Best of the Forums
December 2009 Edition
(Inaugural Issue!)
Foreword
Hello everyone and welcome to what I hope is the first of many issues of Best of the Forums (or BotF for short)! This is effectively the monthly forum newsletter that will try to incorporate the ‘Best of the Forums’ in this previous month! At the moment we have a skeleton crew but we’re hoping to expand our team, but more on that later. There may not be much this month, but we are going to grow!
Sothanks for reading and if you’re interested in contributing, keep reading to find out how you can get involved!
- Heald
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Forum News
By Heald
There have been a great deal of changes in the forums in the last month, and I don’t hesitate in saying this is probably the biggest change to the forums itself since the Website Revival Project.
I think it goes without saying the biggest change, and one that many members (myself included) have been campaigning for ages for, is the new ‘spam forum’, otherwise known as Mt. Moon (credit goes to shazza for the name). It has become an instant hit with members and in its short existence it has already overtaken (at time of writing) General Discussion and The Binary District forums in terms of posts. Of course many people are to thank for their contributions, such as Houndoom_Lover, who initiated the thread in Misc in the first place (although initially it was about something completely different, but hey, credit where credit’s due), shazza for suggesting the name and helping in the discussion process, as well as RedStarWarrior for assisting me with the developments behind the scenes and kainashi for agreeing to be our co-mod for the forum itself. There’s many others to thank that I cannot fit in, but another special thank you to Lady Vulpix for making it happen, as well as thanks to ChobiChibi for creating the awesome banner for Mt. Moon!
Another major change is the new The PokeMasters Website forum, which now incorporates the existing Website Revival forum and the Contributors Only forum (previously at The Binary District), as well as the new TPM News forum, which is the new way of posting news onto the main site’s front page. How exciting!
The forum colours have also been at the heart of what appears to be a revamp of the Forums. Many forums have already made the jump through the democratic process (such as Mt. Moon) and other forums may be having elections or are already in the process of using polls to decide what colours to use. Credit goes to Lady Vulpix for working tirelessly to make the revamp happen.
There have been a series of mod adjustments to be made aware of, so if you’re unaware of them, here they are in brief:
- Roy Karrde has been made a moderator of Video Games.
- PancaKe has been promoted to moderator of FanFic.
- Heald, RedStarWarrior and kainashi have all been made moderators of Mt. Moon.
- Jeff has been made moderator of The PokeMasters Website.
That’s all the news for this time! Thanks!
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[CENTER]What’s Hot in Miscellaneous!
By DragoKnight
[LEFT] Welcome to the inaugural edition of ‘What’s Hot in Miscellaneous!’, brought to you by your crusty old host, DragoKnight. Don’t expect me to hold the reins on this project for long, since I’m lazy and giving y’all a dapper little e-zine is more FanFic mod material, but we’ll see what we can do.
It’s been an interesting month for Misc, and though it’s quieted down a little now, there’s still lots to talk about. Picking out the best of Misc for the month is basically the equivalent to picking out the best for TPM in my humble estimation, but of course I’m not biased or anything.
The hottest threads right now have been the old standbys; how was your day, whatcha listenin’ to, and whatcha look like, but the month of November introduced new discussions, too; Houndoom_Lover’s pondering of the mod/member ratio has led to general TPM forum discussion, so if you want to chip in any suggestions for the forums, that seems to be the place to do it. Also, if you delve back into page two of Misc, there’s still a couple topics there that might merit a little more discussion… As a sports nut, I personally recommend the NBA discussion thread, but if that’s not your thing, then I’ll just remind you that Blademaster’s One-Year Topic is just one more month away from actually spanning an entire year… If you have a topic for discussion there, make sure to post it! Don’t let us fall just one month short!!
We at Misc also welcome back Quicksilver62160, whose account was temporarily absconded by treacherous forces trying to warp our humble little land of TPM. He hasn’t made many rumblings about making a permanent return, but we hope he decides to stick around, and also assure you that the fiend in question has been dealt with and cast aside. Because we are just so awesome and powerful and all. Also, Jay Umbreon briefly returned as well. Make sure to bug him about staying, too. STAY JAY STAY.
December is arriving, so expect a gamut of threads related to Christmas and New Years to roll in… If you just can’t wait to get your December holiday fix, be sure to check out shazza’s New Years resolution thread.
Picking out a post of the month for Misc isn’t easy, since there’s simply so much being said about so many things, but after much scouring, I’ve found one. Though this spot should usually be reserved for posts that are long, interesting or significant on the month of Misc, I just happen to think that this one is awesome.
From PancaKe’s silly things to be scared of thread…
Originally Posted by
Kyuuketsuki
I'm always scared of handeling knives, I tend to swing my arms arouond a lot and I think I might kill people.
Awesome.
We’ve got a few ideas for the months upcoming, particularly once January rolls around, but I don’t want to reveal anything too early – they’re still up in the air, and I’d rather one of the people proudly spearheading the projects be the ones to discuss them, rather than myself, the perennial hanger-on.
What? You want some information? Well… perhaps Misc has gotten jealous of all these other community heavy little nooks of TPM who gather around yearly in December to celebrate the yuletide with gifts of prose and art for one another. And though I wanted to go all Scrooge and stuff on their asses and just put a stop to all secret Santas, there’s rumblings that perhaps misc might host a secret Santa of its own. Keep your eyes peeled and see what eventuates, monsieur.
A proposition, though, and one that I just came up with a moment ago. I really did like Heald’s news thread back in the day, and though in the interest of activity we axed most of the collated threads, people seem to have interpreted that to mean that we don’t want any more of the posts contained within…
So my proposal for December, and consider it an open challenge if you will, is for y’all to hunt for post-worthy news topics, and make new threads for them! There have been a couple of news threads every now and then, and they’ve sometimes proven for great discussion, ie. mr_pikachu’s thread about a couple in Pennsylvania who were arrested for refusing to pay a tip.
So I invite you to go out there, find yourself some nifty news, and bring it to Misc for discussion! Of course, it has to be… well, discussion-worthy. If it’s crappy, then don’t bother. But I trust your judgement on that one. 
I think that ought to do it for this month. If this Misc article changes from month to month, it’s because I had the wrong idea and banged out a crappy article this month, but I prefer to just be giddy that we were the first, the proud, the Miscellaneous of November.
Happy December, and remember to post those newsworthy items!!
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What's What in ASB
By DarkestLight
[LEFT]Hi everyone. This is DL, giving you the What's What in Anime Style Battling (ASB for short)!
Since the end of the year is coming around, activity is jumping up. Maybe it's because of the Xmas Tree- a time where all members come in and share points and Pokemon with fellow members-continually keeping that Christmas spirit alive.
We've just wrapped up the 2009 ASB awards a few weeks ago, and there were quite a few winners. However, the member who stole the show this year was Crazy Elf Boy-with a total of 7 Awards won. Congratulations to you Elf!
As for battling, we have two most unique battles I'd like to point the spotlight on. One is the Eevee Rumble, where we have 5 members duking it out with a grand total of 35 Eevees! Its a fluffy feverish fun time!
The second is a Glitz Pit Challenge, where one member is taking on twenty others in one-on-one combat to assert himself as the most formidable trainer in all of ASB! Good luck to you Blademaster, you'll need it!
Well, that's the Best of... for ASB. Until next time!
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The Latest in Fanfic
By mr_pikachu
We're currently holding the fourth Fanfiction Hall of Fame Election to determine which member will become the newest addition to the illustrious Fanfiction Hall of Fame. Nominations are almost complete, so the voting phase will begin in a few days.
Additionally, our Fanfiction Forum E-zine was developed under a new format to conclude its third year of publication, resulting in our largest issue ever. In January, we're going to re-christen it with a new title. You can vote on the nominated titles here. Tell us, what do you want the E-zine to be?
We're currently accepting registrants for this year's Secret Santas. In order to get involved in this nostalgic event, all you need to do is register in the thread, and you'll be assigned a recipient for whom you'll write a literary Christmas present. It's always fun to see who writes for you, as well.
Finally, our annual Golden Pen Awards will begin in just a few weeks. We hope you'll look forward to them!
Casting Call
By Heald
Now this is part I'm sure a lot of you have been waiting for. I'd like to thank DragoKnight and DarkestLight for contributing at such short notice, but right here is the casting call for new staff writers. I'm looking for permanent correspondents in each forum (or selection of forums) to be on the lookout this month for interesting, funny or newsworthy posts, threads or happenings and condense it into a couple of paragraphs. That said, if you are interested in any position whatsoever, PM me an article (or articles if you want to go after multiple positions) about something happening in the Forums before 1st January 2010 and whoever sends me the best article will earn a place as a permanent staff writer!
For the runners-up, however, I am also looking for contributors to either send interesting news or observations or whatever to me or the staff writer in charge of that area, or to call upon to either interview or to write an opinion piece. Permanent contributors will not always get a spot every month, but they can guarantee they will be credited for their contributions and I will endeavour to put everything I can in each month.
Contributors are perfect for people who want to write in but cannot commit to a monthly article, whereas Staff Writers are perfect for those who can make an article every month. If a Staff Writer cannot make one month either, then a Contributor will be offered the spot that month. Contributors will also have the first chance when a new spot opens up on the writing team.
So get those articles written up and PM them to me before the end of the month! If you are interested in applying, please make your intention clear by replying to this post and perhaps what position(s) you're going for!
Thanks!
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Best of the Forums (December 2009)
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