Blayze said: I remember signing up to EoFF at one point (I still get a happy birthday e-mail once a year from them I believe) but leaving after a couple of posts because the quality of the forums was just so poor. Back when I first signed up for the FFO forums in 2003 I rarely strayed from the Final Fantasy and other gaming sections, and think it was a couple of years before I started to post in General Chat, which is a shame because I missed a lot of the shenanigans people fondly remember. My favourite forum moment was April Fools in, I want to say 2006? With the mass bannings and new sub-forums and moderator wars, one of the few times I've ever found myself constantly checking a forum to see what new posts had been made. As for the strictness debate, Soul Hunter and Indiana Jericho moderated a lot of the gaming sections and they always seemed laid back. And while Rain was on the strict side, this also created some of the more entertaining forum moments - I remember getting into a couple of arguments with him in my very early days, and I think after a while I kinda reasoned to myself that he could be an asshole, but he was our asshole And as a community, there was some collective pointing at and ridiculing of the stupider intruders, but I'm pretty sure people were always asked nicely to not type like a moron/double post etc, and it was only when they took exception to this that the lynchings began. Crazy to think I've spent half of my life on FFO in some way.
Atma Weapon said: FFO in the mid 2000's had a very special vibe. Incredibly intelligent and mature for a gaming website. I visited some similar sites and they were incredibly juvenile and sloppily managed in comparison. The strictness of the moderators was a key ingredient to that culture, even if it seemed harsh to outsiders. Take the riddle community as a case in point. We kind of turned into our own clique with our own site, but no other pop culture fansite I've seen had anything like it.
