I decided to make an 'Ask Me Anything'-type thread here because they're always super fun. Basically, ask me a question and I'll answer to the best of my ability.


Feel free to make your own if you like.


Kgo.

Tell me the history of your forum that I see down in your sig and the purpose of your forum?

[Cheesy]
Dashing is a general discussion forum with dashing members and dashing posts. Better dash to Dashing. :V
[/Cheesy]

I initially made Dashing because I wanted to discuss Mario Kart with people but at the time (2004) there were literally no active Mario Kart forums around. The name is actually a play on the title of the most recent Mario Kart game of the time, Mario Kart: Double Dash. I built it using the remotely hosted Forumer software, which met our basic requirements but was pretty terrible compared to other software out there.

Notable things during this period:
- I was a terrible but fun Admin
- We started the Never Ending Story (2005) which hasn't ended yet.
- There was a thread that I would delete every reply to, which resulted in many kiss-ups and funny artwork which were inevitably deleted
- Lots of spammy yet fun threads

After a number of annoying decisions from Forumer, a friend told me about Zetaboards, the new forum software from the guys who made Invisionfree. I had used Invisionfree in the past and was impressed at how simple it was and all the resources it had, plus Zetaboards had so many neat features that I basically jumped at the chance to finally get off Forumer. It did mean starting with 0 members and posts again but most people were satisfied with the change so it wasn't too much of a worry (though I know of other forums that haven't had such smooth moves.) We also discovered that nobody in the forum, including myself, really cared all that much for Mario Kart so we made the decision to just make it general discussion and then we could chat about whatever we wanted, including Mario Kart if the need be. We still kept all Mario theming to reflect our roots, plus a lot of the members are gamers anyway.

Notable things during this period:
- Gradually less of a terrible Admin. Still fun though.
- Somebody made a spin-off forum of the Never Ending Story
- Members decided to make a Wiki as a gift to me
- Less spammy but still fun threads

Anyway, Zetaboards was suiting us fine but I gradually read into self-hosted forums and really wanted one so I could have full control over the forum. I was almost ready to start anew with 0 posts and members again until another friend showed me a converter that could convert Zetaboards and Forumer forums into PhpBB3 or SMF forums. Now, my personal preference was the MyBB software, but as luck would have it, MyBB has a merge feature right out of the box, so you can effectively combine as many PhpBB, SMF, MyBB, etc forums as you like into one. So, we converted both forums, merged them into one on MyBB, and just continued from there.

Notable things during this period:
- I became a good Admin with lesser amounts of time to invest in it. Still the funniest thing ever.
- Was within the top 25 forums using the MyBB software
- Had a Mario Kart clan because we all still liked Mario Kart
- Organised a few inter-forum tournaments and events through 'The Common'
- Fun fun fun threads

Aaaaaand after 8 years, we're still going strong.


Hopefully that answered your question.
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Edited by: fantanoice, Mar 12th, 2013 @ 10:30 am

That was rather interesting. I've always been a fan of good old Mario Kart, although I've logged more hours playing the original Super NES game than Double Dash.

What's something you enjoy eating that's distinctive to Australia/your region of Australia?

Australia has, like, no local food. We just take food from every other culture.

Pavlova is incredible but I think we technically stole that from New Zealand.

There's also Vegemite, lamingtons and Twisties which are pretty cool.

i'm only asking this question because i'm american

favorite fast food joint?

Pretty much anywhere with good Japanese food.

There was also a great burger place near my old work but since going back to Uni I haven't been able to go there.

Since we're still doing these, I might add a couple more for the one who started our recent run of ask topics.

What were some other "terrible but fun" things you did as admin? (I enjoy reading about stuff like this - in fact, a decent chunk of MFGG's Wiki is devoted to the preservation of analogous moments that happened on MFGG years ago.)

Exactly how did you get your user name?

Just making really dumb, ignorant posts and not really thinking about a professional image. I remember some guy complained at some point about it and I just brushed it off as some guy not wanting to have fun or something. Oh yeah, this guy also chucked a hissy at me for giving him and the other members Christmas usernames in December because he was Atheist. I thought it was pretty party-poopery at the time but I guess I can empathise now.

I dunno, I just made some really dumb decisions because I was young and dumb. Hooooh well.



fanta-no-ice

I made it when I was 9 and needed a Yahoo account. I don't remember why and I don't even like it that much; I would just feel really naked without it.

Speaking of holidays on your forum, I still find it amusing that the default skin on Dashing has inexplicably changed to the Christmas theme. (And yeah, hyper-politically correct secularists are indeed annoying.)