Zephyr's blog

I'll keep it short, simple, and drama free.

I stepped down from being an admin because:
-It was a difficult job
-I felt I wasn't the best at doing it
-It was interfering severely with my personal life
-It was interfering with my health (Old staff can attest to me mentioning stress-puking during some discussions)
-I didn't know what else to do for the site at the time

I left the site because
-The site felt virtually dead to me
-I had long since stopped being a fan of My Little Pony
-Anybody I had really enjoyed talking to was either about to leave or had already left.
-Because the site wasn't fun anymore to me.



Do I regret being an admin? A little.
Do I regret some of my decisions? Absolutely
Do I regret ever coming here? Absolutely not
Do I have a right to feel animosity over my own bad decisions? You'd be crazy to say no.
Do I have a right to feel animosity over other people's bad decisions? Again, you'd be crazy to say no.
Do I have a right to complain about the site off-site? No because the secret police are watching Absolutely



Sorry if I didn't live up to your expectations.

Man, where do I begin on this thing? I honestly don't really know, I guess, it's a lot to take in when you think about it.

I mean, let's take a look back at what's gone on recently, shall we?

First you have Foxy and Flash's resignation. Now, we all know about this, but I feel the need to go a little bit more in depth with this sort of thing because it implies a bit of change among the staff ranks, in a more structural sense, not the more obvious "people have left" sense. You see, Foxy was the head Admin, and Flash was the head of the Radio, so where does that leave us?

Well honestly, it doesn't leave us in a good position. To be frank, the site's gone downhill every time the head admin has stepped down and this makes, what, the third one to do so? It's getting a bit old. So naturally, we decided to tinker around with how things are run at the top of the totem pole. Who is the next head admin? Nobody, simply put, but naturally, you all already know this so I'll only speak bluntly for reminder's sake. The staff is now run by an Oligarchy of Berry, Mike, and Myself. Berry keeps an eye on the Radio now in place of Flash, Mike sees over the technical side of the site in place of Grey, and I see over the Forums now in place of Foxy. The three of us work in a trifecta where nobody is higher than the other for simplicity's sake.

Also it's kind of stressful being an admin, let alone being the head-admin, so there's that too, yeah.

What was next on that list? Oh right, more staff leavings. As you all know, Poetic's left as well. Now as for why he did this, he's given me his permission as to why so now we all get to know. Let's take a look why don't we?

------------------------------------
"1- *Lack of co-operation because several staff members were unwilling to listen to each other to the extent where nothing ever got done.

2- Too many staff which resulted in an uneven balance, made the staff look more like a VIP club than moderators and led to bigger arguments.

3. The job wasn't fun any more, too many people started treating it way too seriously (as in hardcore) than it needed to be. I care about the site but Jesus, some people needed to chill once in a while.

4. Moderators belittling users behind their backs and treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent. Also it appeared mods thought the more bans, edits and thread moves you do, the better job you're doing, and that being a moderator makes you a better person than the members.

5. I didn't feel like part of a team, I was constantly ignored, had to appeal to admins if I wanted to express any ideas seriously, and was treated differently because I was just a CO which apparently means jack **** from the looks, things were more productive back in like, April."
~Poetic '2012
------------------------------------

So yeah, there's those. I'd normally say "Don't worry, we're working on fixing these things", which we are, but this sort of thing takes time. It's changed a bit since his resignation but I can still assure you the job still isn't all that fun, haha.

With these changes in staff, we've decided to revamp the entire staff structuring as well to make things easier for everyone to understand, because let's face it, half of the people on here couldn't tell us the difference between a forum moderator and a community patrol member, could you? So to simplify things, we've combined the two roles making them one and the same as well as condensing roles such as blog moderators, RP moderators, and fanfic moderators in the section of Section Moderators. There's a bit more of an analysis on these changes found in the "Meet the Staff" section found in this thread.

Anyways, what else was there. Oh of course, the site was attacked just recently wasn't it? Well, I honestly wouldn't say attacked would be the correct word. Harassed fits the circumstance quite well, though I think I should shed a little bit more light on what happened yesterday night.

It all began around... 9 PM Eastern? Something like that. Anyway, around that time I received a PM on Skype from Saikyo, otherwise known as Ramza on here, regarding a snippet from the Admin room. Now for those of you who don't know, there's been some leaks from the staff room these past couple of weeks and when I saw that there had been one from the Admin room of all places, simply put, I flipped my lid. To keep things short, it was revealed to us through FULL CAPS SKYPE MESSAGES from the man himself that he had cracked into Foxy's skype account and was planning on using the information he had to go after others as well. You all already know how this tale ends, and again to keep things short we all had to play a sadistic game of 20 questions before greyOne confessed to the misdeed and he was banned from the site on the spot.


Alrighty, with all the dreadful stuff out of the way, I can move on to the funner things.*

Ah right, be sure to check out Snow's thread on the State of EP. It's sparked quite a good bit of a constructive discussion on the state of the site at this point and would you look at that, users and staff collaborating together in harmony. What a beautiful thing, wouldn't you agree?

On that very same topic, in that thread you can see the gears in my brain constructing a bit of an idea I've had for a while involving something along the lines of a "Site Meeting", well, I figure there's no point in simply messing around with the idea but to execute it instead and see how this sort of thing goes, y'know?

The very first EP Site Meeting will be held this Monday on November 12th at 12PM Eastern Standard Time. That's 5PM for you Brits. I'll be there hosting it, and moderating the discussion itself for as long as it takes place. Keep in mind that since this sort of thing needs the it utmost control from everybody, there will be absolutely no arguing, or rule breaking in the slightest while we're all there. The same rules will apply as the debate section for the most part to ensure this.

If this all goes over well, then we can continue this sort of thing in the future, if not, site discussion will be limited to the section that shares its name.


As a reminder, the Applications for the Secret Santa Redux are due on the 7th of this month, which is in two days. If you wish to participate, please send those in. Likewise, of you don't think you can participate, please notify me so some poor pony doesn't go wanting this Christmas. I'll have to make a commercial for it even with some foal sitting behind me in the dirt as I look into the camera and ask for donations.

And yes, there will be sad music. Just like those animal cruelty commercials.
Only worse.

Wait, Testyal's immune to this sort of thing isn't he?
Damn.

Oh and one final thing, with the sudden leaving of about... What, 3 or 4 staff members and the removal of 2 or 3, there's a really empty space in my heart the staff ranks, and while indeed there used to be too many, now we have too little. So yes, we are looking for new staff members. No, this doesn't mean suddenly send in a million applications, it just means don't act surprised when we make the announcement as we've already just about decided who we want by this point.


And that's all for this week. Yeti will be taking over from now as as the head of the Community Moderation in the forums, specified by Foxy in the previous Community Post. I'm just taking over while he's away.

This is your Forum/Community Admin, Zephyr, signing off for the week.*


~Z

_______________

Quick note:

In addition to the merger of Community Patrol and Global Forum Mods, colors will be given to the main staff ranks for quick identification (for example when looking at the list of online members at the bottom of the forum home).

As it stands the colors will be:
- Admins: Red
- Community Moderators: Yellow/gold
- Blog Moderators and RP Moderators: Purple
- Radio DJs: Blue

If any of these change we will let you know in next week's post, or earlier if necessary.

- Mike


______________


Also, don't forget on Band of Bronies show on Everypony Radio, every Saturday, 11am EST.

~Yetione

Alrighty so it's been a while I suppose since I decided to make a blog post.

From an informative standpoint this is rather unacceptable considering the complaints we've received not only recently, but in the past regarding the secrecy between the staff and users, and this is made further worse when you take into account that I started this blog for the sole priority to keep this from being a problem. I apologize for this lengthly intermission due to the fact that since I've stepped up to the role as administrator I've found myself rather tight on leisure time, even more so when school started up. You know how it is.

Apart from all of that, I'll proceed to inform the lot of you as to what the staff are currently up to in our recent state. As it may be obvious at this point, the staff is undergoing a bit of... maintenance, so to speak.

Aside from the usual complaints about staff secrecy, there have also been a large number of complains regarding staff invectiveness and we're rather inclined to agree. As a result, we've decided to delve into the problem and fix the source of it; the staff itself. How we'll be going about doing this, I won't say ironically, however it can safely be hinted at that there won't be that many changes to /you/ guys specifically.

Another thing we've been toying around with is the idea of a donation button. Aside from the things that we currently have to keep the site afloat, expenses still manage to rear their shiny heads every so often. Of course, the money we'd from such a thing would go specifically to the site, but there was also the idea of giving our excess money to various charities, the choices of which are still undecided by this point.

I'd sincerely like to hear the opinions regarding these issues from you guys, especially the later one considering it would be in direct correlation to you guys. If you have any suggestions or ideas in consideration to these ideas, or any ideas in general either comment below or shoot me a PM and I'll see what I can do to help the idea become further fleshed out.

If you have any questions regarding something I may have been unclear on, or you're simply curious about, feel free to ask and I'll answer as well as I can.

-Z

So a while back in a blog post of mine I hinted at some serious change to be made around the entire site. I realize I was absolutely vague, but being extremely convoluted in that post was completely necessary.

However, because of recent debate and discussion among the staff, we've come to go against this change and head in a different direction than what we had planned. Since this immense change is officially in the bin as of today, it should be fine to inform the lot of you what we were planning.

Simply put, we were planning on making the site a lot more family friendly. The idea sprouted when we realized that the site was slowly dying, another thing I've put in the spotlight with my previous blog post. To fix this, we decided to try something rather radical, that of course being to be something that stands out from the rest of the crowd: a site that caters to fans of My Little Pony, not bronies. This of course would mean the site would have more restrictions on what could and could not be posted, this may explain why some of us have been so strict as of recently as we were trying to get into the mindset of maintaining that atmosphere. Some of you understand what I'm talking about firsthand.

Anyway, it took a few weeks of discussion and thought to realize, "Hey, this is a bad idea." It may have taken us a while, although some of us were against it from the start, but in making this change we'd be doing the one thing we absolutely do not want to do, and that is alienate all of our old users.

And so the plan to do so was officially thrown in the bin as of today.


On to more recent things, as I've said a million times in the past by this point, the site rules are currently undergoing heavy maintenance. To give a little bit of perspective on the progress of this, it's officially not against the rules to necro-post anymore so long as the post remains relevant and constructive to the topic at hand.

As for something else, the topic of the lack of users has been brought up countless times in the past, heck, the staff's been obsessing over the solution to this problem forever. The solution we have in mind as of now is to not attract more people to the site, doing so would be pointless as we already attract hundreds of new users every month. Take a look at the bottom of the page right now, there should be more guests online than users, and that's a bit of a problem. So to fix this, we've been brainstorming ways to not just attract new users, but to make the site more memorable and appealing so that the new users we get decide to stay and the guests that lurk to a seemingly endless amount decide to sign up.

The idea we've come up with so far is EPTV.

With the fact that we now have two radios, one on Shoutcast, and one on Livestream, we're thinking of ways to make the Livestream function more as a TV channel to make use of the visual aesthetics that is has over SC. This of course leaves a couple of problems:

>Finding a way to make SC better
>Ideas for things to put on EPTV.

We're already looking into ways to improve shoutcast, but brainstorming ideas for what will essentially be a TV station is incredibly difficult, and so I ask you guys, what would you like to see? Please post your ideas in the comments or shoot me a PM if you have any, and keep in mind, we cannot play episodes due to copyright issues.

So far among the staff we've come up with:
>Live drawing
>Live music making(?)
>Podcasts
>Fanfic Readings
>Gaming nights




On to something else, as you may find out later today, we have ourselves a few new staff members. Stay tuned later to find out who's been selected.


That's all this time, later.
-Z

There are lots of sparks flying around in the staff room as I speak.
There are plenty of ideas going left and right, all of them being ways as to how we can improve the site.

In recent months, our activity on the site has dropped like a rock, especially from a perspective like mine. Last year on Brony day, we were able to easily accumulate 300 users for a simple marathon of about 26 episodes. Now let's skip ahead a year and compare it to this year's Brony day. We're streaming all the episodes of both seasons, we've sent in countless E-Mails to EquestriaDaily, and in the end we only seem to have achieved a zenith of 40 users.

40. Users.

Let's take another trip down memory lane for a moment. 40 users was the average amount of people who would be on the radio at any given moment. What do you think the average is now?

10.

Suffice it to say, this year's Brony day is an eye opener, and because of this we're currently brainstorming on ideas on how to improve the site with the leading idea at the moment being to go back to our roots as Bronies. We've all changed a lot in this year. We've all become jaded to certain topics, and have seemed to turn a blind eye to others.

We've yet to finalize any of our ideas as of yet, but be assured that change is coming and it is coming soon. What the public opinion will be of this change? I haven't a clue, but in the end, the site name of Everypony.com will be something of obvious relevance.

Here's to a place for Everypony, big or small.
I hope you'll all be behind us with this.

So I've been on a bit of a hiatus; bit of a bummer really. It's due to some problems at home, which I don't feel like going into because it's unrelated, however it's been keeping me from a lot of my work here on the site. This would explain my recent absence if any of you have even noticed this, but whatever.

Anyway, I'll post a quick update on some minor going-ons among the staff just so you guys can remain informed even if I am not informed myself as much as I would enjoy.

Again, speaking on the efficiency issue that I brought up in a previous post, we're still working on some of these and streamlining efforts to make sure that we can professionally handle all matters within the site big or small. It may take a little bit of time to reinforce through experience but once we get this up and working you guys should easily be able to notice a significant change regarding any sort of discipline (god I hate the connotation that word has as a staff member) that you may see around the site, and please keep in mind I do mean this in the most positive of ways from both sides.

I'd love to inform you guys of more, but the rest of the things I know are to be kept secret (not in a bad way, mind you) and anything else that's gone on, well, I haven't been that informed these past 2 weeks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Aside from all of that, I've been downright addicted to the Ace Attorney games recently.
Why does every hate on Apollo so much...?


-Z

[video=youtube;0UuuT3tPa18]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UuuT3tPa18&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Hey guys, what's up? It's me, Zephyr.

Foxy and Grey have told us to throw together a quick video or something demonstrating our thanks
to you guys for taking the time out of your day to be a part of this commmunity.

Now to be honest, I've never been a strong orator, nor have I ever been good at handling my own rhetoric,
an excellent example being how I probably used both of those words completely wrong.

But that's not the point, really. It's the thought that counts, so here goes nothing:

I joined this site, roughly a year ago, the details are a bit foggy still as to whether it was in May, or June,
but remembering such a detail didn't matter to me so, y'know.
Anyway, at the time, it was still a very small site. It was the kind of place you heard from somebody
who heard from another guy who heard from yet another guy.

To be blunt, my first impression wasn't really all that special. At the time, I was rather addicted
to Minecraft, (which I am again, by the way), and was really just interested in listening to Brony
music in general as I was new to the fandom.

However, after a week or so of screwing around with digital legos and screaming AEIOU into the chat,
I actually began to grow more fond of the community that was within this chat. I'd spend a little
more time every day on this chat, and occasionally we would RP like a bunch of stooges.
It's here where I became quick friends with a few of the DJs, mainly Foxy, and Flash.
And R too, since he -was- a DJ at one point in time.

Time moved on, and I became friends with a good majority of the rest of the staff, and before I knew it
I had become one of them myself.

Back then, I thought being on the staff was going to be a bunch of fun and games, I'd get to goof
around with my friends, it'd be great right?

Well to be honest, it was at first, and it was a blast.
But then well, I don't need to explain the rest, most of you know what happened;


After that, being a staff member was a lot more... stressful, so to speak.
There was always something that needed fixing and some problem that wouldn't just go away.

However
During all of this strife, I came to appreciate the site for more than being just a hub where I get to
hang out with a bunch of my pals.

I learned to appreciate the people who made this site a possiblity, you guys; the users.

So I want to extend my thanks out to every single one of you who make this place a possiblilty,
because without you, well, I'd probably be dicking around at my computer doing something else
entirely, but wasting my life in the process nonetheless.

While I'm at it, I'd like to give a special shoutout to a few people who really deserve mention around
the site.

I'd like to shoutout first, everybody, not in a way so that "oh everybody gets one", but because
you all have to deal with me.

Next, I'd like to give a shoutout to Harley, the EP community welcome wagon. Her quirkiness can
easily bring a smile to someone who's having the worst of days, and I can attest to this firsthand.

I'd like to shoutout Yami and Cloudy for helping me with certain matters even when times seem bleak.

And last, but certainly not least, I want to give a special shoutout to our Admins, Foxytail and
Grey Nightmare.
You guys do a tremendous job around the site, and despite the crap that we've all put up with
I still look up to you guys for answers in times of need. You guys may catch a lot of flak at times,
but I just want you guys to know that me, and everybody else appreciate everything you do, without
you two, none of this would be a reality and I am truly thankful for it.

Anyway, that's all from me, Cya guys!
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God my voice sounds AWFUL, haha.
Oh well.



-Z

30 something staff members. That's a rather... Gargantuan number when you think about it. I've always figured that we had much less than that, however, that's not the case anymore.

It's crazy to think we need this many staff members. Don't get me wrong, I've had the idea flicker for a moment that we'd be nearing this point in the near future but I never expected it to become an actual problem. He, in just a few months we've gone from a lack of to a swift over abundance.

This does imply change, but nothing you guys need to worry about to be honest. In reality we're just going through a bit of an efficiency problem at the moment, and to compensate we'll be cracking down and working extra hard to justify the staff we already have.

However, with every problem comes its silver lining, and this ones is far too large to simply ignore by any means. In the past few months we brought new staff on board in preparation for Brony Day. Last year, we held a marathon of all the episode and attracted a crowd of over 300 people, many of which who stayed at the site. As you may be able to assume, it was utter hell on the staff at the time in terms of moderation, (lucky for me, I wasn't on the staff then.) and for this year's event, which I won't reveal in case it's a secret, we've adequately prepared.

What does this all mean to you guys? Of course it means we probably won't be needing to select applications for a while, depending on how successful the upcoming holiday is, and it also means much more will be done around the site. However, don't stop sending them in guys, we're constantly reviewing them for whenever the need arises and we much prefer those who apply in advance in comparison to those who only do it when the need arises.

On a completely unrelated note, my girlfriend and my best friend's girlfriend are writing a Yaoi fanfic about me and my best friend.
What do.

That's all for now

-Z

Fancy new blog feature, eh? I honestly don't know my feelings on the whole feature. It's not that I don't like it, it just seems, how do I put it?

Glittery.

I don't know if that makes sense to any of you guys that'll read this, if any, but to me it just seems like a glorified forum profile or something. I'm just looking for things to complain about I guess, things to fix, even when there's nothing to fix.

I guess that comes from all the things that've gone on today in the staff, so much productivity and so much change only begets more so I suppose, it's only natural, it's basic physics, intertia; an object in motion wants to remain in motion.

Did I really just make a comparison to physics? My god I really am Sheldon. I digress.

So as I've said, a lot as gone down within the staff recently: We lost a member, gained a member, and a whole lot of other shenanigans. In the end of it all, it brought up interesting things, primarily in regards to the senior staff and how we conduct ourselves.

I owe a lot to you guys, it may not be the reason I joined the staff, but the reason I remain is to help make this site and in turn it's members. It's weird, but every time there are scandals or such and the finger is pointed at us I take it very personally. It's a silly thought because I'm almost never the cause, reason, or aid of those situations, but I can't help but take the blame in some way.

This invisible wall between the users and staff needs to come down. I realize it's necessary at times; when we want to surprise you guys or if we're handling something fragile, but it doesn't need to be a baseless excuse thrown at most of the things we do. It creates a horrible secrecy that does nothing but invoke a sense of suspicion and paranoia between both groups.

I'm making this much more wordy than it really needs to be, maybe I feel I don't want Saikyo to one-up me but whatever. The crux of the matter is that this secrecy, excluding the necessary bits, needs to be abolished so that the chain between users and staff can grow healthy again instead of maintaining its pathetic state.

I want to help fix this, and to do this I'll keep you guys updated on small things going on within the staff. This won't replace Foxy's Community Posts of course, I'll omit the things to be announced but will instead inform the masses of the progress, meaning you'll know when we've decided and if the position is correct, when we're hiring.

Let's see how this goes in time.

Please excuse typos, I'm on my iPod.

-Z