Introduction Thread Four: A Carneighval for Foureigners

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

This is the thread where we introduce ourselves as a forum, and you, in turn, introduce yourself!

1.1: Introduction
1.2 Forum Directory (aka "where should I post?")
2.1 Forum History
2.2 Questions and Answers (FAQ)
, sir or madam, and welcome to the MSPA Forums! To summarize this place as a whole, we're all about having fun and general shenanigans. So just be yourself and find a conversation to jump into! And don’t be spooked if we go off topic, because we do that a lot.

The law of the land here is Respect and Teamfriendliness (which means to be chummy to one another and to always make an effort to contribute positively to the community you see around you); a more specific set of rules is here and you should read them if you haven’t already or else we won’t take you out for Dairy Queens after this is over.

These forums are looked over by 6 administrators (Andrew, Betelgeuse, Byron, Michael, NotASenator and tynic) and 5 moderators (Lexxy, Schazer, SleepingOrange, Wesley Foxx, and Zuki) who may edit your posts, or move/lock your thread. But don’t feel personally offended, they’re only trying to make this place better! And don’t feel afraid to approach them (PM them) if you're having a problem with another user.

The most important thing to remember overall is to have a good time here! This forum is like a posting carnival, and you should have fun with it.

Great! Now that the boring stuff is over with… it’s time for me to help you find your way through the forums! You see, I'm member of the Badger Buckos (troop 105b), and if I can successfully guide you across the forums, I can get my “helping baffled weirdos” badge. So come with me on a magical tour through the internet!

1.2 Forum Directory


First, there's the most densely-populated subforum—the MSPA subforum. That's where you talk about all of the crap in Homestuck (and Problem Sleuth). Talk about how sweet the last update was, talk about things you just realized with past updates, role-play as characters from the Homestuck universe off-site, tell the world your ideas and crackpot theories about how Dad is the Mobster Kingpin of Homestuck or how the troll planet is just a metaphor for the Reconstruction South, or ask questions about the story/forums that don't deserve their own thread.
Also, if you'd like to discuss a recent update, perhaps try discussing it on our pesterchum IRC channel (#pesterchum on esper) instead talking about it in the MSPA Chat thread. Discussing it on our IRC channels is more conducive to expressing simple reactions, and helps relieve the forum’s typical post-update load.




The Suggestion Box: there is a crater where it used to be ha ha


The MSPA Forum Adventures subforum is by far the most expansive subforum. It's almost its own community: some who post there can end up posting nowhere else. It's easy to see why: the whole subforum is a lot of free entertainment from a bunch of dedicated, personable individuals. If you're looking to get started in the world of the MSPA Forum Adventures subforum, just ask in the MSPAFA general chat thread or jump right in to an adventure to make a suggestion.
People advertise their adventures in this thread, post fanart for other adventures in this thread, and you can find many adventures mirrored off-site in a style similar to Andrew’s MSPAs. There’s a table of contents for the forum adventures that have been completed. Lastly, if you are looking for an IRC channel to discuss MSPAFA, go on #MSPAFA on Esper.

There are also four subforums for the MSPAFA forum: the Completed Forum Adventures collection and three Meta-Forum Adventures subforums—
1) Threads that are more about collaboratively telling a story or roleplaying and that aren't so heavy on the mechanics, such as Grand Battles, GURPS and other RP campaign go in the Collaborative Storytelling/Roleplaying subforum.
2) Forum activities with a competitive element that tend to have 'game-like' mechanics like RTDs, DUELS, and Mafia are in the Games subforum.
3) Threads for anything relating to MSPAFA that isn't a MSPAFA go in the Meta+Misc. subforum; this includes things like planning threads for RPs and projects relating to the subforum like the Wiki or Author Bibliographies.






The Forum Questions and Answers forum is here so you can give general feedback, report bugs, or ask other questions regarding the technical workings of the forum.


The Archives are there to commemorate threads of yonder. Right now, all that’s there is the locked Forapocalypse subforum, which was a 3-day subforum regarding the thematic demise of the old forums (since we switched forum servers and software).


The Art forum is where you go for one of two reasons:
The first reason is that you have done a work of art, and would like feedback or critique.
In that case, you may want to check out the doodle thread for drawing, the creative writing thread for writers, and the "post music you made" thread for musicians. If you plan on making a large number contributions to one of those threads and don’t want to “take up too much space” in them, or have made some kind of more specific or involved work you think is needing more varied and detailed feedback/would like possible discussion on it, consider making your own thread.
The second reason for hanging in the Art forum is if you’re a fan-artist. There, you can do fan-art of the characters, draw romantic fan-art of the characters (but not too romantic), read and write up some fan-fiction, or listen to and make some MSPA fan music. If you want to chat about fan-art stuff on IRC, try the Pesterlite IRC channel (#pesterlite on esper)--it's like pesterchum, but more fan art-centric.

There's a subforum in the Art Forum for Group Projects (and Art activity Threads): it's where you go for collaborations, game modifications, activities (like "draw a picture with your eyes closed") and forming teams for creative projects. You can make humorous photoshops of past MSPA panels, or if you’re looking to get all meta with your fan-art, here’s a thread where we draw other forumgoers.. Lastly, the popular Hivebent radio show production is being made there.


The Movie-Music-Game-Books subforum (Also called the Nerd subforum) is where you go when you want to be a fan of popular media and see if other people here also are similarly fans of the piece of media you have in mind. There's a thread for video games, an MSPA Steam group, movies, music, books, and a general links thread (as in, "here's a cool website; here's a cool youtube video")


Spawning from a thread in the General Chat forum, Serious Business is now its own forum. Basically, it’s for no-nonsense internet debating; topics come and go.


And that brings us back here. The General Chat Forum is laid-back altogether and the people who frequent it are pretty chill. The map in the spoiler below contains links to some of the more prominent threads to chat in.

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Your guide to the MSPA Chat Forum! Now with Links!

1. Introduction Thread: YOU ARE HERE
2. General Chat Thread: Where a categorically off-topic thread can go off-topic (Also the title can memorialize the recently-corpsed)
3. Dream Thread: "Find a hammock and jump aboard; sail off to dreamland. Hitch your hopes to the side like a little dingy and steamer off into the land of the autonomic mindpictures."
4. [url=http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?32162-What-you-weirdopes-look-like-V-Awesome-Glasses-and-Hair-Club-Apply-Inside[/url]: then hope for praise, or at least not outright insults
5. Discussion of User-Representing Images (Avatar chat): Too many memes, not enough middle-aged jiggle-women
6. Old Thread Treasure Stash: The best from threads of yore.
7. Webcomics Discussion Thread: Swing by and see if it's one of the pages where we badtalk randall munroe
8. Food Thread: If only Willy Wonka were to finally perfect his "send food over da wires" technology, this thread would be useful
9. School Discussion Thread: "Most ominous of all, the War rearoused the snarling dog of the slavery issue, and the beast did not stop yelping until drowned in the blood of the Civil War"

Other park amenities:
Spooky Things (nightmare fuel): Frightening ghost stories! Marble Hornets! Goosebumps books! Schwimmer! (no shock images though)
Joy Thread: emoticons and exclamation points abound
Anger and Complaints Thread: grrrrrrr or conversely I'm fed up with this wor-uld
Desktop Thread: Take a picture of your desktop and don't explain what's in that folder titled SECRET????

And lastly, one of the keys to becoming part of a forum's community is its IRC channels. We've got several here.

On the Esper.net server: (you can use any irc client like mibbit to do this)
#Pesterchum (discusses the story of Homestuck, especially recent updates)
#Pesterlite (a fan-artist centric IRC room)
#MSPAFA (a gathering place for authors and readers of those in the Forum Adventures subforum to talk about adventures)
#GrandBattle (for authors of the Grand Battle adventures in the Collab subsubforum of MSPAFA to discuss and plot Grand Battles)

On the IRC of http://blog.skaia.net/
#MSPlayers (for voice actors and friends)
#Radio (for discussing Homestuck radio broadcasts)

Remember, there’s something in each forum for everyone. So interact freely!

(Or you can stay for the next post and learn more about the history of the forum and read some frequently asked questions!)

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

2.1 Forum History--in which I give the illusion that I know about things

So now you know where and how to post , but you’re still afraid you won’t fit in with all the cool kids (despite assurances that you probably will!) because you don’t know what to post. Don’t worry, we’ll let you in on a few things, just to let you get used to the waters. Presenting: the History of the Forums.

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I. The Gangbunch Fora

The MSPA forums started back on December 31, 2004 as the Team Special Olympics forums, run by Andrew Hussie. A year or so later, Michael Firman merged the forums of his site, Firman Productions, with the TSO forums, creating the Gangbunch Fora (This name is why some people call the forums of today the MSPA Fora). The Gangbunch Fora, which was both an offshoot of the Penny Arcade Artists’ Corner and a place for the makers of a few comics to hang about and as a casual comicking conglomerate. The first comic was Team Special Olympics, run by Andrew, Betelgeuse, and Byron Hussie. Team Special Olympics has many lasting comics worth reading, like And It Don’t Stop, and Zoosmells. And a graphic novel called Whistles. Andrew also has some blogs, too, in addition to making the ever-popular Star Trek edits along with forumgoer Jan. Andrew went under the forum name Special_Olympics at first before changing to Andrew. Betelgeuse also has a website for her own art and currently resides over most of the business part of running MSPA.
The second member of the Gangbunch comic conglomerate was Michael Firman, creator of Firman Productions/Moe. And the third initial member, Tauhid, made the comic strips Rocket Surgery comics, Spells and Whistles, Good Ship Chronicles, and Epicsplosion. He may not post anymore, but this thread between him and Andrew has left a lasting “Christmas every day”-like presence.
Lastly, Byrobot was added to the initial Gangbunch three. Byron Hussie left Team Special Olympics and started his own comic, with the help of tynic. After initially being abandoned, it was rebooted by just Byron, but with the programming help of Gankro (who has done the flash programming work for quite a few MSPA updates, like this one—however, Gankro is not a member of the Gangbunch). Tynic has a site for her art, as well.

The Gangbunch Fora grew, although not much. Only 388 users signed up in those first four years. The Gangbunch Fora stayed a tight-knit community, with plenty of post celebrations, occasional glorious battles between forumers, and a semi-active art subforum. The best way to learn of those times is through this thread: the Old Thread Treasure Stash. (Note: some of the things in that thread are regarding things after the Gangbunch era).

However, along the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, MSPA started to gain popularity as other webcomics started to link to it. The suggestion box, at the time, was run on a blog and became increasingly inefficient with more people following it and suggesting things. Then, on April 6, 2009, Andrew announced that he would be starting a new adventure using a new suggestion box on the Fora. To reflect this, he changed the name of the fora from the Gangbunch Fora to the MSPA Forums. And everyone, seeing as how they needed to register in order to make suggestions now, registered all at once. Compared to 388 users registering from December 31, 2004 to April 5, 2009, there were around 1350 people that joined up in the 8 days from April 6-April 13. This change meant that that these fora were now…

II. The MSPA Forums.

From now on, when I speak of the history of the MSPA Forums, I mean “of the period on or after April 6, 2009.” Anything before I will refer to as being in the Gangbunch Fora.

The MSPA Forums started off rather smoothly—or at least marginally smoother than you’d expect when the user list for a forum quadruples in a week. There was a simple fan-edit art thread, a small number of fan-made adventures that a majority of people in the community could follow and keep up with, and people didn’t concern themselves with rapid fire posting so much. It was a simpler time.
However, as Homestuck progressed, more posters joined, and the suggestion box was closed and opened and closed again, the community grew to what it is today—a two-headed community-fandom hydra of posting. It also picked up some fads and jokes along the way.

The best way for you to learn about the history and culture of the MSPA Forums is through the following pictomap, which was made for MSPA Week 2010 (the celebration of the Forums' and Homestuck's anniversaries). Simply pick a thing you're interested to learn about and look at the legend for what it is:

show spoiler

hide spoiler

1) This is the spider from Roomland, which is likely the most popular fan-adventure in all of MSPAFA's history. Made by a forumgoer named Marty, it even got a nod from Andrew in a news post.

2) A smuppet on top of Jigsaw. Jigsaw (the MSPA varient) originated in this thread, which detailed Metalbourne, Michael and Andrew alternating in telling a story involving plush pornography (predating that of Dave's bro) and gruesome torture. Also, putting nudeplushes on top of previously-existing avatars was briefly an avatar fad.

3) This is Doctor Derek Brinner, who does not actually exist. Doctor Brinner is a former forum injoke, started by former moderator Marelo in the IDE/Theory thread as a way to parody the overcomplexity of Andrew's adventures. It quickly caught on with people chipping in their own creative contributions as to what happened in "Andrew's longest MSPA to date." However, the joke soon wore out as people tried to "canonize" what was essentially an undefined folklore. Now, Brinner jokes are met with 10% praise, 30% derision and 60% indifference.

4) Gangbunch forumgoer Leaf was in a coma. He woke up from said coma. And the when he did, the last thing he remembered before his coma happened was MSPA. This is an inspirational read.

5) This is the MSPA face. It's represented by the emoticon :MSPA: . It seems to be an all purpose emoticon. SleepingOrange says it can be used for 1) Sarcasm 2) To express one's own mistakes 3)to imply someone else's foolishness 4) in response to a baffling post. It should also be noted that you should not overuse it!

6) This is Gankro. He made the "YOU THERE. BOY." walkaround, the programming for the start of Act 4 walkaround, and the Imp Green Slime Ghost ride game (in addition to other things), and his antics are a major funfuel of these forums. His website, http://timelesschaos.com/, contains many fun jokeflashes and forum-based fungames, such as a smuppet customizer. Also, he made the Fact Seagull based off forumgoer Wheeeeeeatthins's avatar and propensity to spout dubious facts (such as the entire forum history you are reading now).

7) The line from Jailbreak, "What Pumpkin?" is used in many situations. Mostly, it's involving posts or links or anything disappearing.

8 ) People just love quoting SB&HJ.

9) These are bee jokes. Forumgoers Norivia and Superfrequency teamed up for a collab adventure called Bee. The adventure was swiftly bedecked with pages of bee puns, coursing through the heart of the MSPAFA forum like a gargantuan river of unfunny honey.

10) These are Fufu and ChuChu, recurring characters on Byrobot.net. In one comic, they had a soup battle. This resulted in the phrase "STIR STIR STIR" to be used whenever someone was stirring up trouble. Also, Gankro made this emoticon, but it ended up looking like RITS RITS RITS.

11) Corgi Adventure, a spinoff adventure by MyifanW, has caused much sadness due to unfortunate things happening to the Corgi (who is forced several times to Corgitears), and due to the twist on page 1.

12) Adding sunglasses and pointing to one's own post was a brief but [url=http://i43.tinypic.com/34io5k1.pngwide-sweeping avatar fad[/url]. (Schazer compiled this)

13)"Your name is JOHNNY EGGBERT. Stuck to your hair is a WOWWIPOP. What is your move?" (By Digeridude; came from the first fanart thread, which was more of a "fan-sprite-edit" thread; also makes a cameo in John's house walkaround flash if you press ctrl+T in most browsers.)
Also, it's worth noting that the first avatar fad of the MSPA Forums was fan-edits of John's sprite.

14) One of the first MSPAFAs to be made and completed was The Mutewood. The scary eye from it was made into a symbol for any scary goings-on early in the MSPA Forums era.

15) The first MSPAFA was Bird Wizard—a parody recitation of Problem Sleuth with bird wizards instead of hard-boiled detectives.

16) When the Peregrine Mendicant was introduced and her love for was divulged, a likewise fervor (mostly in avatar form) for the sending of letters and parcels was admitted by the forums. However, some people here do not share the sentiment, no not so much.

17) is the official drink of the forums. If you ever have/go to an MSPA party, bring a six pack of TaB. Also, tab has become a political party.

18 ) This comes from the Man on Man Suck Off thread linked to earlier when talking about Tauhid.

19) Humanimals are loved by all. There was also a time when if you acted up you were given a humanimal avatar. However, this would be seen as a boon nowadays, as one can see from Epamynondas.

20) Global Jam 2009 was heavy into Captain Planet lovin' (thanks to former mod AllIsLost). Global Jams are sporadic threads that occur as global announcements. They are like block parties for our forums.

21) This dancing lady was Gankro's avatar for a while. Many found it creepy. So naturally what happened next was that 10-30 different people adopted it as an avatar for a day.

22) Sexycakes are a relic from earlier fanart threads. The thing was to make steamy pictures of (usually carapaced) characters popping out of cakes.
Sexy with cakes. Sexycakes. (It's Not Butter did this)

23) Moderator WesleyFoxx, after an offhand comment regarding self-maleness, received a humorous comment from former moderator Phantos: "Wesley is a BOY?!" It's been parroted quite a few times.

24) Beardate is a one-update adventure made as a one-off joke by sfou, spawned in the IRC channel. It's the original "You Have to Burn the Trope" adventure--this is an adventure that is made with the sole intent of ending quickly. While this remains a funny piece of history, making "Burn the Trope" adventures nowadays will almost always be highly frowned upon by the MSPAFA community and can even get you a big infraction and/or a MSPA TRIBAL CHALLENGE.

25) Mod SleepingOrange created one of the first popular MSPAFAs, called Blobby Adventure. In it, the sexless blob characters were distinguished with the pronouns Schle and Schler (lifted from a Futurama movie); these in turn were used for gender-nonspecific pronouns in the MSPAFA section for a few months.

26) This is a Reicat—the second avatar fad of the MSPA Forums. Forumgoer Reiface drew a cat in the second fan-art thread that perfectly fit the shape of John's and Rose's heads (there were only two characters back then). So came the editing already existing avatars to include a reicat atop the head. This fad came back half a year later.

27) This is a squidhat—moderator Schazer regularly wears them, and has spread this fashion to our smilies.

28 ) This is a panhat—from forumgoer thegreenspark's forum adventure Deadbeat. Many fans of the adventure adopted panhat as a sign of being a fan. Like hobo signs.

29) Jade's oh nooooooo is a common response to a let-down or bad news development here.

30) Right at the beginning of the MSPA Forums era, several suggesters would go around spamming forum adventures with the suggestion to burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man Saying "oh yeah." The response was Kool- AId Advennture, by beans, which was a deliberately short adventure telling people in a roundabout way to stop doing that. It's a good example of how to pull off the "You Have to Burn the Trope" trope.

31) When the update with John's bathroom came out, the first thing the Fan Art thread thought to do was to jam a fat president in there. Thus, taft-jamming. Taft enjoyed a month or two of forum popularity, especially with former mod Red Herring backing both that president and Teddy Roosevelt.

32) Huge bitch, bluh bluh. When the vendetta itinerary picture of snowman came out with "huge bitch, bluh bluh" on it, many forumgoers followed suit in editing their avatars to include this.

33) Former mod Marelo has been drawn to cookies from the start. Beginning with Kate Beaton's "Napoleon guiltily eating a Cookie" as an avatar, he was then given the right to dole out reward cookies to forumgoers for their behavior. Then he founded Marelo Bakeries, Inc., which also took up the cupcaking skills of SleepingOrange and donut-frying skills of Wheeeeeeatthins. Now, the bakeries have been abandoned and if anyone mentions Marelo as being a cookie overlord they are definitely behind the times. Especially if Marelo mentions it.

34) This little blob is Sminly, from Yourself's adventure calledSminly. Quite a few forumers modeled their avatars into Sminly's blob-shape after its introduction.

35) Way back in the beginning of the MSPA Forums' history, Problem Sleuth's rude drawings were used to express mock dissatisfaction with others. As a joke.
Also, the one who smells like poo is Dentrala. (Dentrala's the one that said it, not me.)

36) Moe. It's Moe. Nothing Moe're to it, I just wanted to put Moe in there.

37) During the Midnight Crew intermission, people updated their avatars to be either members of the Midnight Crew or of the felt. The character depicted in the vendetta itinerary is from a no-longer-updating adventure called Songs We Sing.

38 ) Superfrequency's Overtime adventure garnered the most fanart of any early MSPA Forums-era adventure. Most of it was for Snacktime, the furious vending machine who could easily be drawn in less than a minute with a few rectangles and lines . Superfrequency and SleepingOrange unofficially went head-to-head to see which adventure could garner more fan-art with their simple, easily-drawn characters.

39) The Need for Steed. Andrew got 400 dollars from other people to buy this portrait of questionable quality. (The question though is "should I sell off all of my family and friends into indentured servitude in exchange for it”)

40) Bard quest. The black sheep of MSPAs.

41) This reflects how people often change their avatars to reflect recent updates. More accurately, it reflects how forumgoer Shadow of the Lotus often changes his avatar to reflect recent updates. Included is an edit reflecting the Land of Wind and Shade, the introduction of gallowsCalibrator, and the Soviet hammer-and-sickle (which was briefly an avatar fad, contrasted with the American flag). Also, there's an eyepatch, reflecting how Shadow of the Lotus got his eye cut in kindergarten in a Thanksgiving pilgrimhat papercraft mishap.

42) Bitchin' Shades Snake don't want to hear your words. That's just how he rolls.

Oh here are a few more


43) The Bunny: recently, some forumers have put together an effort to send several bunnies through the .

44) Worcestershire Sauce is a common option in forum polls. Started with a poll in an intentionally-bad fanfic thread by forumgoer xyzzy where the options for the fanfic's quality were "Worse", Worst!!!" or "Worcestershire."

45) Spades Slick is Everybody: An overused, spent-up joke from facetious IDE/theory posting.

46) WV is an IMP: See above. Even Andrew mocked people saying this one in the main comic.

47) The Bowmask: music team member Michael Bowman (most well-known for Sburban Jungle/Countdown) made
an adventure of his own using the POWER OF PHOTOGRAPHY. In it, forumgoer DimJim makes an appearence, but to make it easier to photograph, Bowman gives DimJim a mask of his face. The Bowmask then became an avatar fad to influence Bowman to continue updating.

48 ) Kick Cyz in the Nuts: a crossover-tastic adventure by forumgoer CheezeDeluxe was derailed by people demanding that character Cyz be kicked in the nuts, and the suggestion spread to a popularity equal to that of "Burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man." Eventually, this suggestion came to fruition in a thread of its own.

III. The Forapocalypse and After That

In the middle of July 2010, we [or should I say NotASenator] switched forum software from phpbb3 to vBulletin, and rehosted the forums on its own site. There was a three-day lead-up to this called the forapocalypse, with the forum's theme being changed to a funereal black-with-meteors-thundering-down background, and also a timer until the end of the forums was placed at the top of the forums. After the timer ran out, the forums went down, and a few days later, we had a brand new forum! Also, we were given three new mods and a big subforum reorganization (eg: fanart went from MSPA to Art). As of right now, the forums are still under construction!

That does it for the lecture portion of our class. If there are any questions, I’ll take them now.

2.2 Questions and Answers

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Q: Has _____ ever been a mod?
A: The following are or have been mods at some time from April 2009 to now (listed in the order of induction; if their name is colored, that means they still are a modmin): Andrew, Byron, Betelgeuse, Michael, Tynic, Stephen, Brendon, Phantos, SleepingOrange, WesleyFoxx, AllIsLost, Marelo, Red Herring, Metalbourne, NotASenator, Zuki, Lexxy, and Schazer.

Q: Why are the comic's suggestion boxes closed?
A: The medium of Homestuck has changed, and Andrew Hussie has said that they were just getting in the way of story progression. If someone says that there is a crater in the suggestion box, they are referring to the first time it was locked after the end of Act I when John's house was hit by a meteor, and the suggestion box was replaced with a picture of a crater.

Q: Who starts a new thread after an old one is locked?
A: Threads are locked after 100 pages (with the standard 25 posts per page), with the first poster on page 101 (or post #2476) getting the honor of starting the next thread. Do not try to spam a thread just to get post 2476, this post (like all posts) should have content.

Q: Why is the IDE/Theory thread called that? What's an IDE?
A: The person who started the first thread misspelled Idea, and it stuck.

Q: What's all this about horses?
A: From Andrew's forumspring: "Ok horses are HILARIOUS. They're like these big snorting muscular monsters with these huge faces, and they often freak out, and we RIDE THEM. That's INSANE." It should be noted that by talking about horses, you are doing very important work.

Q: What's a MSPA Tribal Challenge?
A: The was what occurred when someone did something really jerkish. Usually, it was making a "You Have to Burn the Rope"-type trolling adventure. What would happen is that one person would give out a few different off-the-wall choices of challenges they could do to redeem themselves by a certain time,or else face the scorn of the MSPAFA TRIBE.
Nopad got one and won. Gankro and Wheeeeeeatthins simultaneously challenged each other (two posts apart); Gankro completed one of his given objectives, while Shadow of the Lotus, captain2obvious and Ed_knott each completed one of those objectives... meanwhile, Wheeeeeeatthins completed two of his three given objectives. Also, Valter and Vinni volunteered to do ones and succeeded, and then Norivia cleaned up on one of the last remaining challenges by 25 drawing penguins, but then Gankro came along and disestablished the MSPA Tribal Challenge.

Q: Is it funny if I say "God Damnit, Nopad?"
A: No! It's rude and hackneyed and the world will hate you just a little more for it.

Q: Someone just posted a link to tweenlust.com. Will I face swift incarceration for opening this link?
A: The tweens in this case refer to Flash's motion tweens. Phantos has a tradition of registering odd domain names, like fancysanta.com.

Q: Somebody just said the name "Bolin" and a veil of deathly silence fell over everyone in the room. Why is that?
A: Bill Bolin was a member of the Homestuck music team. Unfortunately, there were creative differences between him and Andrew/the rest of the music team. The two involved parties parted ways, and all music made by him in flash updates were replaced by other pieces that the music team already had made. They have wished each other the good luck in the future and we'll leave it at that. On the upside, this sort of ushered in the release of the nearly 3-hour-long fifth volume of Homestuck, which is packed with music both featured in and not yet appearing in the comic.

Q: Oh my popcorn there's a huge dumpload of gifs in front of me. What's all this fuss with post milestone celebrations?
A: A time-honored tradition of the forums for celebration is to post a whole bunch of gifs and jpegs, preferably with a theme. A post count in itself means nothing. Post milestones are just a good excuse to do a bunch of goofy shit. Like white dudes and Cinco de Mayo.
And according to Byron "People do that wherever the post occurs.”

Q: How often do people get banned?
A: The amount of users that have been banned can probably fit in a few egg cartons!* Just use common sense and follow what it says to do in the rules thread. And don't be a flagrant jackass.
*This doesn't count spambots because they are not people.

Q: Last question. I need to know... which dog is the best dog?
A: Phoebe is the best dog.

And that wraps up class! Your homework: be wicked rad.

[Zudak]

Fun, you say? Shenanigans, you say? Sign me up!

[Shadow of the Lotus]

Well prepared indeed. I like that Wheeeeeeatthins.

[captain2obvious]

Excellent job. With that post, you should get that badge after no time at all!
How far along into writing the forum's history are you?

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

Hello, zudak!

Excellent job. With that post, you should get that badge after no time at all!
How far along into writing the forum's history are you?

About half-way.

[Acionyx]

Very nice. I know you said you've been working on this for a while and it shows. Can't wait to see your history lesson.

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Um small error.

chummy to one another and make to always make an effort to contribute positively to the community you see around you)

[Doktor Sneeze]

If you want to make your avatar out of a story panel or large-sized image, do not just take it directly from the page or web source--resize it down to a smaller size first! (Can easily be done in paint or GIMP.) If you don't, it slows down the servers every time a page has to load with your huge image. Also, image leaching is for jerks.

So glad to see someone saying this. Seems like there's way too many avatars that are scaled down in browser or leached.

[Zudak]

Haha that's awesome, wheatthins.

Yeah other people have made that joke, I even have a couple of Zubat avatars on my other forum but somehow that joke never gets old. XD

[Epamynondas]

I kinda wish I was new.

Actually... wait a minute... this is no good... this is no good at all!









No but seriously you get some serious respect for that.

(There's also a [/spoiler] without a [spoiler] in the soft guidelines bit)

Edit: I don't know if it would be good to mention that you can tell other modmins if you have a problem with a particular one.

[illisid]

Wow that must be like the first time a new user has posted on the first page of the introduction thread!

tee hee:

Please, don't mention a post is a page-topper! Or at any other position of the page.
The first poster on page 100 gets the honor of starting the next thread.

That introduction is a work of art!

[FIDUSPAWN]

I hope to someday start a thread as well.

[Zudak]

Wow that must be like the first time a new user has posted on the first page of the introduction thread!

I actually posted in the previous one first, and somebody was all like wow you're sneaky, you got in just as this thread was about to close!

So then I knew I had to come post in the new one, too.

[FIDUSPAWN]

Your right and hi Zudak and welcome to this place. :3

[Zudak]

Thanks Fidus.

I'll say again what I said in the last thread: y'all seem like a pretty nice bunch of people.

I've actually been lurking in the fanart thread for a while now because there's some pretty cool stuff coming out of there (it's where I got this Aradia avatar actually, well, minus the Zubat that Wheatthins added to it and is awesome for doing!)

[piester]

Hi their guys, I never posted in this thread yet, so I guess this is my introduction even though I've been here for almost a year

so hi!

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

Actually... wait a minute... this is no good... this is no good at all!

Thanks to you and acionyx for correcting the typos! I had to kind of get it off without much proofreading just so we'd have an intro thread.

Edit: I don't know if it would be good to mention that you can tell other modmins if you have a problem with a particular one.

I meant if you're having problems with other users. I'll make that clearer.

[FIDUSPAWN]

No problem Zudak since it nice to be nice. And hi piester and your welcome here as well, no matter how long it takes to visit here.

[captain2obvious]

Heres something you might want to fix.

In addition to the rules, here are some posting tips and soft guidelines to follow if you want to keep in good standing with the other posters: In addition to the rules, here are some posting tips and soft guidelines to follow if you want to keep in good standing with the other posters:

[Stij]

Man, this is a fine introduction post. How long did it even take you to do that, wheat?

[beesmygod]

Damn wheathins way to put EFFORT into things.

e: pretend like I post this for every new person who joins us

[Marelo]

For some reason, though I know it is howdy, I keep seeing rowdy in there and it puts me in mind of a wrasslin' match.

Also this post definitely was not edited many times in a series of confusing corrections which were then finally replaced with something about an entirely different topic.

[Wheeeeeeatthins]

Man, this is a fine introduction post. How long did it even take you to do that, wheat?

It's been a day or two on and off.

[Marelo]

Also you said you were going to color the banner.

I wanted to see some cotton candy color. Comrade. Capiche?

[captain2obvious]

Hello, sir or madam, my name is (scout's name) and on behalf of Badger Buckos troop 105b, welcome to the MSPA Forums! They have never been always been known as the MSPA Fora and anyone who says otherwise isdumb and probably has no friends not an admin.

Did that always look like that or was it just changed?

Edit: Marelo/Wheeeeeatthins stop changing the things you say! Its confusing!