October 2015antiaverageForum Admin
The man who fixes things
Skydiving Entropy Sloth
The man that never sleeps
As cool as sloth can be
Why Anti-Average and not just Average? 
How difficult is the work of being an admin? Why is your avatar a beaver with glasses, and why are the lenses of the glasses entropy marks? (
ARTHANASIOS)
My username is from when I was around 12 years old. I was trying to come up with a name that fit me at the time for my
AOL Instant Messenger account. I couldn't find a word that I liked, so I made one up with the meaning I wanted. I believe I was going for something like: someone who prefers people and things that are a bit different. I suppose some of that sentiment still applies, but I've grown a lot since then and the name feels a bit childish now. I think this sort of story resonates with a lot of people. Identity is mutable, it grows as you grow, and changes as you change. But sometimes we are stuck with bits of our past, and that's okay. It's part of our story.
Being an admin is more time consuming than difficult. The hardest parts are the same things that make daily life a challenge. Tedious tasks are boring for me, so it takes extra energy to get them done. Interesting puzzles get me excited, like building new features into chat, so usually those are more likely to get done. People are complex, a mix of rational and irrational, so working with others to find a stable and positive solution can sometimes take a lot of energy and patience. But ultimately helping others has always made me feel good, so in the end the work is worth it. It helps that my fellow admins are such awesome people, so that makes whatever is left as my job easier.
Scaredgirl (before disappearing and becoming a series of guest posts) had an avatar of former UFC ring girl Arianny Celeste edited to have the Mark of Death in her sunglasses. As a joke, I found an image of a sloth wearing some classy shades and edited it to use the Mark of Entropy. I have the sloth facing left so it can look at Arianny.
Scaredgirl was an inspiration to many of us early Elements newbs, sharing decks that became our first False God grinders and duel fighters. My avatar is both a parody homage, and a thank you.
{௵_௵}ノ <(Follow your dreams.)You chose to put Entropy in your avatar's sunglasses. Is Entropy your favorite element? If so, why? (
Krzysiekxd)
I like playing with all the Elements (except Mono-Water and Mono-Earth *yawn*). However, Entropy is special to me.
I usually rationalize a bit too much, I approach things a bit more analytically or cerebrally than is necessary or even makes sense. I think I grew up overvaluing predictability and black-and-white, this is right and this is wrong thinking. I wanted to learn as much as I could, and thought that meant memorizing specific facts and patterns. It took me a while to realize the issues with this and break out of that shell. Life is messy and complicated. Nothing is certain. And that's not at all a bad thing.
We absolutely could not survive as a species if we were static. We have to grow and change, together and as individuals. We have to allow for variation. We could not have progress without differences, without mutation from the previous iteration. Seek out the odd, the people and ideas that challenge your current world view, your current thought process. Accept disorder even as you work towards order. Learn from everything around you. Be open to new experiences. Be open to failure and its important lessons.
The Entropy element is all about this. You can lay out your best plan, and it might go horribly wrong, the dice might not fall in your favor. Or, it might succeed fantastically. The chaos of Entropy is exciting. Mutations are always a surprise. Shard of Serendipity is like opening a present. Entropy breaks up the monotony of the grind, it increases the thrill of the duel, and it has a cat. Who doesn't love cats?
I'll leave you with one of my favorite lyrics, a reminder to myself to not overthink things and to accept the unpredictability of life, and of the element Entropy.
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind.
Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.
What's the best and/or worst pun someone has made for your name? (
Rutarete)
I don't get name puns all that often. When I do, they've never really been good or bad, just obvious. Nothing memorable comes to mind. Unrelated to my username, my favorite pun is:
Why is it hard to explain a pun to a thief? Because they're always taking things literally.How did you become admin for this forum? (
ZephyrPhantom)
Some time during August 2013 the hosting for the forums lapsed. I was around and offered to transfer the data to my host. I worked with
UTAlan to obtain the files. Quickly my server was flooded by the excited traffic of the Elements community, and so had to upgrade the server. Eventually we settled in on September 6th, 2013, and an anonymous donor helped to get that first year paid for at the higher rate. During that time I also acquired the domain from
UTAlan.
Since I had access to all the files, I started making mods for the forum. Eventually people asked to get the old chat system back, and so I also re-hosted Blab and have been modding that ever since. Doing all this work, having access to everything anyway, and being available is probably what led me to eventually being given admin status.
Why haven't you quit being an admin yet? What keeps you here, and why do you like being an admin (if you like it if course)? (anonymous)
I like to tinker, so there has always been a motivation to help out a community by improving the software they use. Granted, SMF and Blab aren't all that great, but we get by and it's amusing to try and deal with what we have. Hopefully we can move to better software entirely at some point.
But most of all, the community is what keeps me going. There are so many interesting people with their own stories. Everyone has an idea of how best to help Elements grow, and we all hope together that the game will survive and flourish. The
OpenEtG project is also incredibly exciting. I wish I would donate more time to that project, but it's amazing to see how much people care.
I like being in a position to help, and I hope I am succeeding. Anyone is free to PM me, my door is always open. Let me know what I can do for you.
Where did you learn to code? (
Espithel)
I read about HTML and JavaScript on the Internet in order to build a website when I was about 8 years old or so. I also started copying, by hand, line by line, TI-83 BASIC games into my calculator. I'm sure that story is familiar to some of you. Eventually there was a summer class available to learn C and C++ at a local college that didn't mind a 12 year old in the room. I taught myself other languages until I got to college and worked on a Computer Science degree. So it's been a little bit of everywhere, like any language.
I believe anyone can code. I think it should be required in school. It helps with critical thinking and logic, and it can be a ton of fun to learn how to control your computer. You play on it every day, why not learn how it works?
Where do you see the future of this beloved website? (
TribalTrouble)
My hope is to eventually move us to better forum and chat software, but honestly it's hard to see a future without the game we support being developed. My bigger hope is that
Zanzarino will one day find more time or hire someone or just allow a volunteer to help to improve the game. There are some bugs to take care of and servers to fix, but it takes time and people. There are at least a few programmers in the community who would be happy to sign an NDA and lend a hand. Maybe we'll get lucky and that will happen. I also have faith in the
OpenEtG project eventually becoming viable, but I'm not sure the whole community will move to it. It's a fan project, but I think it's a strong sign that Elements is worth supporting. The future is a bit muddy right now, so it's up to us to figure out what it will be.
What's your fondest memory in the community?With the support of
Calindu and
serprex, I fought through a great match against
Odii Odsen in Round 2 of War 7:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/round-2-167/(entropy-sld)-antiaverage-3-2-odii-odsen-(darkness-gen)/That match included an amusing battle where I had a turn 1 Singularity and... well, you'll have to read the report
If technology and money weren't limiting factors, what are some additional cool ideas you'd have liked to see in the community or forum?Big stage, ESPN coverage of War with live duels. Why not? If we had enough money, I'm sure we could arrange a way to bring the game up to speed with modern standards. There are plenty of interesting synergies in the cards. There is a community champing at the bit for content. It could work. But it really would need a large team and a lot of time and money. Underlying that vision are server upgrades, networking code improvements, game balance tweaks, and support for mobile. I know we all see a ton of potential in Elements, and I hope that we can one day realize that potential.
Do you believe forums can survive without Zanzarino which means without EtG updates?So far, I do believe it's possible. It's not guaranteed, and it's definitely a stretch, but I think this community has done incredibly well supporting a competitive and creative environment for a game that is basically developmentally dead at the moment. There is still plenty of interesting play going on, but I would really love to see the game grow. Thank you so much to our wonderful Competition Organizers, Tournament Organizers, League Organizers, Forum Game Organizers, Card Curators, Brawlmasters, Guildmasters, Warmasters, Newsletter Writers, Social Network Managers, and all the other Staff through the years who have helped keep things interesting, motivating, entertaining, and inclusive for all the Elements fans. And of course the biggest thank you to all the people taking part in the events. You all have done an incredible job keeping this place alive and kicking even without a Lead Developer. This community is astounding.
What drove you to join the community?I came to the game via Kongregate when they featured the badges in July of 2010. Someone in Kongregate chat eventually guided me to the forums, and the deck builders of the community published some amazingly creative builds. I also became interested in development changes as
Zanzarino would post about them. Eventually it was obvious that the forums were the place to be, and so I joined. I was mostly a lurker for the longest time, but the inviting community eventually helped me get out of my shell. I'm still not much of a poster, but I'm always happy to talk in our official chat or on Kongregate
Why did you name the chat bot AveragePotato, why not antiAveragePotato? I am not the originator of
AveragePotato. I did not name him. But I used to live in the IRC channel where he would let me know about new posts on the forums. When we moved to the new version of Blab, I couldn't live without him.
UTAlan scripted the IRC bot in order to take the place of the
old forum ticker that
Xenocidious made for the old version of Blab hosted prior to the IRC days. I liked the bot method better than the ticker, so I scripted a bot for our new version of Blab.
As for the name, I'll let
vrt explain:
Right around when we started the first Council, we had a little joke with Dragoon1140 and DesertKnight about how most users weren't much smarter than the average potato. When Council members were appointed, 1140 and I decided to give them their official 'potato names' (eg. Potato1140, Potaeto Hate, Kurotato, etc). We're now keeping the joke alive with our friendly neighborhood bot.
Also,
Chapuz told me that Peru is where to find potatoes after an apocalypse. So you know where to look if the potatoes ever go missing.
Do you still play Elements or you are here only for admin stuff?I still play
It might not be as much as I used to, but I got about 30,000 score during September. I've been lazy about building arena decks, but I still grind AI and am open for fun duels. I still get excited when people make deck posts, enjoying seeing their creativity or their discovery of old ideas that are still interesting and relevant. I will pretty much always try out a deck that someone posts in the forums, the official chat, or Kongregate chat. I know it's hard to stay interested in games that are not under active development these days, but when I grew up, games were released and then that was it. There was no DLC, there were no expansions, replay-ability was a big deal in ratings. I think Elements has great replay-ability, and I'm still happy to play it.
Any closing remarks for the community?I want to extend a big thank you to everyone for your patience and support. I know I haven't been the most consistent Admin, but every time I'm around, you always make me feel welcome. This is a great community filled with creative, intelligent, helpful, and thoughtful members. A lot of you work much harder than I ever could. I know we have our rough moments, but we have such a great support network for working through the bad times. We are all here to play a game, relax, and have fun. Try not to take things too seriously. Be good to each other. I'll see you in chat
Thanks for talking and for your work as an admin!You're very welcome, thanks for inviting me to this interview! As an aside, this month is a big deal for me. I was invited to the
Wingsuit Formation World Record attempts in Perris, California. I'll be gone October 12th through the 19th helping set a new wingsuit world record. Wish me and my fellow wingsuit pilots luck, I'll share the pictures when I get back. If you're ever curious about skydiving or wingsuiting, hit me up in chat, I'm happy to answer any questions. I challenge all of you to try skydiving at least once, and consider getting your license. It's an often misunderstood sport, and far safer than you might imagine. It's also one of the most beautiful things you can do. Blue skies, everyone
