Ask Jorick Anything (Anonymously) - NOW CLOSED

[Jorick]

If you saw someone get stabbed, would you help them?

Probably, if the stabber wasn't hanging around. Call for emergency services and helping them hold something there to stem the flow of blood wouldn't take much effort and would plausibly be enough to save a person's life, so it's worth doing I guess.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Someone already asked this. Is originality too much to ask for?

Wah! What are we gonna do on the bed?

Probably gonna do some incest, if I recall this meme correctly. :D

How long on average does it take for someone to move from Intern to an actual, concrete moderator status such as Community or Security?

I dunno, a few months maybe? It's very different from person to person. Some take to the staff work like a duck to water and the intern period was basically just a cautionary trial to see if they were alright, and they get the fast lane to staff after a month of interning. Greenie is a good and recent example of this. Others take time to get used to the work, or they slack for a while and then we have to keep them interns for a good long time before we become confident they won't flake out again, or there are some issues present that make us hesitant to bump them up to staff. Those ones can take a while to become full staff. And then, being completely honest, it's possible that some people may be okay as interns but have some problems that make us decide they aren't going to ever become full staff members. Being an intern is not a guaranteed middle step between normal member and being staff, it's the trial period in which we may decide some people should not be staff.

I love this site so much, but I only RP in PMs and I'm starting to run out of space... is there any chance we could get a feature to download PMs? I already donate to the site but I'd also contribute more $$$ for it. Thanks for all your time and effort! Good luck with your admin duties, Jorick.

I have no idea how possible that is, really. We run on XenForo forum software, and we're limited by whatever add-ons exist (which may not include one to allow downloading PMs) or whatever we can pay someone to make (which is probably none because that's very expensive). I'll bring the idea to the other admins and Diana (because she still owns the place and controls the money) and see if that's possible. :)

About how many Staff applications come in every month, and how many of those are usually accepted?

It fluctuates wildly. I've seen a lot of months with no applications, and some with a bunch of them. A lot of it depends on how much we advertise the fact that we need more people. As for how many are accepted, ehhh... I'd say roughly half of the applications I've seen put in end up being accepted? Very rough estimate though, I haven't been keeping count.

Do you sometimes wish you could enter MISC?

Every month so far I've wished I could enter, haha. If at some point in the future I hand the contest off to other people to run it, I'll probably start entering (though likely with orders for the judges to NOT pick mine for the manager's pick because I don't want it and would be in it for the reviews only).

Are we pandering to your ego by wanting to know every detail of your existence?? No wait! That isn't my real question! It doesn't count, so refrain from a snarky answer!

What time of day or evening were you born? Please include time zone, if you are so inclined to answer. Then I can present @Greenie with a detailed astrological chart that reveals your darkest secrets....

Of course, nothing to worry about since I'm sure a sensible person like yourself doesn't credit all that nonsense!

TOO BAD, YOU GET A SNARKY ANSWER: Yes, you are pandering to my ego and I love it. :D

I asked my mother and she gave me a whole long story about my birth, hahaha. The short answer is around 2 AM (she's about 99% sure it was 2:02 AM exactly), and that was in the pacific time zone of the US west coast. Oh, and it was June 2, 1989, just to make sure you have the right info. I don't credit any of that nonsense, but it can be amusing, so go for it and lemme know if you get any juicy dark secrets from it.

Heh... got one. What do you drive? ...

Nothing. I don't even know how to drive. I take the bus everywhere, because the public transportation system in Portland, Oregon is great. :P

 

[Roose Hurro]

Nothing. I don't even know how to drive. I take the bus everywhere, because the public transportation system in Portland, Oregon is great. :P

Denial is indeed a river in Egypt... learn how to drive, it's great fun:

 

[Ravenfrost]

lemme know if you get any juicy dark secrets from it.

Indeed, I will be sure to disclose all the dirt! (But not to the general public. At least, not without a small fee being tendered to yours truly.)

It will take a while, all the angles have to be calculated and analyzed to get the full view of your terrifying psyche. So forth and so on, yada yada.

However (sigh, stabs self with tuning fork, sets hair on fire) - thank you. That was nice of you to do. Really.

 

[Nebulon Ranger]

I have no idea how possible that is, really. We run on XenForo forum software, and we're limited by whatever add-ons exist (which may not include one to allow downloading PMs) or whatever we can pay someone to make (which is probably none because that's very expensive). I'll bring the idea to the other admins and Diana (because she still owns the place and controls the money) and see if that's possible. :)

Export Conversations

You're welcome. ;)

Note, compatibility is listed as 1.3-1.5, and since Iwaku (quite smartly) doesn't display full version number in the footer, I have no idea if it's compatible. An addon WAS made for it, though.

Anyway, just how good is Portland's public transit?

 

[Cosmic Castaway]

Export Conversations

You're welcome. ;)

Note, compatibility is listed as 1.3-1.5, and since Iwaku (quite smartly) doesn't display full version number in the footer, I have no idea if it's compatible. An addon WAS made for it, though.

Anyway, just how good is Portland's public transit?

That request may or may not have been from me... As you can see, my post count is abysmal. PMing is where its at for me so I appreciate any research looking into this. And if it does come down to cost, PM me. Thanks for everything!

 

[Ner0]

As you have already professed your hobby of video games, I must ask, are you a long term gamer; and if so, what particular game do you feel the most nostalgic towards? If you have time, a heart warming nostalgia moment with said game in the form of a free hand story would be lovely ;P.

 

[Jorick]

Apologies if this has been asked already or if this is too controversial or whatever...what are your religious beliefs?

Hasn't been asked, and I don't mind a little controversy. I'm an atheist. More specifically, I'm one of the folks who would say "I don't think there is a god" rather than "there is definitely no such thing as a real deity." I'm well aware that it's impossible to prove a negative, and I find those who claim to know for certain that no deity exists to be just as incorrect as those who claim to know for certain that one does exist. I came to this position through a combination of skepticism and applying a scientific way of thinking to the whole issue of religion: there is no firm evidence for the existence of a deity (or the lack thereof), and this is despite people have been trying for basically the whole of human history to try to prove that such a thing exists, so the ages of failure to provide any real proof leads me to think that no deity exists; however, because it cannot be firmly proven I remain at the "I don't think so" level rather than claiming to know.

Export Conversations

You're welcome. ;)

Note, compatibility is listed as 1.3-1.5, and since Iwaku (quite smartly) doesn't display full version number in the footer, I have no idea if it's compatible. An addon WAS made for it, though.

Anyway, just how good is Portland's public transit?

Apparently it has compatibility clashes with other add-ons we use, so that's no good. Diana did like the idea though, so if she finds something that'll work then she'll probably snatch it up.

Portland's public transit is pretty damn good. Most major thoroughfares have a bus line that runs down it, and on the heavy traffic ones they aim to have buses running every 15 minutes or so, which they mostly succeed at. There are also light rail trains that go through the downtown city area and out to the middle of a lot of the suburb areas, and they hit some major convenience points like the airport (so you can avoid the expense of airport parking rates or paying for a taxi when flying somewhere and just pay $2.50 for a transit ticket each way instead), a couple malls, and major transit centers that are the convergence points for many bus lines. The whole system is not as efficient as places like Washington D.C. or New York that have subway lines, but Portland is often in or just under the top 10 public transit cities in the US whenever groups put out lists of such things. You can get pretty close to basically anywhere in the city and main suburbs you want to go, and in not too terribly much longer than it would take if you were to drive there.

tl;dr It's good enough that I am actually not much of an oddity around here for not bothering with driving and just using public transit to get everywhere. :P

As you have already professed your hobby of video games, I must ask, are you a long term gamer; and if so, what particular game do you feel the most nostalgic towards? If you have time, a heart warming nostalgia moment with said game in the form of a free hand story would be lovely ;P.

I am indeed a long term gamer. In fact, my earliest memory is actually of playing a video game for the first time. I was, I dunno, 4 or 5 at the time? I was at my father's house (divorced parents meant different houses and split custody for a while) and saw his Nintendo sitting there in front of the TV. I had no idea what it was but I picked up the controller and fiddled with it. My father came and turned it on for me and tried to show me how it worked, and the game in it was the original Metroid. I basically just walked back and forth in the first area of the game until I got bored of it and decided to run off to play with my brothers.

Most of my video game nostalgia is for games from the Super Nintendo era though. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past still top my list as best game of all time, and while part of that is nostalgia it's also just a fucking phenomenal masterpiece of game design; I played that shit for YEARS as a child before finally beating it, and the sense of success I got from that is impossible to describe properly. Super Metroid and Super Mario World were games that I loved but which frustrated the fuck out of me as a child, and finally beating them after years of failure were also some great success moments for me. Yoshi's Island is to this day my favorite platformer ever, and it's a game I have a lot of fond memories for even though I didn't actually play it until well after I got a Nintendo 64. Illusion of Gaia (called Illusion of Time in Europe and Australia) was the first game that ever made me cry, and it's also an amazing game, so plenty of nostalgia there too. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a spin-off from the main series that was fairly different, was the first turn-based RPG I played and got me into the genre as a whole, which has been one of my favorites ever since.

But if you want a nice little nostalgia story, then it has to be the story I have for Donkey Kong Country (which is another nostalgia favorite, along with the sequels). I think I was 13 at the time, and I'd had the game for a while but hadn't played it much. On New Year's Eve, which would've been 2003 going into 2004, I had my Super Nintendo set up to the TV in my mom's bedroom because my brothers were watching stuff out there and my mom was just reading and didn't care. I messed with some of my old faves, got irritated with deaths and failures in Super Mario World and such, and then decided I wanted something new instead of a grind. I popped in Donkey Kong Country and started playing it. Apparently the new sounds (she was very used to ignoring the noise from the other games I played all the time, haha) and the art style caught my mom's attention because she started asking questions about it. She never really played many video games, but she asked if she could try it out. We ended up starting a new 2 player game (she was Diddy Kong because she liked his hat 8D) a little after 9 PM and just went for it. We got all competitive about the tough levels, we had a bunch of those levels just barely scraped through after a bunch of times dying right near the end, I taught her the ways of skimming tons of easy extra lives from early levels, we both decided the barrel levels are awesome and the mine cart levels suck hard, and we generally had a good time. We were in the middle of the ice zone of the game when we heard people freaking out outside and letting off fireworks, and that was the only reason we realized it had struck midnight, but we kind of just ignored it and grouched about the noisy assholes and kept on playing. We went to almost 3 in the morning to beat it, and for the end boss it turned out my mother was better than me at remembering long patterns of shit to dodge so she was the one who beat the final boss. It was great, a fun night of bonding over a video game with my non-gamer mother, probably my favorite New Year's Eve ever and I doubt it'll ever be beaten. :D

---

I only got one anonymous question since my previous round of answers, and that was Saturday night. I guess I'll be closing this up soon if there's not much continued interest in asking me stuff. :P

 

[Unyielding]

Do you plan on implementing a system to discourage the common practice of quitting rps through inactivity instead of just notifying the GM or vice versa the GM quitting through inactivity and not notifying the players.

I am not saying to punish people who quit Rp, just people who think its ok to just disappear and not say anything. It gets really annoying to join a rp just to have everyone or even just the GM disappear for a month and then randomly find it in the graveyard. Then see that creator make a new RP and repeat the cycle.

This is more geared towards GMs since it is there responsibility to manage the RP and if they leave the RP and Gm can already do things about inactive players.

 

[Jorick]

I'm answering this one now instead of waiting for more questions because fuck it, why not.

Do you plan on implementing a system to discourage the common practice of quitting rps through inactivity instead of just notifying the GM or vice versa the GM quitting through inactivity and not notifying the players.

I am not saying to punish people who quit Rp, just people who think its ok to just disappear and not say anything. It gets really annoying to join a rp just to have everyone or even just the GM disappear for a month and then randomly find it in the graveyard. Then see that creator make a new RP and repeat the cycle.

This is more geared towards GMs since it is there responsibility to manage the RP and if they leave the RP and Gm can already do things about inactive players.

Absolutely not. Consider how such a thing would even work in practice and you'll see why it's impossible to do in a non-awful way.

We cannot force people to remain active because slavery is illegal and mind control doesn't exist.

Trying to give people incentive to not disappear from roleplays wouldn't be feasible. At best we could give people some kind of special ribbon under their avatar or a shiny badge on their profile that says they never wordlessly disappeared from a roleplay, but to even implement that we would have to dig through the entire posting history of members individually, else it would be awarded to people who have in fact done that. Maintaining that system would require regular manual checks on all members to make sure they have not lost their right to the badge, or we would have to create and implement some kind of automated system wherein GMs have to record who all joins each of their roleplay and then the GMs and players would have to report how they and each other person ended their involvement with that roleplay (because you need the full input from all people else the system could be horribly abused); this system would have to be made mandatory in some way for it to work, and any punishments to enforce such a mandate would be overbearing and awful.

Punishing people for wordlessly dropping out of roleplays would require similarly overbearing measures to make sure we were being consistent and catching everyone. On top of that, what sort of punishments would we levy? The only punishments we have available to us are warnings (which are basically slaps on the wrist saying don't do that again and are only effective when backed up by the threat of and willingness to use actual punishments), temporarily banning people (which would be a ridiculously extreme punishment just for dropping out of a roleplay), permanently banning people (ditto), or revoking their access to certain site functions like chats or certain subforums or posting threads or sending private messages or so on (which would also be ridiculously extreme and very strange to boot). Then there's the fact that sometimes shit happens in real life that keeps people away from the internet that they cannot help, such as being hospitalized or having their house burn down or so on, and we would either have to punish these people for such circumstances to be equal to everyone or we would have to implement some way of providing excuses for wordlessly dropping from roleplays and that would require demanding privacy-invading proof with each claim a bunch of work from staff members to verify the truth of these claims (first to verify user identity, then to verify that the shitty event they are using as an excuse actually happened, and then that said shitty event actually had negative impact on that user in real life that prevented them from using the internet for a long period of time). So the options there are punish people for having bad things happen to them, demand invasive information and tons of staff work to verify excuses, or accept excuses at face value and negate the purpose of the entire system.

We can't force people to not disappear from roleplays. Trying to give incentive to people to not disappear from roleplays would require completely unsustainable levels of work from staff and/or draconian measures that would severely punish people for not participating in the system. Punishing people for disappearing from roleplays would also be draconian nonsense and/or require a ton of staff work and it would likely end up punishing people for having bad things happen to them in real life.

So no, we have no such plans and you should be glad about it. Any of these things being done would effectively be the start of the death of Iwaku because it would end up making all of our staff members quit and/or it would drive members away in droves because nobody is going to put up with that sort of nonsense. People disappearing from roleplays is just one of the inherent negative points of the hobby. I have one piece of very blunt advice for you: learn to live with this problem or find another hobby. You're only going to end up bitter and resentful if you can't handle facing this problem that occurs very frequently in roleplaying. :/

 

[Nebulon Ranger]

I'm answering this one now instead of waiting for more questions because fuck it, why not.

Absolutely not. Consider how such a thing would even work in practice and you'll see why it's impossible to do in a non-awful way.

We cannot force people to remain active because slavery is illegal and mind control doesn't exist.

< insert TL;DR >

I'm amazed you wrote that much to answer that question. I snipped the paragraphs out for brevity, but the gist, as someone who also runs his own, is that no, we (referring to admins in general here, of which I am not one) can't do this because it basically amounts to dictating how and when people play, which is impossible.

It's up to the GM to keep players interested, and it's up to the players to actually bother to post. Nothing staff can do, even in an ideal situation, would help.

Anyway, @Jorick, what do you think of the color pink?

 

[Pahn]

Anyway, @Jorick, what do you think of the color pink?

Jorick once was a pretty princess locked in @Diana 's tower and he looooved the colour pink. He even wore a crown of flowers, it was marvelous. A sight to behold!

 

[Jorick]

If you're not a potato, then are you a banana? I've heard they're closely related.

Nope.

What's your favorite fetish and nickname?

Oh wow, these are two very different questions put together, hahaha.

Favorite fetish? Hmmmm... Probably role reversal. Although maybe there's a better term for what I'm into because "role reversal" usually means like a one time exchange of dominant or submissive roles, but I like when there's some long term dominance struggle going on there and it can flip back and forth many times and never truly settles on a permanent dynamic.

And my favorite nickname, ehhh... I've grown attached to being called douchebear. It ultimately stems from the facts that I can be a douche and that bears are my favorite animals, which was cemented years ago when a friend on a different forum made me a Skype avatar that was an actual douche bear with like a chain necklace and shutter shades. Here, check it out for yourself. I think it's still my avatar on that Skype account I never use. It's a nickname that's both amusingly fitting and has some nostalgic history, so that's why I'd have to pick it as my favorite.

What is/was the least-expected difficulty of being an admin so far for you? What about for working security?

I'll take this in reverse order. For working in Security in general the hardest thing that I did not expect was the huge pain in the ass that is NSFW image cases. It's such a subjective thing to try to decide if an image is safe for work or not, and lots of cases end up with disagreement about whether or not an image is in fact NSFW; many of them only end when they receive a final decision from a Security Lead or an admin coming in to settle the stupid thing. Whenever I see a NSFW image case pop up I groan and hope it's one that everyone can agree on, because if it's not then it's going to be a headache.

As for being an admin, it would have to be handling the politics side of things. I thought I'd been pretty well aware of things going on beneath the surface when I was just one member of the group of security leaders who were in charge during the transition period from Diana to new admins. It turns out there was actually a lot that I was never even aware of, and there were some new and totally unexpected issues that cropped up after I was made admin. However, I should note that this is only the most difficult unexpected thing because there has been very little that did not meet my expectations for what the job would entail. :P

What kind of message do you want to send to more shy members of Iwaku?

Why would I address the shy members? That'll just drive them back into hiding. D:

But seriously, the only message I can think of to send to the shy folks in general is that most people here don't bite unless you're into it and agree beforehand, and the anonymity offered by the internet is a powerful thing. In real life I'm actually veeeeeeeeery introverted, to the point that I've been called shy by basically everyone who has seen me in unfamiliar social situations, and I've been able to sort of break out of that shell on the internet thanks to embracing the wonderful fact that nobody would really know who I was in person and none of my social blunders would negatively impact my real life. It has helped me to be able to break some of that introvert shell IRL as well, because the confidence gained from internet socializing can definitely translate to real world interactions due to the experience making you know you're capable of working around the shyness. Try pushing past your safe boundaries a little bit at a time to expand your horizons, just keep on stepping forward to that point where you feel a little bit uncomfortable but can handle it, and eventually you'll find that you've traveled miles from your starting point without any huge struggle along the way.

Anyway, @Jorick, what do you think of the color pink?

It's alright. The brighter shades of pink can sear the eyes, but more mellow and dark pinks are fine.

 

[Jorick]

Not a banana OR a potato? Then what are you? :O

Tired of your nonsense is what I am. >:[

Will you answer this question with a lie?

Perhaps.

What is your opinion of Jar Jar Binks?

Token wacky character that was meant to appeal to kids and move merchandise. If he hadn't been so terribly annoying that would have been fine, but at least the turd that was Jar Jar Binks was just one among many in the shit piles that were the Star Wars prequel trilogy movies. Better that than seeing him ruin otherwise good movies.

If you could study any subject in a post-secondary establishment for free—and in which grades are of no consequence—which would you prefer?

So just studying a subject for the sake of studying it. Hmmmm... Probably chemistry. I took some classes back when I was doing the college thing I and really enjoyed it. The challenge was a lot of fun, and I would go for the challenge and care about the grades anyway because I don't want to just half-ass it and end up not really knowing it all. If I just wanted to learn facts about some subject I have the whole internet at my disposal, so I'd pick chemistry to actually make use of the stuff aside from simply acquiring information that make colleges and whatnot better than the internet for learning about things and applying that knowledge.

What is your opinion on water as a beverage?

Well, being a nitpicky asshole, I don't like water as a beverage because the term "beverage" is usually used to mean drinks that are not water.

But drinking water is fine. The stuff you drink just has to keep you hydrated, doesn't have to taste good. I usually have some kind of soda and some water both on hand for drinking because the soda doesn't really meet the hydration needs unless I drink a ton of it, which is something I try to avoid.

Are there timestamps on these anonymous questions that could help you to determine whether a particular group of questions are more or less likely to be from the same individual?

Yes, but I haven't been paying attention to timestamps until just now. I'm assuming you asked because you just submitted five questions (including this one) in a little under ten minutes. :P

Do you have a favorite security case you've dealt with?

Definitely. There was one case that I handled on the spot because it was a time-sensitive thing of some silly bastards cybering in a chat room, and one was listed as an adult member while the other was a teen, although we had already been looking at the girl for possibly lying about her age. They had been amply warned about cybering not being allowed and about not being allowed to do sexual roleplay across age group lines, but they went off to a user created chatroom to do so anyway. When I was informed of it and looked into it they were typing short back and forth things that used first and second person pronouns, and it was very clearly leading to some sex. So, being the troll asshole that I am, I sat there and watched via the chat archive, refreshing every once in a while to see how things were going for the lovebirds. More people messaged me about it, and I told some others, so basically there was a large audience silently watching this unfold.

They went from laying on the couch watching TV to the girl telling the boy to rub her clit, and he emoted doing so. No removal of clothes at this point, just instant clit action. However, it was clearly getting to the cybering because fiddling with genitals, so I busted into their chat wholly intending to treat it like a police raid. I joined the chat and my first line to them was "Alright kids, show's over" which was in fact a nod to all the people watching along via archive. The dude emoted starting to take his pants off right after I said that, which was pretty great. I explained that sexual roleplay stuff between age groups was not allowed, they needed to stop immediately, and this was going to be their one and only warning about that shit (because I hadn't seen that they were warned before), then dropped a link to the rules into the chat and left it.

Of course I went back to archive stalking because I had to see their reactions. The guy's first thing said after I left was one of the most hilarious insults I've ever had flung my way: "hey is a duch". I had it as my user title for a while because it made me crack up every time I read it, and staff people started referencing it so much that it basically reached meme status. Anyway, they kept on talking about what a bummer the situation was, then the dude asked for her contact information and Kitti ended up joining the chat to tell the girl it was a bad idea to give such information in public. They were both permabanned for being monumentally stupid (and ignoring warnings from staff members, plus persisting in trying to violate site rules after I kicked the door down and told them to stop). It was fun to be able to play smut police, and I saved the chatlog of the incident to have it with me forever. 8D

Oh, and here's a bonus fun story of my favorite case that I did not personally handle: there was a guy we suspected of lying about being an adult because of his behavior and manner of typing the the chats. He was asked how old he was and said he was 18 but almost 19; it turns out the age he listed in his profile would make him 19 about to turn 20, so clearly it was someone being bad at math and using a fake date to lie about their age. He was messaged about it and told he needed to provide proof of age or else he would be banned (which is standard procedure for people we have good reason to suspect of lying about their age), which means we needed a picture of him holding some kind of photo ID with his birth date on it as well as a piece of paper with his Iwaku username written on it. He ended up sending in the WORST images to try to prove their fake age that I have ever witnessed, and it was glorious. One was a picture they took with a tablet of some kind help up totally blocking their face and their username written on a piece of paper in the other hand; just with the sense of scale provided from the tablet and how large it was in his hand it was obvious this was a rather short person, plus there was a bunk bed in the background that was obviously child-sized because it was only a little taller than this kid. The other picture was the true masterpiece though: he sent in what he claimed to be his birth certificate (which is not something we would even accept as age verification), but it wasn't a photo or anything, it was an image he clearly got from a Google image search and then added text to; here's the blank version of the thing he used. It was a magical clusterfuck of the worst ever attempt to prove a false age. He totally fuck everything up: the document to "prove" his age was clearly a fake made on a computer, it was not a photo ID as required, his picture did not show his face as required, and the picture was very clearly a child trying to hide their clearly childish face. It was amazingly stupid and I laughed until it hurt.

 

[Greenie]

"hey is a duch".

So that is where that's from. o.o I'd always been curious about that.

 

[The Mood is Write]

Wow. What a duch.

 

[noodle]

Oh my god XD best stories ever.

 

[Pahn]

Oh man we laughed so hard at the cybering situation, holy shit. I was watching the archive as well, and Jorick literally just BUSTED in there all SWAT team like with guns blazing, and then the dude emotes taking off his pants XD !! "oh what the hell man" is what he replied, or something. It was absolutely glorious.

 

[firejay1]

Duch = duck. Which is why he is duckbear.

 

[Greenie]

Duch = duck. Which is why he is duckbear.

I always thought it was a really bad typo for 'douche'. Shows how much I know, eh? :D

Though I pronounced it like Dutch.

Sorry, les Dutch people. o.o'

 

[Greenie]

Hey hey hey :P As I told the subject of this thread once.. I never get drunk! XD