!
My largest pet peeve on the internet is a person who believes that they do not need to read topics for the information they seek and instead expect us to reply to their questions over and over again when it's already been answered numerous times before. Whenever I join a forum, I use the search feature for all of my questions first. I spent over 2 weeks on one board and just used the search feature to find all my questions. I didn't ask for support until my searches turned up nothing. When Phrank joined invisionfree, there was an error that stopped him from validating. He spent over a month reading topics and rules because he couldn't post. Sometimes, I wonder if that isn't the right idea.
In this quest for getting the answer fast, members completely disregard the information they are given. They can not be bothered to look through a 10 page topic, so the staff have to go through topics and cut the fat over and over again.
Our documentation is overlooked, pinned topics go unread and announcements are ignored. Until we punish them for not reading the rules or the topics, members don't notice the rules. Then of course they claim never to have read them. Which isn't really surprising. Of course the difference is that they chose not to read them. They ignored them. No one can say that we don't make things visible. I've used all capts in pinned topic titles, we've put up big announcement boxes when we moved support. We use larger text in forum rules. It's impossible to miss.
So when we started planning for Zetaboards support, we decided we would no longer accept any sort of I didn't read excuse. So if you are wondering why you are suspended or why you lost some posts or why your posts are being ignored or topics are being trashed, it's because we've explained things in the past, the topics are pinned or it's in the rules.
Lastly, impatience makes me angry. Read thoroughly through all posts in a Q and A topic before asking your question. Especially in the case of these conversions, your question has probably been asked before. On top of that, stop asking every other hour if we have new information. When we have information, we share immediately so we don't have to keep answering the same questions. For the sake of our sanity, I beg you, READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jan 12
Service Rivalry
I've never understood the appeal of "ezboard sucks" or "IF rules" etc. In fact I tend to knock off intelligent points on people that post things like that. I believe choosing a service comes down to preference. I did not start out with Invisionfree. I used another service first. And I liked it. I left because I wanted more. Not because I was unhappy with that service, but because it didn't fully meet my needs. And I believe it's almost like choosing a car. Between my friends we all have a different one that meet our needs. That is why some prefer other services that have less features. That is why some prefer services with more advance features or those who want more control of their boards data. And I have no problem with that.
What I have a problem with is attacking this service on this board. We don't allow advertising. We don't allow you to advertise your own board on this service outside your signature, why would you think we allow you to advertise other services? Personally I'm tired of the IF/ZB sucks crowd because they rarely have any reasons why they hate the software. The best reason is the time we take to release things. And believe me if we could speed things up we would.
It is hurtful and aggravating to see nothing but negative posts from the same members who never seem to have a nice word to say. I truly don't understand why they waste their time and ours attacking a service if they hate it so, I'm one who feels if you don't like something, then get out. Obviously we can't please everyone but there are some that are always so pessimistic that they look for every detail to pick apart simply to aggravate the staff. And for what? the satisfaction of pushing our buttons? wasting our time? Congratulations and have a cookie. Now get out.
No one minds seeing constructive criticism but there is a fine line between constructive criticism and whining. Constructive criticism actually offers suggestions to improve the software. Whining is simply throwing a tantrum because things don't work the way you want. And to those people, I pity them when they get older.
What I have found more amusing then anything though is services that actually attack us on their main boards and their members register here and attack us. With the exception of one service a year or two back, this doesn't reflect on their staff just on their misguided members who believe they are helping their service by spamming links. Instead they are hurting it. Spammed links are simply filtered which cuts off any advertising to the service and any attempts to get around the filter are noticeable and dealt with. How does it reflect on the service when members find the name banned. On us, we're rather honest. If someone repeatedly advertises, we filter the link. It's a policy that has been enforced for years and it's not likely to change. It would be far more interesting and more beneficial to the other services if these misguided members spent their time helping give support for that software rather then getting it blacklisted on other services by repeatedly spamming links.
10:26 AM Dec 8
