by Crazy Ivan
If you're a member of our forum, you already know this, but as of today we are welcoming two new moderators to our online message board. Two very dedicated and deserving members of the forum, Rotscale and DGH, have graciously stepped up and offered their help in keeping our forum clean and running smooth.
Much like my recent 5000th post, this landmark has left me thinking about how far the forum has come in the years we've operated it. There was a time in recent memory when it was relatively easy to moderate the forum by myself (or with occasional help from Kid Myach). Now I can't imagine biting off that sizable task alone.
But it's also cool to reflect on the individual journeys from fresh faced Myachi maniac to ful blown forum leader. rotscale has been in the game for a long while and though his forum presence has had its peaks and troughs, he's been a stalwart for years. He's always been quick to diffuse the tension when things get heated and he's always been a bastion of maturity when things start to get out of hand.
DGH has not been on the forum as long, but I think most of us recognized right away that this dude was destined for high ranks. He joined the forum a little over a year ago after meeting Bones at TRU and to this day Bones considers teaching DGH to be one of his proudest moments in Myachi. DGH quickly became an integral part of our community and has repeatedly taken on obligations above and beyond the duty of the typical forum-ite.
But of course, as with any promotion, there are other, equally deserving names that had to be passed over. It's the sad truth that whenever you promote one person you have to choose them over another. The honest truth is that there are at least 3 other members who have really earned a place as Forum Leader as well. We couldn't promote everyone who deserved it, of course, or we'd end up with a village full of chiefs and no indians, but I'm sure that comes as a small consolation to those who were overlooked for the promotion.
To those people I urge patience. It's never long before we need to add more muscle to our enforcement team so I'm sure that the other names that were floated will earn their stripes soon. Until then I simply ask that they remind us how much we want to promote them by taking the disappointment with maturity and supporting our new leaders with the kind of respect that they would want if/when they get a similar promotion.
The forum is one of the most tangible ways that I measure Myachi's growth over the years and if it's any indicator, Myachi has shifted into high gear. Hopefully, with the help of these two new leaders and our accomplished team of veteran mods that we can continue to make the Myachi Forum a fun and inviting place for every new member that arrives.
... assuming we can all agree on the lolcats.
Showing posts with label forum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forum. Show all posts
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
The One You've Been Waiting For...
by Crazy Ivan
A delivery truck pulled up to HQ this morning and we got excited.
Delivery trucks show up here all the time, of course. We have office equipment, computer equipment, promotional materials and stationary showing up all the time so normally it's no big deal. But this wasn't a UPS truck and it wasn't a FedEx truck. This was a DHL truck. And the only people who ship to us via DHL come out of Pakistan.
We crowded around the box like kids at Christmas as Kid Myach broke it open. And it was exactly what we were hoping to see.
The Forums Myachi:
Of course, as many of you recall, we all pretty much agreed right away about the design for the front of the sack. There was a bit of contention, however, as to the back of the Myachi. Somepeople were set on the word "jred" (the domain name of our forum) while others wanted "STWAKOJ" (our favorite acronym).
There was a debate that got heated at times, but I think ultimately it was for the best because after taking a look at the back side of the sack I figured we'd clearly made the right decision in the end:
Just seeing it was enough to wake me right up sans-caffeine today, but of course, I didn't want to just look at it, I wanted to jam with it. So I pulled one out, popped the booklet off and got to jamming. As you can see from the picture above, it wideboarded with a minimal amount of effort. The fabric is almost exactly the same as the TJP13 so you know it's a good jammer.
What you might not expect was how quickly it was a great jammer. I would have been really disappointed if this sack had been anything shy of a superb jammer and I suspect I would not be alone in my disappointment. Luckily, that was not a concern. This sack is as jammable as any Myachi I've ever seen fresh out of the diaper.
I freely admit that I have a tendency to get excited about new Myachis and have, in the past, been guilty of overselling a particular Myachi. Perhaps once or twice before I've declared something to be the "best ever" only to find a few weeks later that my excitement had gotten the best of me. So, as tempting as it is to say that this is the all-time most jammable sack ever, I'm not going to make that claim.
Instead, I'm just going to show you what happened when I took a brand new one out of the diaper, stretched it wide and crumbled it up like a bad poem:
...and I'll leave it to you to decide how jammable it is.
PS We still have not met the $ minimum to ship these sacks out. I will get the details from Pinky and post a thread on the forum to bring everyone up to speed on when these will be shipped out. All I'm going to say here is that if you wanted in and haven't gotten your money to Pinky yet, get on that. Once people see how jammable they are, they'll go quick.
A delivery truck pulled up to HQ this morning and we got excited.
Delivery trucks show up here all the time, of course. We have office equipment, computer equipment, promotional materials and stationary showing up all the time so normally it's no big deal. But this wasn't a UPS truck and it wasn't a FedEx truck. This was a DHL truck. And the only people who ship to us via DHL come out of Pakistan.
We crowded around the box like kids at Christmas as Kid Myach broke it open. And it was exactly what we were hoping to see.
The Forums Myachi:
Of course, as many of you recall, we all pretty much agreed right away about the design for the front of the sack. There was a bit of contention, however, as to the back of the Myachi. Somepeople were set on the word "jred" (the domain name of our forum) while others wanted "STWAKOJ" (our favorite acronym).
There was a debate that got heated at times, but I think ultimately it was for the best because after taking a look at the back side of the sack I figured we'd clearly made the right decision in the end:
Just seeing it was enough to wake me right up sans-caffeine today, but of course, I didn't want to just look at it, I wanted to jam with it. So I pulled one out, popped the booklet off and got to jamming. As you can see from the picture above, it wideboarded with a minimal amount of effort. The fabric is almost exactly the same as the TJP13 so you know it's a good jammer.
What you might not expect was how quickly it was a great jammer. I would have been really disappointed if this sack had been anything shy of a superb jammer and I suspect I would not be alone in my disappointment. Luckily, that was not a concern. This sack is as jammable as any Myachi I've ever seen fresh out of the diaper.
I freely admit that I have a tendency to get excited about new Myachis and have, in the past, been guilty of overselling a particular Myachi. Perhaps once or twice before I've declared something to be the "best ever" only to find a few weeks later that my excitement had gotten the best of me. So, as tempting as it is to say that this is the all-time most jammable sack ever, I'm not going to make that claim.
Instead, I'm just going to show you what happened when I took a brand new one out of the diaper, stretched it wide and crumbled it up like a bad poem:
...and I'll leave it to you to decide how jammable it is.
PS We still have not met the $ minimum to ship these sacks out. I will get the details from Pinky and post a thread on the forum to bring everyone up to speed on when these will be shipped out. All I'm going to say here is that if you wanted in and haven't gotten your money to Pinky yet, get on that. Once people see how jammable they are, they'll go quick.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
My 5000th Post
by Crazy Ivan
We started Jred.net (the Myachi Forum) back in 2006. For years before that we'd operated a free forum but that one was getting thick with advertisements and spam so in 06 we decided it was time to upgrade and pay for an ad free forum. We talked Butter into putting it together for us and ever since it opened, it has been the backbone of Myachi's online community.
I was the 25th person to sign up way back on July 5th of 2006. Coincidentally, that was almost exactly 2 years after I started working for Myachi so every year I celebrate my Myachi anniversary and my forum anniversary on about the same day. Actually, I don't generally celebrate either, but if I did, I could probably get it done with a single cake.
Anyway, a bit later today I'll be making my 5000th post. Now, as any seasoned forum member knows, post count doesn't mean much on Jred. If somebody wanted 5000 posts they could just go to the forum games section and rack them up in a few weeks. That would be meaningless, of course. It would be like stealing an Olympic Medal and saying you won. But when you earn it the hard way, getting to arbitrary milestones like 5000 feels like a really big deal.
As I was reflecting on this last night, I did a little math that I thought I'd share. I've been on for 1809 days, which means that on the average I'm making a little under 3 posts a day (2.79). I'll be the 4th person to break the 5000 post mark (assuming Champ doesn't post 800 times before I post twice). Paving the way before me were Myachi Forum Stalwart MMFL, Missouri's favorite Maniac Downtown and the Under 18 World MYACH Champion (assumed), Mantis. MMFL leads the pack with over 7000 posts, DT is just over 6200 and Mantis is slightly edging me out with a tad bit over 5000 posts.
The Myachi Master with the next highest post count is Pinky with over 1400, followed by Animal with just over 1000 (despite having been the 2nd person to sign up with the forum and having a 4 day head start on me).
In the time that the forum has been around we've had 932 members that have signed up and left at least one post. There have been a total of 174,926 posts (though that will change before I can publish this) which means that on the average, each member posts about 187 times so far. As a percentage, very few stick around long enough to crack the 1000 post mark.
Of all the members we've seen, only 48 have more than 1000 posts. That's about 5% of all members. Far fewer stick around long enough to pick up that second thousand post mark. Of the 48 that have cracked 1000, only 16 have gone on to post more than 2000 times. That's closer to 1.7%. And of course, only 3 (and about to be 4) have gone on to 5000 posts, which is about 0.43%.
The forum has been a really big part of my life for the last half decade and, as we saw this week, not all the forum memories are happy ones. There have been plenty of darker periods, plenty of in-fighting, plenty of hurt feelings, plenty of knock-down-drag-out arguments, but through it all, the forum has remained strong. There have been times when I felt like I was going to rip my hair out over the spammers. There have been times when I felt like Sisyphus as I tried to smooth over bruised egos and flame wars. There have been times when I wondered if the time I put in to it was even worth it.
But far more often were the times when the forum came to my rescue. Whenever the job started to get me down (which admittedly doesn't happen often) the forum members are always happy to pick me back up. Whenever I need help with a new idea or Myachi concept, the forum is always where I turn for ideas. Whenever I need a friendly voice, that's as far as I have to go.
This week the forum has been something of a pain. We've had what Mantis aptly dubbed the "LolCatastrophe" and I can't pretend like there wasn't a headache or two associated with it. But for all the bad times there are a thousand good times. As I sat there yesterday scrolling through the expansive member's list and counting up the 1000+ and 2000+ posters, it was like looking through an old photo album and seeing friends I'd all but forgotten.
Nobody can say what the future holds for our forum. All I can say is that I hope that someday I'm writing something like this about my 10,000th post as well.
In closing, I thought I'd share one of my first posts. This was actually the 5th post I made, but it was the "Introduction" I left on my first day on the forum. Surprisingly little has changed since then. I still have the same favorite Myachi, favorite Trick, favorite Myachi Moment and the same real name...
The only changes I'd have to make to put up that post today (other than the # of years I've been jamming) is the number of States I've Myachied in (now 32), I'd have to add a dozen or so new hobbies and I'd probably have to add another dozen contenders for my favorite Myachi Moment.
We started Jred.net (the Myachi Forum) back in 2006. For years before that we'd operated a free forum but that one was getting thick with advertisements and spam so in 06 we decided it was time to upgrade and pay for an ad free forum. We talked Butter into putting it together for us and ever since it opened, it has been the backbone of Myachi's online community.
 |
| Pictured above: A cyber-spine. |
Anyway, a bit later today I'll be making my 5000th post. Now, as any seasoned forum member knows, post count doesn't mean much on Jred. If somebody wanted 5000 posts they could just go to the forum games section and rack them up in a few weeks. That would be meaningless, of course. It would be like stealing an Olympic Medal and saying you won. But when you earn it the hard way, getting to arbitrary milestones like 5000 feels like a really big deal.
 |
| Pictured Above: Not really winning. |
As I was reflecting on this last night, I did a little math that I thought I'd share. I've been on for 1809 days, which means that on the average I'm making a little under 3 posts a day (2.79). I'll be the 4th person to break the 5000 post mark (assuming Champ doesn't post 800 times before I post twice). Paving the way before me were Myachi Forum Stalwart MMFL, Missouri's favorite Maniac Downtown and the Under 18 World MYACH Champion (assumed), Mantis. MMFL leads the pack with over 7000 posts, DT is just over 6200 and Mantis is slightly edging me out with a tad bit over 5000 posts.
The Myachi Master with the next highest post count is Pinky with over 1400, followed by Animal with just over 1000 (despite having been the 2nd person to sign up with the forum and having a 4 day head start on me).
In the time that the forum has been around we've had 932 members that have signed up and left at least one post. There have been a total of 174,926 posts (though that will change before I can publish this) which means that on the average, each member posts about 187 times so far. As a percentage, very few stick around long enough to crack the 1000 post mark.
Of all the members we've seen, only 48 have more than 1000 posts. That's about 5% of all members. Far fewer stick around long enough to pick up that second thousand post mark. Of the 48 that have cracked 1000, only 16 have gone on to post more than 2000 times. That's closer to 1.7%. And of course, only 3 (and about to be 4) have gone on to 5000 posts, which is about 0.43%.
 |
| As you can see from the chart, blue is getting it's hat handed to it by yellow. |
The forum has been a really big part of my life for the last half decade and, as we saw this week, not all the forum memories are happy ones. There have been plenty of darker periods, plenty of in-fighting, plenty of hurt feelings, plenty of knock-down-drag-out arguments, but through it all, the forum has remained strong. There have been times when I felt like I was going to rip my hair out over the spammers. There have been times when I felt like Sisyphus as I tried to smooth over bruised egos and flame wars. There have been times when I wondered if the time I put in to it was even worth it.
But far more often were the times when the forum came to my rescue. Whenever the job started to get me down (which admittedly doesn't happen often) the forum members are always happy to pick me back up. Whenever I need help with a new idea or Myachi concept, the forum is always where I turn for ideas. Whenever I need a friendly voice, that's as far as I have to go.
This week the forum has been something of a pain. We've had what Mantis aptly dubbed the "LolCatastrophe" and I can't pretend like there wasn't a headache or two associated with it. But for all the bad times there are a thousand good times. As I sat there yesterday scrolling through the expansive member's list and counting up the 1000+ and 2000+ posters, it was like looking through an old photo album and seeing friends I'd all but forgotten.
Nobody can say what the future holds for our forum. All I can say is that I hope that someday I'm writing something like this about my 10,000th post as well.
In closing, I thought I'd share one of my first posts. This was actually the 5th post I made, but it was the "Introduction" I left on my first day on the forum. Surprisingly little has changed since then. I still have the same favorite Myachi, favorite Trick, favorite Myachi Moment and the same real name...
My real name is Aaron Davies, got the handle Crazy Ivan from the Myachi Man because he really dug my Toe to Toe transfer.
Favorite Sack: A well worked Calvin
Favorite Trick: Currently the Jedi
Been Jammin' a little over four years now and most of that time I've been doing it professionally. I have represented Myachi in 11 states so far and have 39 to go.
Other Hobbies include Juggling, Devil Sticks, Diabolo, Poi, Footbag, Martial Arts, Contact Juggling, Piano, Guitar, Writing, Yoga and frequenting the Myachi Forum.
Greatest Myachi Moment: Got to play Myachi for the legendary and incomparable George Lucas at Universal Studios, Orlando (He said it was cool. He was right, of course)
The only changes I'd have to make to put up that post today (other than the # of years I've been jamming) is the number of States I've Myachied in (now 32), I'd have to add a dozen or so new hobbies and I'd probably have to add another dozen contenders for my favorite Myachi Moment.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
New Forum Features
by Crazy Ivan
If I had a slower schedule today, I'd totally write this article as a poem, but I've got way too much to do, so I'll just use traditional prose to relay the message. THE FORUM IS BACK!!!! And I don't care what you say, that's well worth going all caps over.
Now, those of you who have visited the forum in the last 24 hours probably noticed that it looked a little different. It's changed colors to a boring, generic forum-blue, but that's alright. We can change the aesthetics of it. There are some bigger differences as well, though. A few new features and functions have shown up and I wanted to take a second to point out a few of them.
I should note that I've only been goofing around with it a little so there may be some new features that I'm not yet aware of. If you've noticed any changes that I missed, please leave them in the comments section below.
Friending/Ignoring:
So now, apparently, you can "friend" people on the forum. When you see their posts, along the top of bar, you'll see two new options. There are buttons for "Add as Friend" and "Ignore Member".
I'm kind of hoping we don't find a lot of use for the "Ignore Member" button, but the friending thing is actually pretty cool. Unlike Facebook and the like, there's no need for the friend in question to confirm your friend request. This is really just a convenient way to sort your forum pals.
You can access your friend list from your profile so it can make sending pms and checking up on people's posts a lot easier.
Who Visited Today?
I think this is my favorite new feature. At the very bottom of the main page of the forum is a list of every registered member who visited so far that day. It resets everyday, but it finally gives everyone a way to know if somebody's stopped in and not posted.
Color Coded Ranks:
Throughout the forum now, it color codes member's names based on Forum Rank. This is a pretty basic feature that every forum on earth already had, but we're just now getting it. So now jammers and maniacs show up as green, veterans as blue, forum leaders are yellow and Myachi Masters are red. I don't know how useful this is, but it's kind of cool.
New Post Alerts:
Our forum is still a bit convoluted with a ton of subforums on every subject. In the past it could be a real pain to catch up with everything new on the forum. Now you can do much of that at a glance. On the main page, there are boxes to the left of each subforum. If the box is white than nothing has been added since the last time you checked. If it's blue, there are new posts and/or threads.
This also extends to the actual subforums, too. When you click on "General Discussion", for example, you'll be greeted with a series of different icons along the left side. I can't say that I've got them all figured out, but here's what I can tell you:
I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be abused, but you now have the option to "rate" a topic with between one and five stars. When you click on a thread, you'll see the words "Rate Topic" on the top right of the screen. When you click on that, it will give you the option of rating it on a 5 star scale with 1 star being a "horrible" topic and 5 being an "excellent" topic.
The average rating of each topic is displayed to the right of the title on the main subforum page. This means that as you glance at the various topics, you can get an idea of what the other forum members think of them before you even click on them.
Like I said, this will probably be abused, but it can also be very helpful. This can save us a lot of the rampant topic closing and topic bashing that has taken place in the past. If you don't think a topic is useful or helpful, rather than leaving a diatribe for the news that started it, you can simply rank it at 1 star and maybe PM the poster to let them know why that thread probably won't be very popular with the community at large.
RSS Feed:
You can now also subscribe to the RSS feed from our forum. This will allow you to see what's new with the forum without even checking in. You can get updates on your homepage about new responses, topics, polls, etc.
You'll find the RSS button toward the bottom of the home page. Just scroll down until you see the "Who's Online" part. Right above that is a bar with the current time on the left. On the right is the RSS symbol:
If you click on that image it will whisk you away to a page that shows all the most recent activity and gives you the option to subscribe to our feed or to add it to your iGoogle homepage (but for that, you'll need an iGoogle homepage). Doing so makes it way easier to keep up with what's new with the forums.
Quick Reply:
Another function that everyone but us already had. The quick reply box appears at the bottom of every thread. This basically just allows you to leave a response without bothering to go to the formal "respond" page. This saves you some time if you just have something quick to say that won't require any emoticons, quotes, links or italics.
If I had a slower schedule today, I'd totally write this article as a poem, but I've got way too much to do, so I'll just use traditional prose to relay the message. THE FORUM IS BACK!!!! And I don't care what you say, that's well worth going all caps over.
Now, those of you who have visited the forum in the last 24 hours probably noticed that it looked a little different. It's changed colors to a boring, generic forum-blue, but that's alright. We can change the aesthetics of it. There are some bigger differences as well, though. A few new features and functions have shown up and I wanted to take a second to point out a few of them.
I should note that I've only been goofing around with it a little so there may be some new features that I'm not yet aware of. If you've noticed any changes that I missed, please leave them in the comments section below.
Friending/Ignoring:
So now, apparently, you can "friend" people on the forum. When you see their posts, along the top of bar, you'll see two new options. There are buttons for "Add as Friend" and "Ignore Member".
I'm kind of hoping we don't find a lot of use for the "Ignore Member" button, but the friending thing is actually pretty cool. Unlike Facebook and the like, there's no need for the friend in question to confirm your friend request. This is really just a convenient way to sort your forum pals.
You can access your friend list from your profile so it can make sending pms and checking up on people's posts a lot easier.
Who Visited Today?
I think this is my favorite new feature. At the very bottom of the main page of the forum is a list of every registered member who visited so far that day. It resets everyday, but it finally gives everyone a way to know if somebody's stopped in and not posted.
Color Coded Ranks:
Throughout the forum now, it color codes member's names based on Forum Rank. This is a pretty basic feature that every forum on earth already had, but we're just now getting it. So now jammers and maniacs show up as green, veterans as blue, forum leaders are yellow and Myachi Masters are red. I don't know how useful this is, but it's kind of cool.
New Post Alerts:
Our forum is still a bit convoluted with a ton of subforums on every subject. In the past it could be a real pain to catch up with everything new on the forum. Now you can do much of that at a glance. On the main page, there are boxes to the left of each subforum. If the box is white than nothing has been added since the last time you checked. If it's blue, there are new posts and/or threads.
This also extends to the actual subforums, too. When you click on "General Discussion", for example, you'll be greeted with a series of different icons along the left side. I can't say that I've got them all figured out, but here's what I can tell you:
- A Red Dot will appear next to any thread that you've responded to so you can easily glance down and see what discussions you are and are not involved in.
- The Word New will appear on the little folder icon of any thread that's had a new responses added to it since the last time you checked it.
- Red Folders represent the "hot topics". So if the little folder icon is red, it means that the thread next to it has gotten a high number of responses recently.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be abused, but you now have the option to "rate" a topic with between one and five stars. When you click on a thread, you'll see the words "Rate Topic" on the top right of the screen. When you click on that, it will give you the option of rating it on a 5 star scale with 1 star being a "horrible" topic and 5 being an "excellent" topic.
The average rating of each topic is displayed to the right of the title on the main subforum page. This means that as you glance at the various topics, you can get an idea of what the other forum members think of them before you even click on them.
Like I said, this will probably be abused, but it can also be very helpful. This can save us a lot of the rampant topic closing and topic bashing that has taken place in the past. If you don't think a topic is useful or helpful, rather than leaving a diatribe for the news that started it, you can simply rank it at 1 star and maybe PM the poster to let them know why that thread probably won't be very popular with the community at large.
RSS Feed:
You can now also subscribe to the RSS feed from our forum. This will allow you to see what's new with the forum without even checking in. You can get updates on your homepage about new responses, topics, polls, etc.
You'll find the RSS button toward the bottom of the home page. Just scroll down until you see the "Who's Online" part. Right above that is a bar with the current time on the left. On the right is the RSS symbol:
 |
| And if you didn't already know what this was, I probably just solved a huge mystery for you. |
If you click on that image it will whisk you away to a page that shows all the most recent activity and gives you the option to subscribe to our feed or to add it to your iGoogle homepage (but for that, you'll need an iGoogle homepage). Doing so makes it way easier to keep up with what's new with the forums.
Quick Reply:
Another function that everyone but us already had. The quick reply box appears at the bottom of every thread. This basically just allows you to leave a response without bothering to go to the formal "respond" page. This saves you some time if you just have something quick to say that won't require any emoticons, quotes, links or italics.
-----
Like I said, that's all I've seen so far, but there may be other little bonus features out there that I've yet to spot. If you see one, just leave it in the comments for all to enjoy.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
When The Forums Are Down...
As many of you know, our forum has been down for almost 40 hours now. For those that frequent Jred.net on a daily basis (like myself) this can be extremely frustrating. I want everyone to rest assured that we have our best people (Pinky and Kid) working on this problem right now and hopefully service will be restored by the time school lets out today.
But in the meantime, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the temporary loss of our beloved message board. I feel like I should apologize to those who aren't on the forum though, as very little of what follows will make any sense to you at all:
When the forums are down, I cannot connect,
with some of my best friends online.
Now the forums are down, I know cause I checked,
and it frustrates my need to opine.
As we patiently wait for the forum's return
I'm left to quite plainly face,
What a role in my life the forum has earned
and how often I visit that place.
It seems twice an hour as I sit at this Mac,
despite knowing Jred won't load,
I'll click on my favorites and find myself back
at a page with some error code.
I'll wonder if Downtown is back there and posting,
I'll wonder if Monki is well.
I'll wonder if Mantis is pridefully boasting,
And joking with MMFL.
I'll wonder if Gold is done with his contest,
I'll wonder if Rotscale won.
I'll wonder if Bones is still being modest
And if Fresh's next episode's done.
I'll wonder if Champ has done any STWAKOJ,
Or if Katana's made up a new trick.
I'll wonder if DGH has programmed
Something complex and awesomely sick.
I'll wonder about CMC's collection,
I'll wonder if Claymore's been back.
I'll wonder if there's any news worth reflection
Regarding the new forum sack.
But foremost of all as I sit here and wonder,
The thing that I'll ponder the most,
Is when we can get our forum from under
Such a poor, unreliable host.
My hope is that soon, and I mean within hours,
I'll be on there starting a thread,
Because Kid Myach will summon the powers
And bring Jred back from the dead.
But in the meantime, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the temporary loss of our beloved message board. I feel like I should apologize to those who aren't on the forum though, as very little of what follows will make any sense to you at all:
-----
When the forums are down, I cannot connect,
with some of my best friends online.
Now the forums are down, I know cause I checked,
and it frustrates my need to opine.
As we patiently wait for the forum's return
I'm left to quite plainly face,
What a role in my life the forum has earned
and how often I visit that place.
It seems twice an hour as I sit at this Mac,
despite knowing Jred won't load,
I'll click on my favorites and find myself back
at a page with some error code.
I'll wonder if Downtown is back there and posting,
I'll wonder if Monki is well.
I'll wonder if Mantis is pridefully boasting,
And joking with MMFL.
I'll wonder if Gold is done with his contest,
I'll wonder if Rotscale won.
I'll wonder if Bones is still being modest
And if Fresh's next episode's done.
I'll wonder if Champ has done any STWAKOJ,
Or if Katana's made up a new trick.
I'll wonder if DGH has programmed
Something complex and awesomely sick.
I'll wonder about CMC's collection,
I'll wonder if Claymore's been back.
I'll wonder if there's any news worth reflection
Regarding the new forum sack.
But foremost of all as I sit here and wonder,
The thing that I'll ponder the most,
Is when we can get our forum from under
Such a poor, unreliable host.
My hope is that soon, and I mean within hours,
I'll be on there starting a thread,
Because Kid Myach will summon the powers
And bring Jred back from the dead.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Coolest Myachi of All Time?
by Crazy Ivan
Hard to say which is the best jamming Myachi of all time. Even harder to say which is the best looking. And at this moment I would be hard pressed to say which is the coolest. Hopefully that will change in the next few weeks.
There's a Myachi in the works right now that should take that title hands down.
Now, when I say "in the works", I mean that it is at its earliest stage of development. Kid Myach and Adrian K are working now on presenting a design to the customer so there are still a lot of steps between now and the finished product. After that we'll have to settle on a fabric, we'll have to make samples, we'll have to approve them before we send the order into full production, then we have to wait on the delivery.
Knowing that, you may wonder how I could possibly claim that this might be the "coolest" Myachi of all time. After all, I don't know what it will look like and I don't know how good of a jammer it will be. In truth, none of that matters. Okay, well... I guess it matters, but even if it doesn't look cool (which it will) and doesn't jam well (which it will), the story behind its production goes a long way toward cementing it as the coolest sack we've ever made.
The whole concept first arose a little over a week ago when Myachi Veteran (and forum favorite) DGH posted a thread on our forum in which he outlined an idea he had for a Myachi. Since our forum consists of a pretty tightly knit community, he wanted a Myachi that would commemorate all the members that help make it such a fun place to hang out.
Of course, making Myachis costs money so that was the first issue he had to tackle and his solution is what is making it so incredibly cool. His idea was to have all the various members of the forum kick in what they could to make it a reality. Then, once the Myachi was produced, each contributor would receive a percentage of the total order that corresponded to the percentage of the production cost they threw in. In other words, if you put in 10% of the money, you'd get 10% of the Myachis once they were made.
Pinky was the first Myachi Master to happen across the post (actually, it was more like she got a text from MMFL about it than she happened across it) and once she did she embraced the idea fully. She talked with Kid, Myachi Man and myself and we set about making it happen.
Obviously there will be some hurdles to overcome but as of today we're pushing forward, full steam ahead. Kid is in the process of getting the design approved and then we'll be waiting for the individual contributions to come in. Once we've received half of them, the Myachi will go into production and hopefully it will be getting delivered about the same time that we're getting the last of the money.
Given the special circumstance, Kid Myach really did some back flips to make sure that we're getting these guys the best possible price and the best possible jammer as well. We'll be extending to them what will doubtless be the lowest price ever on a customized Myachi, but given the circumstances I'm really glad that we could.
Once we have drafts, pics or updated new about it I'll post more but for now it'll have to be enough to know that the Myachi with the coolest origin story in history is on its way.
Hard to say which is the best jamming Myachi of all time. Even harder to say which is the best looking. And at this moment I would be hard pressed to say which is the coolest. Hopefully that will change in the next few weeks.
There's a Myachi in the works right now that should take that title hands down.
Now, when I say "in the works", I mean that it is at its earliest stage of development. Kid Myach and Adrian K are working now on presenting a design to the customer so there are still a lot of steps between now and the finished product. After that we'll have to settle on a fabric, we'll have to make samples, we'll have to approve them before we send the order into full production, then we have to wait on the delivery.
Knowing that, you may wonder how I could possibly claim that this might be the "coolest" Myachi of all time. After all, I don't know what it will look like and I don't know how good of a jammer it will be. In truth, none of that matters. Okay, well... I guess it matters, but even if it doesn't look cool (which it will) and doesn't jam well (which it will), the story behind its production goes a long way toward cementing it as the coolest sack we've ever made.
The whole concept first arose a little over a week ago when Myachi Veteran (and forum favorite) DGH posted a thread on our forum in which he outlined an idea he had for a Myachi. Since our forum consists of a pretty tightly knit community, he wanted a Myachi that would commemorate all the members that help make it such a fun place to hang out.
Of course, making Myachis costs money so that was the first issue he had to tackle and his solution is what is making it so incredibly cool. His idea was to have all the various members of the forum kick in what they could to make it a reality. Then, once the Myachi was produced, each contributor would receive a percentage of the total order that corresponded to the percentage of the production cost they threw in. In other words, if you put in 10% of the money, you'd get 10% of the Myachis once they were made.
Pinky was the first Myachi Master to happen across the post (actually, it was more like she got a text from MMFL about it than she happened across it) and once she did she embraced the idea fully. She talked with Kid, Myachi Man and myself and we set about making it happen.
Obviously there will be some hurdles to overcome but as of today we're pushing forward, full steam ahead. Kid is in the process of getting the design approved and then we'll be waiting for the individual contributions to come in. Once we've received half of them, the Myachi will go into production and hopefully it will be getting delivered about the same time that we're getting the last of the money.
Given the special circumstance, Kid Myach really did some back flips to make sure that we're getting these guys the best possible price and the best possible jammer as well. We'll be extending to them what will doubtless be the lowest price ever on a customized Myachi, but given the circumstances I'm really glad that we could.
Once we have drafts, pics or updated new about it I'll post more but for now it'll have to be enough to know that the Myachi with the coolest origin story in history is on its way.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Forum is Back!
by Crazy Ivan
Ah, the spine of Myachi's online community is straight once more.
Our forum never really left, but it did enter into a shadowy domain of irritating whiteness for a long while. Any of you who have frequented it recently don't need me to tell you that it was aesthetically repulsive.
The problem arose when the forum provider up and disintegrated on us. We were suddenly locked out of some aspects of the administration section and other sections wouldn't respond at all. It not only made the forum a pain to look at, it also made it a pain to use. One post bled right into another, signatures were indistinguishable from text and things were generally messy and disorganized.
Much to my surprise when I checked it today, things were essentially back to normal. The segmentations were back and the forum looked the way it was supposed to (minus a few Myachifications we'd made in the past) and all the admin controls were working once more.
Have to share a funny story about how I found out. MMFL, an acronym familiar to anyone who ever spent time on the forum and anyone who has been a regular reader of this blog for more than a week, caught me on Facebook this afternoon linking a post to the last entry.
"Have you seen the forums?" he asks.
"Not today..." I reply.
"Oh, dude... you need to check it out."
My first assumption is that somebody had hacked it or spammed the heck out of it or that it had descended further into unfixable disarray. The last thing in the world I expected to find when I went over there was a fully functioning forum.
Okay... maybe the story wasn't all that funny. You had to be there.
Anyway, long story short: If you've tried to sign up with our forum and had trouble in the past, I urge you to give us another try and I am confident that we'll be able to get you going this time. Also, if you signed up successfully and left because it was so unruly and ugly, feel free to come back to a much easier to look at forum any time.
You'll find it here.
...and yes, all the hyperlinks lead to the same place.
Ah, the spine of Myachi's online community is straight once more.
Our forum never really left, but it did enter into a shadowy domain of irritating whiteness for a long while. Any of you who have frequented it recently don't need me to tell you that it was aesthetically repulsive.
The problem arose when the forum provider up and disintegrated on us. We were suddenly locked out of some aspects of the administration section and other sections wouldn't respond at all. It not only made the forum a pain to look at, it also made it a pain to use. One post bled right into another, signatures were indistinguishable from text and things were generally messy and disorganized.
Much to my surprise when I checked it today, things were essentially back to normal. The segmentations were back and the forum looked the way it was supposed to (minus a few Myachifications we'd made in the past) and all the admin controls were working once more.
Have to share a funny story about how I found out. MMFL, an acronym familiar to anyone who ever spent time on the forum and anyone who has been a regular reader of this blog for more than a week, caught me on Facebook this afternoon linking a post to the last entry.
"Have you seen the forums?" he asks.
"Not today..." I reply.
"Oh, dude... you need to check it out."
My first assumption is that somebody had hacked it or spammed the heck out of it or that it had descended further into unfixable disarray. The last thing in the world I expected to find when I went over there was a fully functioning forum.
Okay... maybe the story wasn't all that funny. You had to be there.
Anyway, long story short: If you've tried to sign up with our forum and had trouble in the past, I urge you to give us another try and I am confident that we'll be able to get you going this time. Also, if you signed up successfully and left because it was so unruly and ugly, feel free to come back to a much easier to look at forum any time.
You'll find it here.
...and yes, all the hyperlinks lead to the same place.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)