What were you like when you first joined this forum?

I've been lurking every single day since I joined nearly 5 years ago - my only posts are from a couple topics I found reasonably interesting way back when, and even then I had a different username. I was, like most, immature and not knowledgeable and didn't have any idea what was going on. Now, I'm much better - though I still don't ever really post.

The strangest part is following people like Kevin Garrett, Blarajan, and Birkal, among others, who joined a few months or even years after me, as they've grown and developed and become Mods or contributors or won prestigious tournaments. It's the strangest thing to think I'm technically their senior (strictly by join date, obviously, not authority or reputation) on the site, regardless of the fact that it means nothing in practice.
 
Oh man where do I even begin...

I joined in 2009, which is basically when everyone "cool" joined (seriously check out the 09 join list... we ROCK)

I could write like a 20 page dissertation on what I was like back when I joined but i'll keep it simple. I was a shitty user. The shittiest of shitty users even. I had no friends or purpose... Just a guy who randomly spouted dumb shit and a bad player too. I resented pretty much every badged user and respected nobody. (Hell, I think i'd still hate on the "old" smogon if it were alive today. The community is a lot better now imo). I joined around the the time where DPPt had hit its peak, and even after constant laddering on shoddy I still "didn't get" the OU metagame. I turned to DPP UU, and I was a little better at that but still terrible on average. I'd get into fights with a ton of users. Synre, Jabba, etc. I don't think I was in the right in a single one of those arguments, but I still argued because I had nothing better to do you know?

It was only after I got on IRC and met some good people that I got... better. (after getting a wake up call on IRC. Gotta thank Jabba/Aldaron for that, if it wasn't for them i'd still be the same loser nobody from before). I'm still a little to the person I was before, but i've definitely grown up from before.

My advice? Don't ever give up on yourself, it is possible to change. Oh and don't forget to show others some respect.

EDIT:

3 years since I joined. TIME SURE DOES FLY AMIRITE?
 
PK Gaming said:
Oh man where do I even begin...

I joined in 2011, which is basically when everyone "cool" joined (seriously check out the 11 join list... we ROCK)

I could write like a 25 page dissertation on what I was like back when I joined but i'll keep it simple. I was a shitty user. The shittiest of shitty users even. I had no friends or purpose... Just a guy who randomly spouted dumb shit and a bad player too. I resented pretty much every badged user and respected nobody. I joined around the the time where BW had hit its peak, and even after constant laddering on PO I still "didn't get" the OU metagame. I turned to BW RU, and I was a little better at that but still terrible on average. I'd get into fights with a ton of users. SuperJOCKE, Tennisace, etc. I don't think I was in the right in a single one of those arguments, but I still argued because I had nothing better to do you know?

It was only after a few months on IRC and met some good people that I got... better. (after getting a wake up call on IRC. Gotta thank Omicron and Eradddfor that, if it wasn't for him i'd still be the same loser nobody from before). I'm still a little like the person I was before, but i've definitely grown up from since then.

My advice? Don't ever give up on yourself, it is possible to change. Oh and don't forget to show others some respect.

EDIT:

1 year since I joined. TIME SURE DOES FLY AMIRITE?
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Changes are in bold, PKGaming hit it on the head, i was just like this sadly :/. Im going to have to agree with PKGaming as well, no matter how shitty you are, you can redeem yourself. The best way to become a good or even decent user is to just try to act more maturely.
 
i remember on po back when i didn't suck dick at RU and both Molk and I were terrible users but climbing the ladder we would spectate each others' matches and just chat and sometimes my matches would take two hours for one game because i ran the stalliest team ever to grace RU :L. Molk was a cool user back then and don't let him tell you otherwise except that his avatar was an eyesore
 
When I joined about a year ago, I was actually pretty bad at posting. I got into an argument I think with woodchuck in the RU forums, and I got a warning from Gen Empoleon, AKA Matthew. Then on the minecraft forums I made a pretty stupid suggesting and got called out as my posts being worst than vomit from a few users, and got made fun of in this chloraforum for some of my opinions that I made.

But now I can proudly say that I watch what I type and I think I've improved since then. I don't think anyone considers me ignorant anymore, and I'm just, "That nice guy who hangs around the forums". But I guess I'm happy to be that kind of person and not the one that gets called "a user who's post smell worse than his own vomit"!
 
I was a pretty horrible member in p. much every aspect, immature, horrid sense of humour and I didn't really know anything about competitive pokemon. Combine that with the idea that higher post count makes a better member, and you have a horrible user.

Nowadays I think I matured a fair bit and while no comedic genius by any means, I can at least recognise my own horrible posts and stop them from ever being put into writing, and even try to contribute to a serious discussion once in a while. I'm still as shy as ever, but now knowing that postcount obviously doesn't mean jackshit, I refrain from posting much, and I guess I never really got into the other parts of community, such as IRC or what have you.
 
if one more person says i used to be a shit poster but 1) now ive matured into a slightly less shitty poster or 2) im still the same, i will do one of these---->:evan:

you guys are treating like posting on smogon is like coming up through the minor leagues of baseball or something, where you're too shitty to play in the majors until you have like 4 years of experience... posting on smogon is not that hard, most of you are not that horrible except for maybe a few really obnoxious people or if it's your first month and you want to make an impression.

dont equivocate your smogon e-cred (badges, mod status, props from other users, post count, join date, etc) with, you know, how interesting you actually are or your posts are. the two often have nothing to do with each other, lets be honest. its not like waterbomb isnt as boring as he's always been even with mod status :p
 
Don't listen to Vader, as I am his senior.

But loling itt I'm a senior user, in that other thread, I'm an RU tiering leader.......
 
Omicron said:
i don't even fucking remember
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camnhot
 
blarajan said:
Don't listen to Vader, as I am his senior.

But loling itt I'm a senior user, in that other thread, I'm an RU tiering leader.......
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you're senior" I've been here way longer! Although I lurked from 2007-2010, only posting in CAP votes occasionally. Then when I first started posting I was involved in tournaments and thats about it. So until I joined the NU community I didn't do much. And then overnight I apparently became an RU leader :)
 
Molk said:
Changes are in bold, PKGaming hit it on the head, i was just like this sadly :/. Im going to have to agree with PKGaming as well, no matter how shitty you are, you can redeem yourself. The best way to become a good or even decent user is to just try to act more maturely.
Click to expand...

why am I not mentioned here with my constant grooming the past few months ugh.
 
Lol PK, it might be me, but I never thought you were that bad. A little scrubby? Yes. But your posts in the NP: UU threads were like the glue that held us together. Honest, well-meaning and fun just like they are now. Well okay nobody makes fun posts anymore in the mons section, but I'm hoping we can bring some of that vigor back eventually.
 
I had the required bad/locked RMT, stopped posting = lurking. "Helped" with CAPmon, mostly Kitsuno. Started actually trying to train pokes the right way, aka breed with the right nature then EV train, ignoring ivs...

I aged about a year and started actually being good, playing on PO quite often. Not soon after that I posted my second RMT for the NU tier. There was mostly positive responses, so I felt confident.

My final contribution to the site was the NU Walrien strategy guide. That summer I quit competitive pokemon and neglected to write a good Skuntank strategy. Passing that off to someone else who would surely write a better guide.

I continued to play in the Yugioh/Magic tournaments, placing second in the MTG tour and not even coming close in the Yugioh tours.

I now post in the TF2 thread and random polls by rodan about food.
 
Let's see... I've known about Smogon for a few years, but I didn't join the forums until June of last year. At first I tried my best to lurk, but failed quite often by actually trying to post. Never bothered with the OU forum when I played earlier in BW, and I don't think I posted in the RU forums either when it was first created. I really started making somewhat significant posts around the time NU was actually introduced as a playable tier, and even then, most of the stuff I tried saying just made me look like a complete dumbass. Fast forward about a year and I'm still sticking with NU stuff, but I've tried branching out into NU RMTs and NU C&C stuff (ooh, fancy, right?). I try to keep my posts from sucking too much, but sometimes that seems to be unavoidable.

I've recently started checking out a forum, making a few hard fail posts here and there. I find it's better to watch other users make asses of themselves and laugh at some of the funny shit the mods do in response (vader is probably closing a thread as I type this, lol) than actually try to join any of the discussions. Still don't think I have any friends in this area of Smogon, which is another reason I tend to avoid posting here.
 
I joined in 07 and didn't get really active till early 08, in which in 08 alone I got like 9 infractions. I wasn't liked very much and until early 2010 I was rejected as a tutor probably 5 times, on accounts of complete biasedness. Once the B101 staff switched, I was given a chance and decided to become more involved on smogon. But when I first joined I definitely did a lot of things that have made users dislike me.
 
I joined in look at my join date dumbass. Pretty much the same story as a lot of other guys, started out not awesome, now I'm all awesome.

EDIT: @ivan and pluff, personally I was only joking about my moron levels, but OK, here's a positive post if it makes you feel better.

PK Gaming said:
I joined in 2009, which is basically when everyone "cool" joined (seriously check out the 09 join list... we ROCK)
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YEAH BOI
 
Now noticing that I joined 2+ years ago, only played (and massively sucked at) that latter end of OU DPPt and the beginning of OU BW, mostly keeping my 1100 posts to some 4th Gen OU discussion (with guest appearances in some 5th gen discussion), League of Legends, and the NFL threads. #dafuq? That's a lot of posts for such a small area of talk.


PK Gaming said:
I resented pretty much every badged user and respected nobody. (Hell, I think i'd still hate on the "old" smogon if it were alive today. The community is a lot better now imo). I joined around the the time where DPPt had hit its peak, and even after constant laddering on shoddy I still "didn't get" the OU metagame. I turned to DPP UU, and I was a little better at that but still terrible on average. I'd get into fights with a ton of users. Synre, Jabba, etc. I don't think I was in the right in a single one of those arguments, but I still argued because I had nothing better to do you know?

It was only after I got on IRC and met some good people that I got... better. (after getting a wake up call on IRC. Gotta thank Jabba/Aldaron for that, if it wasn't for them i'd still be the same loser nobody from before). I'm still a little to the person I was before, but i've definitely grown up from before.
Click to expand...

THE SIMILAR BEGINNING AND CONTRASTING ENDING ENTERTAINS ME GREATLY.

I never resented people, but I argued and more often then not, took everything with a grain of salt and demanded explanations (Bitches still mad that I questioned their criticism and suggestions on an RMT) all the time and I think it really came off that way. I even had Aeolus call me an awful user who was toxic to metagame discussion because of how often I questioned people and their logical conclusions.

Problem is, I've always done this throughout my entire life, and while people find it abrasive and very off-putting, they eventually come to realize that my intention is to better my understanding, and it's not meant to be toxic or anything like that. So since my joining I have changed literally zilch. I may show my craziness and light heartedness a bit more (I definitely do on the League IRC), but I'm still the same. But in the same vein, I like to think I gained at least the understanding, if not the respect, of those who noticed that I'm genuine in intent and don't mean to be as abrasive as I come off. So I think I'm perceived as a better user than I was before, despite really not changing all that much.

tl;dr I grow on people like a bad fungus. (OR SO I THINK. I COULD BE WRONG.)
 
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