Sirocco: A Potted History

For all those who have ever wanted to know just how I came to be attached to this site for so long, I have compiled a potted history. Lucky you!

14th of April 2003: joined NationStates after being shown it the previous day by a friend.

May 2003: founded Lancre, and encouraged my allies to come with me to a brave new world.

June 2003: started The Lancre Cup so everyone had something to do.

Late June 2003: went on the forums for the first time. Until then, I had no idea what a forum was, but I was soon enthralled and became a budding Generalite. Yes, that's right. I was a Generalite along with Normack, Nyborg, Beeker, Marathon, and all the other oldies. The main difference between me and them was that I was interested in all the forums and I was a regular/semi-regular poster in every single one. Especially the Technical and NationStates forums.

15th of September 2003 (I think): became a forum moderator. Much to my surprise as well, as I'd never really given the moderators that much thought. They were just there, you know? And soon I learned what their nations were, what they were like, and all the rest. I knew my destiny when I got a telegram from Reppy and I thought 'why not?' (I know now, of course. I'm suffering from a premature old age from listening to complaints for two years). I moderated the forums for the next four months (well... when the forums weren't down anyway as they often were) and memories of that period are quite vague now. One thing I do remember is that Tactical Grace (who was modded at the same time as me, though I was first by a few hours) had much more praise from the already-existing mods who thought he'd be a great addition to the team (and he was). All I had was a passing mention from Reppy and only got the job because no-one else objected!

13th of January 2004: became a game moderator, much to my recalcitrant disappointment. I had really liked being a forum mod and wanted to continue as one, but I also wanted to edit issues as they fascinated me. The boss said I'd have to be a GM as it required access to the modcentre and I was thereby promoted. I decided that I'd carry on as a forum moderator qua game moderator that only edited issues. It worked for a while, but I often helped out with the tasklist too and now I have to juggle between the two. My forum modding skills have pretty much fallen into decay.

14th of October 2004: became a senior game moderator. Didn't make any difference to anything. Just showed that I'd done a lot of hard work.

After that: usual turn-of-the-mill stuff. There's lots of other details of course, but they're either not interesting, imaginary, or simply too broad to stick in this one post.

Anyway, that's all you didnae want to know about me. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Then at least I could laugh about something!