Yeah, this place was pretty harsh for a while, but there were so many people signing up and spamming the forum that it became second nature for regular users to forcefully point out the mistakes of others, usually in the Naruto section. I joined the irc channel shortly after signing up on the forum, and a lot of the time irc was more harsh than the forum because their aren't rules there like there are here. Still, that was where I first met Haku, Assertn, and kai the first time I came there, and I thought they were pretty cool people so I kept coming back to irc. Like many of you, I was *very* cautious about what I typed on the forum, and got berated for what I said a few times, and I remember once, thundrakkon jumped to my defense, and then got flamed for defending me 'just because I was a girl'. Thundrakkon was also the person who made me my first sig - a neat Rikku sig with lightning effects.

As for how I became a mod....well, one day, out of the blue, me with barely 100 posts at the time, I got a PM from Ciber saying, "Want to be a mod?"

I responded right back saying, "I don't think I'm mean enough to be a mod."

Ciber laughed at me, and told me that I didn't have to be mean to be a mod, and that he was implementing a new 'ninja mod' system where all the moderators would be anonymous.

So, I operated as a ninja mod for quite some time. When the forum system was changed over to the new engine, it was impossible to keep mods anonymous.