Tom Mai: The Origins

[The Helper]

Oh my...

 

[tom_mai78101]

Is it scary enough for you, my lord?

I actually omitted a small detail: How I got back my name.

After being as "tom_mai78102" for quite some time, like 1 to 2 years later (2010 ~ 2011), I asked DDRtists and Miz to see if I am allowed to have my name back. That request was officially granted by The Helper, and the name change was done by either Miz or Seth Cross, either one of the two.

This is how persistent I am when it comes to name changes. Because they stand for something meaningful back then.

 

[FireCat]

Do you have "moar crazy" personal history to tell?

 

[The Helper]

Is it scary enough for you, my lord?

I actually omitted a small detail: How I got back my name.

After being as "tom_mai78102" for quite some time, like 1 to 2 years later (2010 ~ 2011), I asked DDRtists and Miz to see if I am allowed to have my name back. That request was officially granted by The Helper, and the name change was done by either Miz or Seth Cross, either one of the two.

This is how persistent I am when it comes to name changes. Because they stand for something meaningful back then.

I would have given it to you back no matter what. I remember the incident with your double accounts and I did not care that much back then. Ace, Darg and Ryoko were Nazis when it came to that stuff.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Note: Every week, I post a new part to the series. So, stay tuned every week for more of my history.

Atari Split


The following phrases may not be entirely factual. Most of the evidences are no longer
existent/available due to Atari Forums being down. There may be incorrect/misleading facts
scattered throughout the passages, but the thing is, this event did occurred. It's just that
it's hard to recall most of the details.


================================================================


Atari Split: Introduction


In the beginning, there exists a forum, structured by a company known as Atari. This forum
have existed since the birth of the Internet, 1998 or 1999. But none of those details matter.
The only thing that matters the most is the forum name is called the Atari Forums.

It started off with a wonderful community within the forum, a place where all the pros of all the active forums come together. Okay, maybe this isn't the best way to describe it. It's more of an active forum that has over 400 unique members logging in to post some of their thoughts or topics throughout the entire forum subspace.

There are 30+ subforums, ranging from RollerCoaster Tycoon subforums, to the
DragonBall franchises subforums, to other game related subforums, to the wacky general zone.

Disregarding the RollerCoaster Tycoon and other media franchise subforums, we're left with
the general zone.

In the general zone, we have the General Chat subforum. And that's that. There's about a
mere 40+ unique members dedicated to chitchatting in the General Chat subforums, including

me. All the rest of the 360+ members are dedicated to their respective subforums. And they
have nothing to do with what was coming in their ways.

All of this occurred within the general zone, inside the General Chat.



Atari Split: The Beginning


Everybody in the General Chat is having fun, I tell you! People here and there all just kept talking, chatting, and discussing like you have never seen before. We, the General Chat members, just kept posting stuffs all day long, through the night, rinse and repeat. News, society, crimes, life problems, rants, gaming topics, questions, forum games, humor, music, etc., you don't even have to start counting the many categories we have, as there are too many to count.

General Chat is like that, people discuss many different topics/subjects within a day. People all over the world, people with jobs, staff members included, everybody loves to discuss something in the General Chat. It's a paradise for those who are forum dwellers.

But it's also a haven for lurkers/spammers/advertisers/problem-makers/etc.

You see, when people constantly starts to chat about many different things, these troublemakers start to spam-post their contents and get marked by other active members. Staffs make sure they are either taken cared of via giving out infractions or get permanently banned for good.

All of these are normally enforced by many other forums, right? So, what's really wrong?
The key word here is: Trending.

People, like me, who loves to chitchat stuffs tends to look upon trending topics to start off the day. As trending topics come and go, they are easy to spot because of the way vBulletin works. Many of you vBulletin users know that when topics are becoming trendy, they would get marked with a "Hot Topic" red-envelope icon next to the many blue-envelope icons.

We strive hard to achieve that "Hot Topic" icon, as it guarantees waves of waves of viewers viewing your thread. Not only that, but also you get recognitions and respect among the active members. Varying recognitions and varying respects, to tell you the truth.

Sometimes, I get an infraction for posting too many stuffs at once. Once you post a post, the thread gets "bumped" to the top to let others know that thread had recently been replied to. The reason I get an infraction is because I actively replied to 20~30 threads per day for a couple of days straight, and was labeled a "spammer" for that.

That infraction expires in about 1 year and 6 months, so I remember clearly how I got an infraction. It was also during the time I received my infraction, I had asked experienced members to see if what would happen if a lot of negative reputation points have been reached, and recalled that Ghan_04 mentioned something about infractions not set up at the time.

Evidence A:
http://www.thehelper.net/threads/wi...trict-rule-based-on-that.137305/#post-1200399


(Speaking of infractions, doing a little search reveals that the staff members did actually discuss the possibility of using infractions.)

(PS: During that same search, I stumbled upon a RM thread that pits me and Slapshot136 together in a match for the Respected Member title... Deeply interesting outcome... Hrmmm...)

(Spoiler: The Helper voted for me, everyone else voted for Slapshot136. I was even called "dense"!)

Digressing back, having received such an infraction for being a spammer, I get the common recognition that I was a spammer. Yes, indeed at the time, I was a spammer. I constantly post a lot of many things related to the topic, or unrelated to the topic as much as I possible can. Whatever the outcome of the posts I made, I'm still actively engaging in discussion.

All of this is before the tom_mai78102 incident, so don't worry. That recognition somehow went to The Helper Forums and cast a spell among members there. One of the members even mentioned me spamming in Newgrounds, which to my knowledge, I only posted 10 posts, and then quit Newgrounds due to the fact that I'm not used to such unusual forum at the time.

Receiving the infraction at Atari Forums is when I started to realize how big of a mess I am when it comes to posting stuffs. I realized that people around me are hating me for the mess I made, even if the mess was unintentionally done.

After receiving the infraction, I remembered that I was banned from Atari Forums for a couple of days (3 days I think), which is sufficiently enough for me to turn my hyperattention to The Helper Forums, caused the incident, get banned from there, and lurk around in the Emuforums and whatnot.

Returning back to the Atari Forums, I felt like I have a new home to start amending. I started reading what was at the time, the only two important messages given to me: One of the experienced members at Atari Forums recommended me (with an angry tone) to read two threads:

Forum Etiquette and Forum Rules.

The first thread, Forum Etiquette, is the first important message I have ever received. It's about the virtual world etiquette used throughout the Interwebs. I took it as if it's a guideline to everything etiquette. To be honest, even Reddit has some of the etiquettes covered in the Forum Etiquette, so I definitely know that thread is meaningful at the very least.

Learning a lot from the Forum Etiquette thread, the next important message is the Forum Rules. At least, that's what the thread title is called. The thread content is, I would say, arguably different than what I was expecting.

The Forum Rules thread contains rules of extraordinary value: It first mentioned a given rule, rules that are pretty much labeled down in any forums to date. Then, after mentioning the rule, it gives a reason. This is something most forum rules threads do not have.

For example, rule #2:

DO NOT SPAM.
REASON: If you spam, you are labeled as a spammer, and will be banned for life. Spamming only encourages other people to spam, thus making the staff members' live miserable and unhappy. If you are caught in the act of spamming, the only way to save yourself is to believe in God, pray, and let the banhammer rain down on you. Spamming is intolerable. There once was a spammer who defies all forum rules in a forum, can you guess what happens next? That forum went down, lawsuits were made, and lawyers earn $40,000 that day. So stop doing it, and prevent others from doing it too! You can make a difference.

The rest of the rules are like that. Hence, I can argue that that Forum Rules is completely different.

Now that I learned a lot of etiquettes and rules, it's time to play with the rules.



Atari Split: The Happening


As always, I constantly post topics. I never reply to another member's thread, unless it really warrants one. Many people (yes, including you, good sir/ma'am) don't really know this, but I always start new threads and reply only in my threads in Atari Forums. This sometimes carried over to The Helper Forums.

Why I do that? I think it's a weird feeling of being perfect that makes me want to do that. You know, sort of like a compulsive behavior. It may be because of this, that I was more or less annoying back then.

But since I have read the etiquettes and rules, I tried not to break them, but still achieve as much posts as I can. I varied my posting frequencies, I tried replying to dead threads with valid answers, which irks staff members and making them telling me that I need to stop being a "thread necromancer". I'm sure Seth Cross, or Acehart even warned me for being a necromancer in The Helper Forums once before.

So, this keeps happening while I was permanently banned from The Helper Forums, I started to get new recognitions that I'm now being knowledgeable and more mature than I used to, and I get to help out others with their problems by bringing in unusual discussions to their "already-serious" moments.

Annoying as it may seemed, I finally earned my respect. A "Talkative" respect. And this is when I noticed something: My topics are finally becoming trending. The "Always start new threads" game rule really is working!

And I started a craze: The Myth or Rumor series (6 threads in total, including Evidence B.)

Evidence B:
http://www.thehelper.net/threads/my...separated-is-healthier-than-as-a-whole.93560/

(That craze didn't last long, all because someone at Atari Forums mentioned that both the words, "myth" and "rumor" are practically symonyms.)

Trendy topics like that can garner up to 300 unique views in a day, thanks to the many active forum members at Atari Forums. And with each trendy topics marked as "Hot Topics" under my belt, I felt proud!

This didn't last long. A month after I received an infraction, there was an announcement that said a new Atari employee is to be recruited as a Community Manager some time in the future.

(It's around here that the timeline is messed up. I cannot recall completely with memory, so bear with me.)

This announcement attracted lots of high hopes and expectations in the forums, and not just strictly in General Chat. Even the RCT and DBZ subforums are bustling with discussions on who it could be, and what that new employee will do.

After a week, this new Community Manager arrived. Everyone welcomed him. He waved back. And then things gone awry. We'll call this new Community Manager, the "admin" for now.

The admin quickly proceeded to initate actions, saying that he is to reenforce and reenact the forum rules according to the Atari company standards. He also mentioned that he felt the current staff roster is not up to par. He then proceeds to kick off the current staff roster, which brought forth controversy (and the day I learned what "controversy" means), negative reactions, and a group protest consisting of many Atari Forum members.

I think one of the prominent members that took part of the controversy is SilverHawk. (This is what bothers me the most, if it wasn't for the Atari Forums being taken down, I can then be able to find out who was leading the protest and grab some more details about the controversy.)

SilverHawk and co. started to protest against the new admin, which then made the admin reinstate their decisions to enforce strictly to Atari published games within the General Chat, and disallow news topic, life problems, etc. general topics within General Chat. This causes further outrage and made SilverHawk and co. pissed. They decided to create a new forum solely to move the old General Chat to there, and never to return to Atari Forums.

As quickly as SilverHawk and co. left Atari Forums, the active member count number decreased from 400+ to just 100+ active member. To me, this is a loss of a wonderful community, or rather, a loss of a wonderful subforum. The General Chat is no longer active as it used to be before the incident. Atari Forums was pretty much barren, and the other forum that created in light of this incident was no longer saved, as the admin removed the thread from view.

I got a hunch that this incident is not a small one. But I never would expect to see Atari to go bankrupt in the future, let alone think up a conspiracy that this incident was the cause of a butterfly effect.



Atari Split: The Aftermath



The ban at The Helper Forum still hasn't been lifted yet, nor do I see the end of it. Struggling to cope with the loss of a great subforum, I decided to return to The Helper Forum, and start a new life.

The aftermath of this is roughly the same as the aftermath of tom_mai78102 incident. I did start a thread to remind me of this incident, but at the time, people at The Helper Forums still think of me as the old spammer, thus closing the thread.

Evidence C:
http://www.thehelper.net/threads/do...ns-to-remove-a-community.131649/#post-1150138

(Also stumbled upon a 2 year old post of mine telling The Helper that I was a member of Atari Forums, and that The Helper said there's a bunch of trolls over there. I guess what The Helper recalled about knowing Atari Forums, is given here. So, The Helper tells the truth, people!
http://www.thehelper.net/threads/th...net-myminicity-city.77343/page-25#post-682932)

Well, I guess that's all of the Atari Split incident I can find for you guys.

================================================================
Next up in the series: Road to Maturity and how I get to become a News Moderator.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Part 5: The Road where no one is following. Unless it is I who is unable to get followers.


Freshly anew, I started to rack my brain again: How should I continue to bring in discussions without actually making others suspicious of my intentions and conspire something saying that I'm about to break the rules again?

Easy.

With the new-found knowledge I earned from Atari Forums (while they still exist before the Atari Split, I started applying them here, basically turning The Helper Forums as a test lab. What did I apply to? The Humor Section.

I tried to post a few forum games that are popular in Atari Forums to The Helper Forums. I learned a few bits here and there. They suck, I know. Battling on, I continued with my efforts, but in vain. This one totally dropped to the ground. This one got a response, and it seems that Husky (once Humor moderator) may be watching my moves; "Better be careful...", I thought.

How about I bring Atari stuffs into The Helper? Like this. Hey, it worked for a while...

(BalticSailor was an Atari Forum GC active member, with his cynical appraisal being his weapon of choice. He's was an outstanding commentor.)

I gave up soon. Humor isn't one of my best talents.

(After the Atari Split...)

Decided to move on to something better. Either General Discussions, or Headline News. Since I'm not as good as the people in Atari Forums for their witty discussions, but I'm good at finding news, I might as well join the Headline News and become a newscaster.

The first thing I learned about posting news, is that I always post news with hot topics from Atari Forums to the News Submission subforum.

Very soon, I lost my viable source for up-to-date news, better start looking for some. So I decided on The Guardian and CNN. As long as I check on both of these, I have enough news to last me for a while. That was during the time when The Helper is active in the Headline News, and probably some other newscasters there. But The Helper stood out as the sole active member that keeps posting news.

I kept lurking around The Guardian and CNN for some unusual news. This is when I started to take a plunge into the dark side of the Internet and law:

Pornography. Especially Asian pornography.

Remember that cousin that I talked about a long time ago? He's back, with a porn video I have never seen before in my life. It depicts a Korean woman masturbating WHILE she is spraying/lactating milk from her breasts. And I mean SPRAYING CONSTANTLY for over 3 minutes, on HIGH PRESSURE, while moaning/groaning and masturbating, and the camera moving up, down, and around the boobs. Milk is spraying as far as the other end of the maroon-colored sofa/couch, from where she's lying down at.

Oh, that got me asking for more. And it got me into what we all call it, the "sexual fetish". Yes, that happened. Me and my cousin, watching some sick lactating porn.

Googled for porn, I stumbled upon many paywall sites, which I skipped constantly nonstop. I finally ended up somewhere close to "anime", "hentai", and "Japanese porn". I forgot how I did it, I mix those three terms up, and I got myself "anime********"

(Never going to give you that site for obvious reasons, but if you are curious, you may PM me about this, and I'll give you the actual link. The link is still up and running as of September 30, 2013. That site is legal, as it's mostly pornographic art comics by Japanese manga artists and amateurs.)

From that site, I discovered something really controversal: Lolicon. (Wikipedia article, SAFE I tell you!)

Another one of those Google trips using the search term "lolicon" turns up a lot of stuffs you don't normally see when you're looking for "hentai".

But, to tell you the truth, that is how I found the news site, Sankaku Complex.

And the first news article I ever posted from Sankaku Complex, is the infamous news article here that haunts us to this day!

Oh wow! That propelled me into the light of many viewers and reactions from that article. Even the admins are afraid of it. And all of that proves I'm worthy of posting news and grabbing your attention!

Forget lolicon, forget lactating fetishes, f*** them. This job is FABULOUS!!

From then on, I posted as much as possible, ranging from The Guardian, Reuters, CNN, occasionally Sankaku Complex (NSFW), and a few miscellaneous news sites. For some reason, Sankaku Complex OFTEN gets high reply counts.

But, after posting all the news I can find, my job is done. Because of that, I just came from the pinnacle of my The Helper Forum activities, and now I don't know what else to do after that.

That seems to affect not just me, but probably a lot of you guys.

The Helper Forums started to lose the activity it used to have after I posted that news article. It highlights the shift of activities from General Discussions to Headline News. That's just me observing what has happened in the "General Stuff", as I don't know what has happened to other places.

While posting Sankaku Complex news, usually I browse around that site for other news, and do enjoy the many awesomely looking drawings that always gets posted as the "giant picture" of the articles. Those are my sweet times. Looking at so many of those pictures has actually made me immune to pornography. I do sometimes enjoy the sensations of watching porn, but watching hentai and anime stuffs now makes me neutral about them. I no longer have feelings for them.

And from there, I understand why some people watch porn. More philosophy by PMing me.

Thus began my maturity: I start college!

It's my first time leaving home so far away (like 200 kilometers away, riding the train for 6 hours before reaching my destination, and such.) I start my individual life as a kid who's about to major in Computer Science.

And it sucks to have earned a nickname, Little Toothpick, right at the start of my freshman years. If you want to know the backstory, go here.

It is around this time, I began to notice that The Helper is no longer active on posting new Headline News, but rather combing out news submissions. I kept posting my news in the News Submission, and hoped to see if The Helper moved my articles into the Headline News.

Around this point in time, I get to see familiar members always having discussions in the Headline News. I felt like I have finally achieved something not in real life, but on account of human behavior. Just a feeling, not bragging or anything.

It's nice to start off with a new experience.

===============================================================

Next series: Start of Headline News mod, Minecraft admin, and ups and downs.

 

[tom_mai78101]

From this point in time, I have started college as a Computer Science freshman, while at the same time, being a news moderator for the Headline News and News Submissions. At the time, there isn't any News Archives.

During my first term reign, I usually post up to 4 news articles everyday. Most of the articles are sought after by using Google, especially big news sites, where they are usually the most obvious ones I can think of by do web searches. Because of my frequent posting of news articles every day, most news submissions made by other members became drastically rarer and rarer as he time goes on. It even went to the point that I was actually competing with The Helper to see how long can I keep a full page of my threads on Headline News, while keeping a nice standard quality of news on there.

I'm sure The Helper didn't see that coming, as well as others who frequent the News Portal.

This kept on for some time, before I started to see people actually replying to my threads. It's usually either FireCat saying, "Nice!", Varine's deep insights, or Nigerianrulez saying awesome things about the news article. Soon, with the help of FireCat, it triggered what I describe it as "the Sticky Situation."

FireCat's role in this event is absolutely crucial. Without him/her/its role, I'm sure there won't be a lot of us here still chatting. Most of the time back then, FireCat would usually blurt out some of the most compelling opinions on the news topics. These little bts of posts actually attracted Varine, Accname, and Kaerfnomekop, and started the Sticky Situation.

What exactly is his "Sticky Situation", and what do the people involved have to do with this? Simple.

FireCat's unique way of expressing his/her/its opinions angered a lot of people. I don't know why, but as an observer from the sidelines watching all of these events unfold, it's actually humorous in its own right. Well, a different kind of humor, in a sense that it is just pure agitating to some people.

As long as FireCat continued to ramble, the rest of the active members counteract upon his quirks, thus actually increases the view count by 2 to 3 times more. I have seen lots of threads ended up with a high number of views, and attracted some non-active lurkers of TheHelper.net to those articles, and helped put boring and uninterested topics in Headline News permanently.

I do admit some articles are boring for my taste, but I do not want to put my bias into the decision-making. This helps with my choice of being neutral towards all sorts of things. Instead, I would prefer if FireCat invokes an active debate. (Most active debates can be found by ordering all the threads in Headline News and News Archives by the number of replies, in descending order.)

This event continued on, to the point that it has become a running gag. I like it. It's unique, it's different from other forums out there, and it is so special that no one knows about it.

I'm pretty sure sometimes, these running gags can turn for the worse if left uncontrolled. I did my best to either switch topic of discussions, change the subjects, and/or point out something that actually makes sense outside of the context.

I do know Seth Cross, DDRtists, Sim (Daxtreme), and one other guy I forgot who, got mad at FireCat for instigating such debates over the course of 4 years. I digress from that for now.

One good thing from the Sticky Situation, and the main reason that I described it as is, is the fact that the people who are involved in FireCat's non-sequitors are the people who got along together, as a common friend/enemy/family of some sort.

The Helper should be happy about this.

We were all involved in the event, and we haven't ended the event as of now. Nigerianrulez did became immune to this and suffered from the side effects of this event, and retaliated by becoming a lurker. He left with anger and disappointment, which I kindly felt like it's similar to what The Helper is to Acehart. I allowed a ruse to happen in front of my eyes and did nothing to stop it, other than locking the thread up.

Another term for the "Sticky Situation" is "being in an awkward situation." That would be me, after that ruse. I don't know if Nigerianrulez hated me or hated FireCat, but I am sure that hatred will last for a long, long time.

After all that ups and downs, I am already a junior in college. The time where I have to write a project, and must collaborate with my roommate. (This is the part where I will be talking about him, even though he has nothing to do with The Helper Forums.) This is also where I have to skip a lot of stuffs that occurred during my sophomore year, as there aren't much I remembered.

Well, other than me hosting a Minecraft server with a bunch of griefers and idiots who I just can't stand. I finally ditched the Tunngle community, probably following in he footsteps of Saen-Hg, where rumors has it that he was arrested for hosting illegal game files and game modifications in Singapore, and the police has seized his computer, along with a wonderful 9.42GB of Minecraft world with them. I quit the scene, but at least I welcome The Helper members, as they are not immature as the Tunngle Minecraft community. In fact, if FireCat is to be compared to them, FireCat is way more mature and understanding than they are. Wasted 1 year of my life I will never get back, especially the high fees of fast internet speeds (upload/download speeds were 20Mbps/10Mbps constant.), which I do miss. Anyway, cutting short of that...

As you may have noticed, we have a General Member's Project subforum, for people to share their hard works and discuss about their projects. This was formed with an incentive to share a Computer Science programming project that me and my roommate worked on during the third and fourth year of our college years.

Our team is split into 3 groups, a person that does programming (That's me!), a person who acts as a game designer/producer (My roommate), and someone who can do something but is unable to do so (Someone else on our team who had lost faith in me, as a team leader. I do not disagree wih him, as I did contribute to his loss of faith with me directly).

Our project is the Marble Run app for Android, for the sake of making the project worthwhile and made so that we all can graduate with ease. Nobody is interested in making it, by the way, but because there are no other projects that we all can agree on, we chose this.

As a Java programmer, this is easy to learn, but hard to master. I did documented my hardships and the program's poor state, until we just couldn't maintain it any longer.

The end of the project's doomed fate is when I became a super moderator, and at the same time, suffered heavily from that project. Losing motivation is one thing, having it as one of my painful memories is another harsh reality I just can't face.

In order to get my mind off of the project, my roommate encouraged me to go get a part-time job, which I am deathly afraid of. Unlike you guys, whose determination comes from knowing what to do in life when in search of a part-time job, I lived through a shielded life. Searching for one is like pursuing a rare animal spotted in the backyard lawn. Especially, when there are three months left before returning home, and most job offers require at least 6 months of training.

I got really lucky when my roommate's girlfriend helped me found an employer who is looking for a waiter/server.

Three months passed and me hardly getting any free time, my desire to program a game fluctuated depending on how tiresome the job is. On the other hand, since my roommate is actually a businessman, he earns a lot more money than I do, and is snotty/bossy about it, boasting his earnings to me.

I hate and respect him, and I don't know why. His boastings and confidence is what I hate about him, his quick thinking, creativity, and other traits similar to an experienced worker is what I respect about him. Why? Don't ask, don't tell.

And here I am,doing service, while being able to stay online and waste electricity, and you guys reading all of the series in this long episode. Especially when this whole part is typed out using my Android phone. I thank my roommate for making a deal with the phone's owner and bargained for a 50% off.

All in all, my life is nothing but a digital divide. Nothing can withstand the power of nerdiness. Except for a lot of things. Thanks for reading this. Thanks to FireCat for bringing all of us together in a complicated way. Thanks to Accname and Varine for being as rational as ever. Thanks to Kaerfnomekop for tying the bonds of them together in a nice Big Mac style. And thanks to others for forgiving FireCat.

What about FireCat? Since FireCat joined back in 2005, he/she/it is like the same long-time active member of The Helper Forums as I was, and stood up against the test of time. Nothing special, other than the fact that he/she/it has the same age as some of us.

Ask The Helper if you don't understand this. Ask FireCat if he/she/it wants to say about it.

 

[monoVertex]

I read just this last post so far, but will read the others as well.

I'm sorry to hear Nigerianrulz has left TH in this way, I never knew about this...

By the way, when you don't know a person's gender, you can write "they" instead of he/she/it .

 

[FireCat]

joined back in 2005.
Ask FireCat if wants to say about it.

Holy shit..... didn't expect that. Hmm anyway, you have little wrong there" I joined 2007 lol" And btw: I have no idea what you mean... What would someone ask me "about what? And damn... my comments are lost for the rest.

 

[The Helper]

He made a typo on the date there but Fantastic Story Tom! I Love it!