Hey, guys. Well, this is our "fess up" thread. Any and all questions you may have about the events of last night and today, whether you were there for the whole thing or you missed it entirely, will be answered here in tried-and-true Q&A format.
First and foremost...
Q. So, wait, this was ALL an April Fool's prank?
A. Yes. Yes it was. We're kind of evil, you may have noticed. XD
Q. So how much of this was fake/all planned out?
A. Almost the entire thing. Everything from Suz's ban for posting that TBH was a girl (he is a fully functioning male, btw) to the (fake) screenshots her dupes posted detailing our "April Fool's plan" and the lovely mod drama, to the staff banning, to the pek takeover--all faked.
Q. Wait a sec, Suz really was in on it?
A. Suz was kind enough to help us set up the background for the prank, yes. Since she already knew what we were planning thanks to DS (XD), she volunteered to help, and we put her to work.
Incidentally, Suz's modding was the only modding today that was not faked--please welcome your new Plaza mod. The section's been in need of a new one for a while, so hopefully she'll be just what the doctor ordered. Best of luck to her.
Q. And the staff bannings were all faked?
A. We weren't about to ban everyone for real and let you guys spam uncontrolled the way you tried to. So yes, the staff bannings were faked, and there were some very tense moments when we were almost positive we'd been found out, too. Basically, we put a strikethrough through everyone's names, and had them remove their sigs and change their usertitles to "Banned." They then went into invisible mode and proceeded to do ninja modding.
Incidentally, for anyone wondering who was cleaning up the really bad stuff last night--that was mostly the invisible staff, though "peKtrum" did help out as well.
Q. Speaking of "peKtrum", what the hell was up with all that? Was it really pek?
A. Neither pek nor anyone else has ever been given my password. In other words, yeah, that was me (Spectrum) "playing" the role of pek playing the role of Spectrum the whole time. (In fact, the real pek was logged off during most of the prank.) If you got a PM from "pek", that was me trying to act disgruntled and in character. Same thing with this thread. Sorry if I offended anyone, by the way.
Incidentally, if you PMed pek and didn't get a response, that was probably because I was afraid of giving myself away. XD
Q. So all the drama from Suz's spam threads was faked?
A. The posts from Suz's screenshots were pretty much all just acting on our part (we had way too much fun with some of it, too XD). We're actually all quite fond of each other, though we occasionally have our rough spots, and if we were half as disgruntled or disillusioned with the forum as we pretended to be, we wouldn't be modding it, believe me. (And we're all on good terms with pek as well, never fear.)
Q. What about all the mod resignations, then?
A. Unfortunately, due to an incredible series of coincidences, we really did lose quite a few mods in the weeks leading up to April 1st. However, contrary to what might be popular belief, none of them actually resigned due to drama. Moridin had to take time off for school, Kori was just burnt out from Plaza modding, less got a new job, and Feathers! had real life issues that took priority as well. So, wish them all luck in their non-modly endeavors.
Q. What will happen to everyone who got banned for spamming/posting pr0n?
A. Sadly, even though peKtrum was apparently expecting the reaction we got, the rest of the staff sure wasn't, at least not to that extent. XD So, we did our best to clean it up, and banned everyone who posted porn, spoilers, or went otherwise overboard. We still have to debate what to do with them now; needless to say, it's a tough question, and one we wish we didn't have to deal with.
Q. So what exactly were the changes "peKtrum" made to the forum?
A. In order of implementation, they were as follows:
- Banning the mods
- Mixing up the Series I smiley codes
- Altering the reputation ranks:
- Altering the user ranks:
- "Promoting" several members to "mod"
(Incidentally, I hope no one who got "modded" was too offended; we pretty much just picked the members who were active who we thought would get the biggest reactions from people. Er. XD)
Q. Were the mod dupes real? Which was which?
A. I actually don't have a complete list of who was who, because some dupes were made at the last minute, but this post will be edited once we make one. XD
Most of the mods were actually simultaneously logged in with their dupes and their real accounts, so they could mod while also posting and lamenting the situation. Behind the scenes it was probably a lot more complicated than it looked.
Q. YOU GUYS SUCK.
A. WE'RE SORRY.
Anyway, that pretty much covers it. Sorry for the chaos, but we hope you made the best of it and maybe even enjoyed some of our lame attempts at fun a little you can blame me and Grrblt for the awesome rep ranks, btw. If not, well, at least it's all over. (Mostly. We'll fix all of the changes soon.)
Happy April Fool's Day.
Unfolding Internet Drama
Originally Posted by Setzer Gabianni
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