!!Soarin / HipsterBrony

[6:47:19 PM] Tom': Sorry to bother you, again, but I did want your input on something
[6:47:44 PM] Soarin: sure thing
[6:49:38 PM] Tom': I've realized there's a lot of sources for the history of sites like EQD, or say, bronycon, but the imageboard scene, where the fandom originated from, doesn't really have any kind of place for new members to read up on its history if they so desire. I've been gathering for a few months now information from /b/ and /co/ and I've gotten to Ponychan history. I'd love it if you could tell me your story from the start - both as a member and a staff member.
[6:50:41 PM] Soarin: bretty cool idea, my story isnt all that interesting though
[6:50:58 PM] Tom': I'm sure it is. When did you discover the fandom?
[6:51:51 PM] Soarin: in march 2011 i think, the first episode i watched "live" was a dog and pony show
[6:52:16 PM] Tom': Nice, how'd you discover it?
[6:54:51 PM] Soarin: months earlier (or weeks?  not sure exactly), i had run across a pony thread on /b/ during one of my like 5 visits ever there, so i knew what it was, and i ended up coming across the KYM page on FiM while wiki-walking.  the pilot was embedded on that page, so i watched it out of curiosity and then marathoned s1 up to that point
[6:55:53 PM] Tom': And then you moved to ponychan immediately?
[6:57:40 PM] Soarin: nah, i actually started out on EQD at first, then followed a link to ponychan there one time.  i wasnt real active on it until about late april or early may, i forget exactly when
[6:59:17 PM] Tom': How'd you eventually become a mod?
[7:07:45 PM] Soarin: well, only the people who made that decision could say for sure, but i like to think it was because i tried to be really helpful.  i was one of the most active people on /meta/ at that point, more than even the mod team, and apparently they saw that and decided it would be a good thing.  strangely, about a month before, gunthor (former !!Octavia) randomly added me on skype and chatted with me periodically, and said afterwards that it was primarily so they could scope me out and see if i was mod material
[7:09:25 PM] Tom': So you became a mod right during the summer dramafest, if Gunthor recruited you
[7:12:40 PM] Soarin: a little after, august 2011 iirc.  i was actually one of the people that got gunthor fired, after he was creeping on another member of the mod team.  mithent was as well, he checked the logs and found that basically gunthor didnt do shit as a mod, he was only there for the power/influence and because he wanted to be admin.  he didnt actually want to do the work
[7:15:27 PM] Tom': Hm. So how was moderating the site, after that?
[7:21:38 PM] Soarin: it had its ups and downs.  the main reason i got into it was trying to help people, so i always enjoyed doing that, but inevitable /meta/ drama was never fun to deal with.  and the admin was always gone, we would go months at a time without hearing from him and just kind of had to wing it, and then he would chew us out if we didnt do what he wanted, even though he was never actually around to tell us what it was.  but helping people and the camaraderie on the mod team was great.  if i could get back into modding, but only those things, i would in a heartbeat
[7:22:19 PM] Soarin: but yeah, the biggest frustration was vague instructions from the admin, which turned into vague rules and enforcement on the posters, which frustrated the hell out of everyone
[7:23:51 PM] Tom': What motivated orange to make the staff's identities public, and to make /ef/?
[7:24:10 PM] Tom': As far as you know at least
[7:29:04 PM] Soarin: for staff identification, orange was never fond of the idea, it was basically pressure from the mods.  there was this weird situation where some people knew who the mods were and others didnt, and the people who did had more access.  we didnt really like that, so we were agitating for it.  one of the catalysts was crimson and i complaining about it on fimchan one day (anonymously, but we still got bitched out by orange for it), and that kind of got the ball rolling on it.  none of us really thought it made sense, especially when anyone could find out identities easily enough with some basic sleuthing
[7:34:27 PM] Soarin: for /ef/, it was a response to the hindenburg disaster that was dashchan, but more broadly, the fact that people were not particularly content with the strict rules.  i dont remember exactly who originally proposed it, though i remember orange definitely came up with the name, and possibly came up with the idea in the first place.  as far as i know, it wasnt a ploy to get rid of people he didnt like as was always rumored.  i think it was originally a legitimate idea, and then he (and !!trixie) was just not happy with the kind of content that was on there and decided to nuke it.  rather than being malicious, i think he just didnt know how much /ef/'s residents liked the board and failed to consider how people would react
[7:42:05 PM] Tom': How'd you feel about it being deleted?
[7:42:16 PM] Tom': And about its creation really
[7:51:11 PM] Soarin: at the time, i was upset.  i felt it needed to be reformed, but not outright deleted.  now i dont really have any strong feelings one way or the other.  /ef/ as it currently exists is pretty much just a circlejerk, and god knows there are plenty of those on ponychan already (or at least there were last time i checked, but i cant imagine much has changed).  if they had simply had less strict rules to begin with, it would have been redundant and could have been deleted with minimal fuss i think.  in retrospect, i probably would have supported just loosening the rules sitewide rather than creating a new board (lol ponychan board sprawl), but if that weren't an option (it probably wouldnt be), i think making an /ef/ board (and, crucially, not deleting it) would be the next best option
[7:51:26 PM] Soarin: also this ponychan nostalgia is giving me feels
[7:53:20 PM] Tom': Heh...
[7:53:41 PM] Tom': Were you in the staff during the whole zamoonda trying to have orange hand him over the site thing?
[7:58:37 PM] Soarin: not really.  i was semi-involved in that i was telling orange not to trust him, and still accidentally had mod board access so i left my two cents and then asked orange to remove my access, but that was pretty much it.  i believe at the time the whole thing went down, i had moved to efchan, where i was briefly a mod and then left for personal reasons
[7:59:29 PM] Tom': When did you leave the pchan staff? When the efchan thing went down?
[8:04:46 PM] Soarin: a little before.  i dont remember exactly when, i think maybe early february 2012?  i had started becoming a little less active and was dealing with some personal shit, so i left voluntarily with a promise from orange that i could return if i wanted to.  which he reneged on when i asked to join back on the following fall, but that was probably for the best
[8:13:44 PM] Tom': do you still post on ponychan?
[8:17:53 PM] Soarin: every once in a great while, like once every couple months maybe.  there's just nothing really left anymore of the community i used to enjoy, so i dont really post anywhere anymore, other than for the very occasional post on ponychan or efchan
[8:19:00 PM] Tom': do you feel like I missed a big event in pchan's history in any way, in what I asked you? I tried to kind of cover everything :x
[8:22:08 PM] Soarin: not really, although my memory is a bit fuzzy.  its been so long since ive been involved there and even longer since most of those things happened, so i probably cant say with any real accuracy
[8:23:47 PM] Tom': What you said pretty much fit what I've gathered so far from another ex-pchan staff member
[8:23:54 PM] Tom': so I'd say your memory is pretty ok