Seeing as how in a month I'll have been more or less active here for a year (assuming my "activity" starts with picking up a section in The 'Shroom, rather than with the 'Shroom KG, that is), it seems as good a time as any for some reflective ramblings:
- For my first two years after registering, I was extremely inactive around here outside of the Awards Pokémon Tournaments. I rarely posted and never really tried to reach out and talk to anyone either. Yet when I would post or interact with the community, it was a lot of cringeworthy comments, unproductive additions, or cases of saying things that must have seemed out of nowhere without context that I never provided. I do recall going into the IRC chat for the first time during the Chat Party for Awards and making some really pointless comment about not expecting the type of conversation that was going on.
- Even after becoming more active around here, I still don't say that much. I occasionally interact with some people over Discord or PM, but probably not to the extent that I should. I rarely post around here, but that's more a combination of being rather quiet in general and often times feeling like anything I might say has already been said in some form or another (particularly when it comes to discussing games or news).
- When I did start interacting with people over Discord, I may have been, ah, we'll say, too open. I just saw people discussing personal things and figured that doing so might have been a good way to show I was comfortable with the community. In retrospect, that was pretty clearly wrong and awkward and I do apologize for it.
- I also wonder if I wasn't too generous with the praise I gave out at some points. I don't mean to say that I would retract any nice things I've said about anyone here; if I said it, you can be assured I meant it. I just hope that it hasn't come across as excessive or odd. I want to give credit where I believe it's due, not sound like a creep.
- I'd be remiss to not mention the issues I had with 'Shroom KG Day III.
- Fumbling over my words sometimes and giving people the wrong impression over things (like saying I hoped for "good drama" in the 'Shroom KG and meaning it in the sense of a good narrative/theatrical drama but sounding like I wanted to see interpersonal drama).
- I feel I didn't learn the forum and wiki mark-up as quickly as I should have. Some of my older forum posts show that I didn't always know what I was doing with images (like, ah, very large ones) and such. And of course my earliest 'Shroom sections were just messes when it came to some of the wiki coding for images and such. As a matter of fact, Mario's Boombox took me longer than it should have to find a suitable style and set-up for writing. That said, I think it's been getting better lately, so that's good.
There's probably more critiques and things I could think of with more time, but that's all that comes off the top of my head. Of course, it hasn't all been problems. In these past few months, I've been able to speak to some great people, slowly show up more around here, join some tournaments coming up in the next few months, contribute 'Shroom sections of increasing quality, take a shot at hosting a tournament, and all in all start giving back to this community. That said, here's to a wonderful future on the Boards! I'm quite glad to be here with you all.
