My Opinion on WOTN 3

I was inspired by a mix of things to write a new one. I wanted to do this every Thursday, but I wanted to release the Manga and the changes it would bring before I commented on the state of affairs. Yoyo, was the first inspiration when she pointed out to me how much more WOTN offers than other Naruto sites. The other thing was Amaterasu's story. Not so much that I want to chronicle my story on WOTN, but more or less it made me remember just how far I've come from when I first started on the internet.

September 15, 2006. That's when I first joined a website called Crunchyroll. Why is this important? Everything you see in Way Of The Ninja is hugely impacted by my joining this site, and on that day, too! If I had even joined a week or two later, maybe a month. WOTN wouldn't exist.

Now I won't go into the long details, but the reason that day was so fated by God was because on that day, a chat thread that was a week old, had gotten its first slowdown in hours. And I snuck on, read the entire first Chat thread. ^_^;;; *I was nervous, guys* And then, I jumped in when everyone else but one guy left. He seemed nice. And I said. "hey how r u"
^_^;;;; Grammar on this little site wasn't, exactly, looked highly upon. Or, for that matter, well, it was just dang. Moving on. And the user, I remember his avatar very crisply, it was the guy from Midori No Hibi, with his hand in his pocket and he was walking off in a gangster pose. Anyway, that's that. Shugo responded, and told me I should get an avatar. And after that, the Chat was what I looked forward to, breathed, and lived for on that site. And about 4 days later, Q got in his first debate. Defending President Bush. I was hopelessly outnumbered, but I had one ally. A man named Kyocool. He defended me and helped me fight and fight against the onslaught. And even though compared to now I was a flick in the debating world, I tried so hard! It meant so much to me! After it was over, Kyo and I had won. Kyo really did all the work. I recognize now he was only supporting me because he wanted someone else in there. I know the feeling. And he said something that would forever change my destiny, too. "Hey, that was fun, Q" And my nickname was born.

Anyway, fast forward through our history and you get evil mods, the chat thread of fun locked forever. You get crazy users who made life exciting, and you get Shugo teaching me to make avatars when I decided to skip school that day *Interestingly, a year later on that exact date, I skipped school and made my first attempts at making avatars for real*. Eventually, those evil mods I mentioned, would come and destroy the chat. I'd go to an MIRC where the chatting was pathetic, I'd be forced to endure constant attacks on my beliefs, and I'd lost most of my real friends. I vowed that someday I'd get Crunchyroll back for taking my chat thread away by taking away one of theirs. And 6 months after I started posting on the MIRC I stopped, and it withered out of existence. And a day I will never forget, December 24, 2006, I was banned.

Many people claim to have lead the conspiracy attack on Crunchyroll. The reason why I know it was me, and not any of them, is because I was the one who actually figured out the little trick with the Url. It took one thread, accidentally discovered by one of the craziest kids you'll ever find, and I was able to release my attack on CR. It lasted 3 days. An error and a User hopelessly confused ended my attack. Oops. ^-^ By the way, Waffles was the person who originally got Crunchyroll's Anime copyrighted. He was such a sneak.

After that, me and a rogue band of people you know well made our own Website called Anime Alley. The members? Punkfilter, who I had asked to join us at the very last minute randomly and on the urgings of others. Shugo, who I asked in the beginning because I thought I owed him one since he was the first person I ever talked to. And others. Banouin would of been there had he replied to his PM's faster. Shinigami_Man, known here as Menchisaurus, too.

After months of exhausting work on that site, we had about 100 members. We had switched sites 3 times. That's why, WOTN will never change sites. I know that flaw. It had a chatbox, and about 2 posts a day. I learned a great flaw, there, too. It was dark like a cave to post in. I learned that websites need a bright background. Thus, the Manga backgrounds for WOTN. Mods had become power hungry, the admin had exploded, and Punkfilter and I were left with a lazy site. PF and I and Waffles had talked about making a Naruto site. PF finally did it. He asked me to be the Kazekage. I accepted, although at first I was worried it would kill AA (It did).

And thus, WOTN was born. Is there any other site with a background quite like this? Absolutely not. Most Naruto sites spawn off each other. Someone joins a Naruto RPG. He gets banned for doing poorly or believes he can do it. And thus he makes one with an identical layout. I can name you the layout without even looking it up offhand:
- First, you join the site and go through all the details of joining. Then, as if a username wasn't enough, you make a flipping character. In this character you must follow a stringent set of rules and laws that the admins each have specially made. No matter what, you'll get denied and told to try again.
- Second, you join a village. You are told to go roleplay. You roleplay something like this: "I was sitting there, by myself. I could feel, I was different from everyone else. There was something inside of me I couldn't contain."
- Third you roleplay a battle. There is no system. No rules. You are expected not to Godmod without any rules explaining Godmodding really applying.
- Fourth you are given ranks here and there and become integrated. You get in lots of fights. Mods harass you. You suck up to them, or get in trouble.
- Fifth you either become a Kage or make your own site. Or join a different site. Or make a new character.

What the freedom is that garbage? I am not saying every Roleplay site is equal to that badness, but they are sure darned close! Why did WOTN never follow that road? Because our story was different! WOTN has never had a moderator. We threw them out. We have Kage's that moderate, but we will never, or at least not until we become ridiculously large, have people who's job it is to critique and attack others posting habits. Our belief, coming from a chatroom, was that people do that on their own. They force people to quit being stupid, or they kick them out. How often have we done that on WOTN? Innumerous times. It works. But WOTN stands very alone in this system.

What about characters, formats, all these rules that are all subject to an Admin's preference? A Chuunin Exam consisting of roleplaying well? What? What? These are all tossed. For starters, PF and I never knew them. But secondly, we were not about to copy any other site. Our Chuunin and Jounin Exams are one in a kind, you can count on that. So is the Kage Competition. And worlds others. You have to realize just how unique WOTN is. And this very much is rooted in where WOTN came from. We came from chatting. We are born to chat, be creative, debate, and challenge the system. Nowhere on the internet are cheaters, rulebreakers, mean people, general pranksters, and downright crazies more tolerated than on WOTN. Why? Because we can find value in all of those. The people we deem fit to attack are drama kids and spoiled kids. And ignorants. People, by the way, that couldn't survive in a chat thread, when the others could.

But, to make this more clear, I will demonstrate just how original we are by making a list of all we have that other sites don't, or have in a very generic sense:
Arcade
Youtube Channel
Manga
Court System
New Village creation (They either do it like crazy, or never)
Fanclubs (Ours are special, trust me)
A marketplace
Weapon's shop that relies on Ryo
Bank account
A village as unique as Sun
A battle system, and one that is without a doubt the best ever created
A fun chat/roleplay area (Keyword, fun!)
A Homework Help Section
Our own layout that we have complete control over
Missions that aren't just: Roleplay this, roleplay that.
Unheard of originality in both Jounin and Chuunin Exams
Blog section
Sprite Advertizements *Hey, what can I say?*
A completely working and awesome War System
All our own original art *Most people require finding pics on Photobucket, but we make everything ourselves now, pretty much*
Colony sites *They might not do well, but we've tried, eh?*
A handful of awesome and custom made Profiles~
Two of its very own Video series: WOTN Help and WOTN TACO SCRUBS
A Fanfic that is quite exciting. Scuse me for plugging WOTNopolis, but its beast in comparison
And did I mention Manga? Maybe you haven't realized just how amazing that is, so I am repeating it. We. Have. Our. Own. MANGA.
A ninja Academy that rocks
Clever contests: Quote Tower Contest, for example. Posting Competition.
Our own Yearbook, and records Section.
Advertisement Videos
Trading Cards
And 7 Amazing Villages that crushes the dust out of anything you'd find elsewhere.

For those of you out there saying that 'forums are boring' or 'all you do is spam' you haven't paid any attention to WOTN. Not. One. Bit.

All this, because the original sitemakers, refused the idea of making a Naruto site you could find anywhere. We valued only creativity and fun. And we were darned sure going to give our users that. Compare that to the earlier list and the comparison is striking. Way Of The Ninja is truly a breed of its own. I believe God played a part in that, I really do. And here we are, two years later. We are still in a make it or break it mode, it seems. We are not heading to the stars of success, but we also refuse to head to the pits of the internet. I still believe that after all this time WOTN can go there.

One thing you gotta learn on the internets, is giving up puts you nowhere. I could of given up two years ago on WOTN. Some of the previous admin did. And if I had, WOTN today wouldn't be standing, let alone in all its glory. People often give up when they lose their friends. But, what you don't realize is that friends on the internet are mostly temporary. If you aren't constantly trying to make new ones, then soon you will wind up lonely. You do occasionally find a star or two that survives and outlasts all. But out of 3 years of internet experience, I only had one friend that lasted all those travails. Bano. What does that tell you? It means hold your friends close, but never give up making new ones.

Another thing is, people often get tired of things when they change, or become a bit foreign. But what you don't realize is, the WOTN you joined two years ago and enjoyed, is the same WOTN a person who is joining now is going to enjoy. So don't damper their fun. That's why I think to be considered an older member 6 months is all you require. True, to be an ancient such as myself, it requires a little more. But older members, 6 months. Loss of noob status, varies between a week and 2 months, depending on your amount of posting.

And there's something in and of itself. The Value of posts in WOTN matters so much more than anywhere else. Posts on WOTN is friendship, communication, ability, and loyalty. Not age you're on the site. Sure, I will never turn down an old member with 1000 users, but I also won't turn down a fresh off the boat member with 1000 already. ^_^ I love them both! Those who help WOTN the most? Have the highest post counts. Those who are not wanted? Lower post counts. Not a perfect setup, but its somewhat true. There are lots of exceptions, the slow poster who makes 1000 posts in a year, but its about continuing those posts throughout the year, more than anything. The on off on off user is the least enjoyed, noffense.

Anyway, just some things I was thinking about and WOTN. Its origins. I really do forget sometimes how fortunate and grand we've made this site through love of God and users and whatnot. I often forget that Sand is bigger than half the Naruto sites out there. Or that, in our search to not die and become perfect, we really have more.

But this isn't to make you feel comfy. If you feel comfortable with what WOTN is after this, you're wrong. WOTN is all this because we refused to give up and refused to sit with what we had. So get out there and post, recruit, talk, come up with ideas. Do whatever it takes but push yourself that extra mile. That's why WOTN exists and in such a great shape. This is a battle. WOTN is the best Naruto site, but we are losing to noob sites. We can't lose. We won't lose. So let's fight this fight and win! Let's get us as many new users as we can and see if we can't put WOTN back on top of the internet. For we are chatters. We are spammers. Born and bred we never give up, we always have something to say, and be darned if your crazy, funny, a weirdo, cool, or just a nerd you won't stop replying cause there's always something to say. There's always one last smiley to put down. Heck, there's always one more crazy idea.

This didn't really have a lot of things we added, or updates, or come up with what we need to do. But, I needed to straighten my thoughts out, and thought you guys might be interested in some WOTNism.