I couldn't give you a solid answer for why I felt this need. I'm usually pretty professional, clerical, and nice with the user base that I've come to know and love on here. I don't really share many of my personal thoughts because I want to be the best admin I can be for the people. I strive to be impartial, approachable, cordial. To the point where I've been complained at more than once for sounding too uptight and not speaking with folks casually or in a friendly tone. I was always so afraid of being perceived as unwilling or incapable of caring for and growing this community, or incapable of leading it. I still am, if I'm being honest.
I don't often look back to see how far I've come. Life's always moving so fast for me that I never really feel like I get that chance. The only reason I even have the chance now is, and I really don't tell people this but I feel this is a good place to mention it if you guys will allow me to, but due to life circumstances, I'm alone during most holidays. And as I'm spending that time alone, I'm going over stuff that I've taken care of in terms of just LAW alone and I'm coming up with the following:
- I've organized/coordinated at least 2 PPV events this year which were largely successful and seen through to completion
- I've organized the Hentai Title Tourney and taken over/effectively organized the Lightweight Classic Tourney, as well as chipped in where I could for the most recent Last Woman Standing Tourney
- I've organized the next We Are LAW, as well as coordinated Apex - The LAW World Openweight Title Event
- I've introduced the LAWLESS title, as well as oversaw and coordinated the LAWLESS Title Hunt Event
- I wrote the Discord bot that uploads posts from LAW Twitter to the #law-social-media channel in our discord server. I wrote a second bot that posts characters and matches to the server for people to discuss (constructively and respectfully). It works kinda like the law social media bot.
I wrote all this code with my own time and energy. I run it using my own resources. It is/was all written, maintained, hosted, and run with no one's help but my own.
- I have promoted/demoted a few mods this year. I handled this to the best of my ability to coordinate it in a way that would be mutual for everyone involved, entirely by myself.
- I've handled every incident and transgression users have raised to me throughout the year, and really throughout all of LAW's lifetime.
- I've approved the vast majority of new user profiles over LAW's lifetime, and actively tried to help new users find some footing here. I've also added the world-building section to the site FAQS/Newbie section
- I've rp'd (in my opinion somewhat actively) in my own events and on the site in general. I've helped people workshop ideas. I've helped people plan things from title reigns to long-term stories, to user-run events. I've chipped in where I could with the LAW Rumble.
- I implemented private threads/sections for threads on the site. The main purpose of this was to allow champions to conduct multiple title defenses in parallel so that they could decrease the amount of irl time that they remain champions rather than wait for one defense before doing another. This was supposed to and hopefully succeeded in circulating title belts more frequently. But private threads have also helped people plan important matches for events and PPVs by giving them the ability to start those threads well before the time of the event. Lastly, private threads have, in my opinion, been instrumental in making our frequent tournaments viable. The ability to start all the rounds at once without spoiling the outcomes of each round to the public is huge.
- I've been (again in my opinion) very active and open to criticism and I've incorporated much of the constructive critiques in the hopes of improving LAW as a community and a platform. The private threads were made in response to people voicing concerns over long title reigns. And that's just one example. I could go into many more but this post would become an even greater wall of text. But what I will say is that, prior to LAW, I've seen many tournaments and event ideas fail before they ever really got started. I've had people actively conspire against myself and my peers to deny them the chance to put together and execute neat event ideas and to ideas in general. Part of the reason I'm so open to listening to my users and trying to make things better for them is that I know how crappy it feels to be routinely ignored. I'm not going to take full credit for the success of every LAW event. But I have had a reasonably large part in the success of almost LAW events since the site's inception. And I'm sure that last part's been overlooked by pretty much everyone.
- I don't often mention it, but I also pay for the domain and the web hosting for this site out of my own pocket.
I think I can fairly and rightfully say that I've given a lot to LAW. I juggle all this stuff alongside my own life, work and my social life and such. I'm sure there's plenty that I've done that I just don't recall at the moment, and even more if I try to think back to everything I've done for this community since creating it a few years ago.
It feels good to be able to put pen to paper and recount the stuff I've done to try and make LAW the success that it is today. I don't mean to overlook or overshadow the many amazing things members of this community have done for the site and the discord server. I promise this post wasn't made for me to flex. I think people here know me better than that. It's hard for me to express the emotions I'm feeling in this post.
Almost everything that I've done to make LAW better was done with little help from other people. It's been a lot of work. It will continue to be a lot of work....
I just hope that one day I feel like all this time and effort that I put in will be acknowledged and appreciated. I'm not trying to say there's been no acknowledgement or appreciation. I'm just trying to articulate that I hope someday I feel like those feelings reach me. Over the course of many years, and from the very moment I created this website and tried to grow this community into what it is today, I have had more people than I can count direct a lot -and I do mean a lot- of negative energy and emotion in my direction. And every single day, for almost 5 straight years now, I've tried to make sure I could do something positive for this community to make it a better, more engaging, and more welcoming place.
I'm sure this post came across as whiny and complainy. I'm deeply sorry about this. I needed to voice this, as it was weighing on me for quite some time, and still is. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish here. But I hope I make it past all this somehow.
Thank you, All.
Links to stuff I wish more people would read
Peace, Love, and Sexy Wrestling Roleplay Stories