Post by Akbar Le Grey on Mar 5, 2006 2:00:08 GMT -5
Editor : Akbar Le Grey.
Columnists: PJ, Linda, une femme auteur anonyme.
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A SPECIAL INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
Akbar: Today I am conducting a very special and exclusive interview with a very special 667er; one we almost lost last week. Hi, Songbird.
Songbird: Hey Akbar. Thank you so much for having me.
Akbar: It's a pleasure. Now, let's get started. Could you breifly describe how you became a mod, and give me some information about your tenure?
Songbird: During the temporary mod thing I correctly answered all of the questions swans asked, so she made me a temporary mod for a couple of weeks. Later, they chose what I thought (and I'm still unsure of) was a real mod for the games section. I noticed that that mod was never online and PMed Trag asking if I could take his place. And that's how I got my section.
Akbar: Alright, now before we go into more opinionated and personal questions, could you just tell me exactly what happened? There are lots of rumours and different versions going around, and I think we all need the matter to be cleared up a little.
Songbird:Basically what happened was that I asked Trag a few months after I became a mod if I could be allowed in the restricted section. He said no, and I left it alone. Then I asked some mods (who I forgot) why I wasn't allowed in the section. I was told that Trag believed I blackmailed him. Apparently he told the mods that I blackmailed him with something and that's why I wasn't allowed in the section. A bit later I brought it up again, saying it wasn't fair that member of the month was chosen by ALL the board mods, and we got into a discussion as to why he wouldn't let me in the restricted section. I also addressed the issue of the blackmailing, to which Trag responded: It was a joke. (not a direct quote I'm just writing; what I remember) The conclusion of that discussion was that I was not allowed in the restricted section because my section was deemed unimportant by him, and that I didn't blackmail him.
Akbar: One more question about that: were the mods involved or not? This is a question which I've been pondering for ages, and I'd really like to know the truth.
Songbird: Most of my friends on 667 are mods that have access to the section. I was told by one of them that Trag started a thread in the restricted section asking whether or not I should be allowed in. The majority of them said that I should be allowed in, and my friend even provided evidence with the times I had shown a great deal of responsibility for my section. As far as I know, the matter was abandoned by Trag some months ago. So basically the mods were involved in some way but apparently their opinions did not sway Trag's.
Akbar: I see. Now, what was the turning point? When did you finally realize that you'd have to do something drastic?
Songbird: My one year anniversary as a mod was approaching and I realized that I had not been given the respect I deserved. I had been contemplating leaving 667 for such a long time, the feeling of being excluded was so unpleasant. And then I remembered a similar situation ...I was ten years old, it was fifth grade. I was the loneliest kid there, nobody would play with me...I remembered the day I wanted to go outside for recess with the rest of my class, and I was late because I had to go to the bathroom, and on my way to the doors I saw every single girl in my grade was sitting in front of the doors whispering things about me. I tried to open the doors but they pushed up against them, and my teacher told me I should try to be nicer and that it was my fault. What was the moral of that story? I switched schools and ran away from my problems. And now it's come back to haunt me. I realized that I had to do something drastic because nobody listened to me, nobody paid attention to me...even as a mod. I felt discriminated against, like I had done something horrible, and things only started getting worse. My senior year of high school is almost over, and I've already had to suffer through three untimely deaths of a former classmate (from my old school, he was 17), a friends mother (who died instantly in a car accident and was in her 40s) and a friends father (the most recent, happening two days ago from a heart attack). I know who the next death is going to be. *knocks on wood* my grandpa. And I thought of all the fun times we had together. I looked back on my years at 667...feeling shut out, like nobody even wanted to get to know me, like nobody cared all over again. And I hated feeling helpless and vulnerable and excluded. So that's why I left.
Akbar: What made you come back?
Songbird: I never really left in the first place. While I may have deleted my account, giving up my mod position, I looked on as a guest. I read all of your good-bye wishes to me, and was pleasantly surprised by them. People who haven't even spoken to me were writing nice things about me. It was then that I knew I'd grown to love 667; it's my home. And then I read the article in The 667er, and I almost cried. I never knew that someone like me who had been pushed around and left out most of their life could affect so many people. I remembered all the friends I made, and how I met J. and M. at the library that day, and I felt empty. You have to understand, I don't have many friends at home, it's mostly just my boyfriend and I and my best friend Michelle. And that's why I came back, because I know I'll always have friends here, and they'll come with me wherever I take my laptop.
Akbar: Well, we're all glad that you chose to return, and we hope you'll get your job back. You certainly deserve to. Is there anything you'd like to say to 667?
Songbird: Not to sound like a cheesy award speech, but I'd like to thank those that have been kind to me for the past two and a half years I've been a member; I love you guys.
Akbar: And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my exclusive interview with the now-returned Songbird. I hope it has cleared up last week's controversy for you, and now you can form your own opinion. Cheers, and peace out.
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Linda's Rant.
Surprise! PJ and I switched articles, for a while at least. And, true to his word, it had nothing to do with toasters. Now, on to my first rant ever.
First topic: Big Brother. Another week went by, and Mr. Poe's still there. And Luis is gone. Come on, people! Mr. Poe needs to get evicted, and fast. Who'll fall victim next week? J? PJ? SnicketFace? There are just too many cool people on Big Brother for Mr. Poe to be allowed to stay.
Oh, and the whole Lady Poe thing. Maybe I just have a big screen or something, but her signature never stretched the page for me, and I didn't see anything wrong with her. But then suddenly everyone started complaining, in multiple threads, about how horrible it was and how she needs to change it to a smaller size because she’s breaking forum rules and annoying them and all that stuff. And so she did, and then people complained because it was still too big.
Hmm, there really hasn’t been much that’s been annoying at 667 this week. Fearsome Fiction is blossoming with the influx of Weird Ship Week stories (13 so far), and MM has a pretty good balance of different types of threads. There hasn’t been anything terribly exciting like last week, but 667 isn’t dying either. That’s it; I’ll rant about the lack of ranting material. People need to do stupid stuff or annoying stuff or noteworthy stuff and make this job easier. I can’t think of any more 667 material so now I have to start on stuff that personally annoys me.
I hate Macs, I just decided. Due to a cruel twist of fate, I’ve had to write most of this on a random Mac instead of a familiar computer, and it’s been driving me crazy. Sure, I bet there are advantages to Macs and I just need to take the time to learn how to use them correctly and all that stuff, but I’m in a hurry right now, and the mouse is bugging me, and I don’t know how to copy and paste, and besides, this is a rant, so I’m not going to be very positive about them.
Oh, and my school (or one of my schools, long story) is probably going to cut the funding that allows people (like me) to get free and discounted bus passes so they can spend money building signs. At the same time, they’re complaining that the parking lots are too crowded and they don’t have room to build more. Hmm, do you think they stopped to consider that cutting the funding for bus passes will only make the problem worse? Seriously, people, use common sense.
Hmm, PJ said this was supposed to be a page long. It’s not a page yet, but it’s as long as his (probably because I have longer paragraphs), and I do believe I’ve run out of material, so until next week, goodbye!
-Linda
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The Subjective Flaneur
By A Member
"Watching you, so you don't have to do it yourself"
I have something to say to a few people here. While I will not state precisely whom these are for, the intended recipients should be able to hazard a guess:
-No, I do not want one of those Aye-POD things you seem so intent on selling to us.
-If you make two dozen accounts solely for the purpose of drastically increasing or decreasing someone's karma, including your own, don't talk about doing so, or someone will probably deliberately modify that person's, or your, karma in the other direction.
-I'm torn between telling you to leave because you seem to annoy everyone, and asking you to stay because you argue with people so much, thus providing interesting reading for bystanders.
-You need to use less obvious passwords. (And "ICantBelieveItsNotSwordfish" is not not obvious)
-You seem amazingly intelligent, witty, noble, and based on the available evidence, quite attractive. But don't worry, I will do no harm to your current romantic partner.
-The Weird Ships Week story you wrote is...remarkable. Very remarkable.
-If you're going to read my column, please put some clothes on.
Our longtime GGames section moderator has deleted herself, rightfully angry at not being let in the moderator board. I get the impression that this conflict has been simmering for some time, though only within the mod board. (I know nothing of that board's dealings, except for what is mentioned about it outside of it, so I am unclear on any precise details. However, I have determined that the mod board's password is not "swordfish", "hsifdrows", "dhcmrlchtdj", "password", or "ICantBelieveItsNotSwordfish". At this point in the experiment, the school librarian kicked me off the computer, apparently under the impression that I was trying to hack her credit card account, which I guess looks a whole lot like a forum. But I digress.) Denied access to the apparent official Hall of Records, Songbird kept her own in GGames. From the posts made in response to her leaving, I gather that the moderators argued valiantly to get her let into their board, and yet Tragedy still denied her access.(In light of various events, it must have been a lovely and uncommon sight-- all the staff on the same side of an argument!) And even now, a moderator elected last fall--Snicketface, who is doing her job well--isn't let in. Curiously, it appears that the massive Hall of Records Thread has been moved to Alarming Announcements(or was started and grew to 16 pages while I wasn't looking, and then had many of its posts backdated to as long as a year ago. A possibility I don't discount, what with the cornucopia of glitches one can encounter on Proboards.). Rather interesting to see who's been told off for things...
Speaking of passwords, I think it'd be much appreciated if Disturbing Discussion were no longer password-protected. I'm sure that's hard on plenty of people, particularly newcomers. As anyone who's...experimented...with credit card accounts as much as I have knows, having to enter in a password repeatedly can get very annoying. I'm sure that any hacker threats are past now, and it seems entirely possible, as I believe someone suggested, that the evangelical jerk who seemed hackerish was merely the bratty Proboards plagiarist known as Mr Poe(or Musether, which sounds like a particularly vile kind of potted meat). He was bratty, yes, but essentially harmless. And his possible fundy alter ego has been gone for two months now.
Dave the Lightsaber Spoon, it appears, has an evil twin named Jessie, who types in red glow text(Songbird liked glow text... Coincidence? Yes! Or is it???) This ought to be interesting. Jessie is determined to help spoons dominate the world, and turn humans into giant spoons, and Dave is determined to stop him. This is surely a welcome change. What the forum really needs is more glowing silverware family feuds. Who didn't love the unfortunately canceled TV shows "Married...with Sporks", and "The Addams Cultery"?(Though I understand the Food Channel runs them at 2 in the morning sometimes, that's my designated hour for working on this column. The sacrifices I make for you, dear reader!)
Another newbie of interest is "reporter", who claims to be outraged by 667's breaking of decrees and the inability of the staff to enforce them. Admittedly, they do have a valid point. He/she/[hermaphrodite pronoun] threatens that we may be "REPORTED!". But to whom? The Proboards staff? The government? God? If they're a troll, they're a decidedly uninteresting one...I suppose that if you're reading this in the newspaper, his/her/[hermaphrodite possessive pronoun] threats were empty.
Another newcomer, Lady Poe, has been told off for the size of her signature. Though she accused people of hazing and bullying at first, she did make it smaller, apparently after some persuasion by PM. Curiously, she made some vague comments about having the same experiences with hazing in the past, as if she has some grievance against the forum from a previous account...And she posts a lot in Ghastly Games...And she types all in glow text whose color nicely matches her current avatar...
Anything I said about hacking and stealing passwords was a joke, really. All opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Akbar, the other 667er staff, the moderators of 667 Dark Avenue, your ISP provider, your school board, the Bush cabinet, or the person standing behind you right now. I must go now. It's time for "Leave It To Teaspoon", and that show I simply cannot miss.
-Une femme auteur anonyme.
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Member Interview of the Week
PJ’s Interview
Yeah, you read right. Interview. In a surpiseomgtwist! Linda and I have switched articles. Hopefully for a prolonged amount of time, though if I screw the interview up, or Linda gets sick of the Rant, she’ll probably switch back to this. This week’s interview-ee is Euro, also known as EuroMegaMouth. Here goes:
PJ: Ok then, let's get started.
Euro: Yes, let's.
PJ: Hello, Euro. What's your real name? If I may ask?
Euro: Megan.
PJ: Cool, cool. Do you read the 667er? Like, weekly?
Euro: Well, no I don't.
PJ: D:
Treachery!
Euro: Yeah, I know. I'm horrible.
PJ: Well, read this week's edition, at least.
Euro: I shall do that!
PJ: All-rightey then. I'm sorry, this is my first interview EVAR, so it’s kinda slow.
Euro: 'tsalright!
PJ: So...uh...tell us about your hobbies.
Euro: Uhhh...I like drawing, reading, writing, singing, acting, modelling/camera-whoring, playing guitar, getting online, and illegally downloading stuff.
Euro: Oh, and kissing feet. Can't leave out that one.
PJ: Aaah..yes....downloading stuff is fun. And the feet one sounds nice too.
PJ: So, how old are you?
Euro: 13
PJ: You're pretty mature for your age...at 13 I was still learning to tie my shoe-laces...
PJ: Ok, so describe your personality a bit.
Euro: I'm...outgoing and loud, I have mental disorders, so sometimes I have outbursts of odd behaviour, I'm always honest, though I try to be sweet...
Dunno what else.
PJ: Yeah, you're damn pretty awesome
PJ: So, do you think you're popular, on 667?
Euro: No, not really. Well, a little with the older posters, but that's it.
PJ: What's your opinion on 667 generally? Boring? Interesting? Over-crowded with snobs? Or n00bs?
Euro: 667 is the best. It's so great... always something going on, rarely boring. And the n00bs aren't that bad.
PJ: Excellent. So, is 667 important in your life? Or is it just something to pass the time on a rainy day?
Euro: Definitely important in my life. I'm on here almost every day.
PJ: You used to be a member of 667 quite a while ago, then you left, and rejoined a short while ago. How does the modern 667 compare with the old 667? Most people seem to be of the opinion that it's lost a lot of pizzazz.
Euro: Yeah, the old 667 was much better, but modern 667 is nice. The old 667 was like a home to me, nowadays it's like a hotel.
PJ: Oh...crap...I had a really cool awesome question, but I forgot it...
PJ: *tries to remember*
PJ: give me a moment
Euro: That sucks.
PJ: Yes. Yes it does.
PJ: Oh, I remembered. How many warnings and/or strikes you got? And why did you get them? Especially if you did get them in a mass e-wedding-turned-daycare center, cos in that case, you'll have to tell us all about the juicy details.
Euro: On my old account, I had 3 strikes and about a dozen warnings. Tragedy was nice and let me stay on anyway. I got them mostly for flaming and using improper language. And that e-daycare center. Which was one of the greatest, most memorable moments of my life.
PJ: Yes. It was pretty memorable cos I was there. So I take you aren't one of those married-to-one-or-two-people persons. How many e-spouses do you have? Or family members?
Euro: I have lots of e-spouses! And a few incestuous e-siblings.
…
Meh. I’ve got to go to school, dahling.
PJ: Shiiit. Incestuous e-siblings are awesome, by the way. And wait. I have one more question.
PJ: Have you started any crazes or fads or special sayings? Is there something you do that is special, unique, like J.'s sentient knife, Walter?
Euro: Yep. "biznatch"
PJ: You invented that? Sweet. Ok, good bye. Sorry for wasting you time. Have "fun" at school
Euro: thanx!byebye!
PJ: *hugg* Cya!
<That concludes the interview. Please note that PJ has doctored the interview to make things more interesting, so you shouldn’t believe anything it says. In fact, it may be entirely made up, as PJ couldn’t find anyone to interview.>
Speaking of, I think SetnicK volunteered. SetnicK, I’ll PM you a link to a chatroom, and we can arrange a time, and something. Afterwards, if there are no more takers, I’ll start threatening people. I.e. I’ll probably interview staff members like Linda herself or perhaps Akbar. I hope you’ve liked this interview.
kthxbye.
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