Hi so Quarkz and I were the ones who dealt with his infraction so we should probably post. To start off, this is Quarkz's explanation of the infraction we gave him a while ago, since what happened in it was quite relevant to some of the events that have occured on the GP side of things. Yes it was a while ago but it's good background info to describe why we feel the way we do currently. The main purpose of this post though is to show that Rhythms does not deserve the badge on an objective scale yet; Gato will be the one to show how his attitude has not changed much either.

    The Famous Infraction (close)

        We had been having issues with Rhythms for a while; he would consistently try to implement HTML things into his GP checks, something that we do not appreciate people doing. It creates more work for the uploader and other HTMLers as we have to check what they've done as there is an increased chance of it being wrong. Being part of the HTML team is a sign that we trust that user to be able to HTML properly. Rhythms, at this time, was not a part of the HTML team and yet continued to post HTML related things and implement HTML into various articles. He had been warned about this on numerous occasions (see below). The posts where this was done were originally in public view on his wall, but were since deleted by him (because he doesn't like it 'when people leave VMs on my wall that are punishing and embarrassing'). I was fortunate enough to have a tab open from before he deleted these VMs, and the contents of them are below.

        Deleted VMs (close)


            Spydreigon: Hey, do you mind not telling people to implement HTML tags into their articles in your GP checks? It feels like cheating the system because you're not approved yet and you're removing a lot of work for the htmler. Other than fixing the é there's really no reason for you to do it as the htmler will likely catch those things anyways (and if not we will find it at upload).

            Rhythms: Sorry! I just try to do the simple things like <em> and &eacute;, I just got a bit too carried away ;p;

            Rhythms: But yeah Now I'll just stick to doing &blah;

            Quarkz: Can I reiterate this.You are not approved. Stop doing the work that HTMLers should be doing. If something goes wrong, it's on us to fix it which wastes time. This is why we have quality control.

            If anto provides you with HTML (which she shouldn't actually be doing), please let her make a separate post and update.

            Rhythms: I know I'm not approved, I was just doing "the work" because almost every other GP checker does it, so I don't know why iI shouldn't be allowed to. Anto only provided HTML because she thought that you guys were in a hurry to upload, so she gave it to me to post while she was sleeping. I only updated it because anto told me what to do. If it's up to the HTML team members to change "Pokemon" to "Pok&eacute;mon" (etc), don't just tell me, actually do something about it.

            Rhythms: Also, she even looked over the HTML after I put it in my comment to make sure that there were zero mistakes.

            Rhythms: And really all anto was trying to do was help you guys streamline into an early release, so you shouldn't be shunning either of us. However, what I said earlier still stands. If you guys are annoyed so badly by GP members changing "Pokemon" to "Pok&eacute;mon," emdashes to "&mdash;", or surrounding italic parts in the article with "<em>" and "</em>," DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. We can't tell that you guys are bothered by it instantaneously, you have to actually tell us in a post or PM that you dislike us doing this. You shouldn't be draining it out on one member.

            We think there were more messages but these were not recovered.

            A discussion on issues raised here was discussed in The Smog staff channel, where we agreed on the roles of the Gp and HTML teams, as a result of this new policy was enforced. We ended that issue there.



        Eventually Rhythms decided to apply for the HTML team. Rhythms did remarkably well, something that I think both me and Spy were surpised at. This didn't throw up any red flags straight away, we just assumed he had put his head down, focused on the task at hand, and his results reflected this. We gave him a couple of things to work on, to get approved (even if people get high marks on our eval we still make them score 100% before proceeding).

        We had pretty much zero tolerance when it came to Rhythms at this point. Due to various interactions, both myself and Spy had discovered that he wasn't a very nice character, and we were concerned that he was regularly bending rules. We ended up trying to prove a point to him, so we started inquiring about the HTML that he posted on anto's behalf. One thing lead to another, and we ended up with a pretty solid idea of what had happened. Rhythms was actually in the clear with regards to this; it was all a bit of a misunderstanding between him and anto. Yes, he did lie in some places, and he went ahead and admitted this after being prompted (he did not just confess, I had to really make it obvious that we knew and it was in his best interest to just tell us everything from his perspective).

        We did, however, uncover something else.

        We learnt that he had also received help from anto on his HTML eval. The help that anto gave was substantial, but we were okay with looking past this on anto's side as we know why anto did it, and it was a tough position for her to be in. Not only this, Rhythms attempted to persuade anto into lying to us on his behalf (this is going back to the HTML/GP issue). Luckily, we spoke to anto before Rhythms had a chance to, but we have logs showing this conversation took place:

        anto conversation (close)


            [2:06:25 PM] anto: i didnt tell quarkz, but i actually helped rhythms with multiple stuff on his eval test. how to do them at least
            [2:06:25 PM] anto: like three things or so


            [15:02:06] Rhythms: http://www.smogon.com/forums/members/rhythms.241023/#profile-post-1778426
            [15:02:23] Rhythms: there were more posts from both of them but i deleted them
            [15:02:25] afktno: i'm aware
            [15:02:47] Rhythms: i also lied and said that you looked over my HTML so pls say u did bc technically you did bc you made it
            [15:03:02] afktno: i have already replied to quarkz
            [15:03:12] Rhythms: can i ask wat u said
            [15:03:22] afktno: i said the truth



        Rhythms on the other hand should not have been asking for help in multiple aspects of the eval. This, combined with how we knew we were being lied to and how he had attempted to also get anto to lie to us, lead to an infraction. It wasn't a very harsh one, and this was intentional. We wanted to show Rhythms that he needs to respect staff and take us seriously. Did he learn from this? I don't think so, and I think GP are going to show you why later on (they know that story better than I do).



    As for his supposed contributions now...

    We allowed him to retake the HTML eval right before I resigned because even though he had all these issues, we were desperate for active HTMLers as literally no one was doing it outside of anto, so we let him retry.

    The problem is: we want to give him a ladybug for his recent contributions to HTML, yet he was literally just allowed back onto the team, and his HTMLs are nowhere near the quantity or quality we'd expect of even a normal ladybug user. We aren't inclined to consider all the HTMLs that he's done before he got removed from the team because they weren't of that great quality and the fact that he lied so much before makes us question the integrity of the old HTMLs, especially considering how bad his attitude was when he did stuff for The Player. Since being approved again, his attitude has improved a bit, but he's only done a whopping total of 5 HTMLs, which is not anywhere close to the number of HTMLs that we'd expect for a ladybug user. On top of this, his current HTMLs have a number of issues.

    (Note that you'll need Media HQ access to view the following examples of subpar HTML)

    http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3545270/#post-6487408
    Here, there are basic mistakes such as not crediting the artist to the art, which is something every HTMLer is expected to do. This is from a user who actively attempts to help newer HTMLers in the team, it isn't good to have a user who isn't proven themself helping other people out. On top of that, his JavaScript is very inefficient, causing for an even bigger headache when it comes to release time to completely fix/rewrite his code. There hasn't been any evidence of him trying to resolve this or even ask for help (since Quarkz says he finds it hard to believe that it hasn't occured to him that what he is doing is not the best way of doing things).

    http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3550701/#post-6481138
    First thing you learn in HTML is spacing, so people can read and understand your code easier when it comes to making edits. The spacing here is awful, creating larger headaches when reading it over at release time.

    There's other stuff but without a good knowledge of HTML it's not really worth it to cite, just know that we don't think his HTMLs are up to par with other people who have received the badge.

    So see the main problem with this nom is that Rhythms's contributions since being let back onto the HTML team are not on par with what we'd expect of a normal contributor, plus the fact that he's lied a ton shows that we're not very comfortable with him having a ladybug after all this (the lying hasn't stopped, as youll see by the GP guys). Everyone here's saying that he's become this great user when we haven't really seen any evidence to prove us otherwise. If he had at least had the required contributions to have a ladybug, we might be neutral, but his work in AW lately has been subpar and from what I've seen the work in Smeargle's Studio is really easy and has its own issues. The purpose of an HTMLer is to make something presentable onsite and make the staff's job easier, but when you're making the staff's job harder by making bad code, you don't deserve a badge that claims you've made great contributions (by no means are they bad, just not up to par).