Zoop

For a proper Pegasus, flying was a natural act. As long as you weren't pushing yourself beyond your own abilities, you were unlikely to ever have any major issues with it. Or with landing, for that matter. In the moments before Keystone's spectacular and violent 100% vertical face-first landing on the cottage's front-facing wall, he found himself musing over the irony of the fact that had he remained high in the sky, he would have had sufficient time to compensate for the gusts, and avoid being cratered. It was, amusingly enough, the promise of shelter and safety that had lured him into his present situation. First there were stars; by sweet Luna's beautiful night sky, were there stars - and so many of them! They appeared in an explosion of light and color, lasting only a brief moment as his face became acquainted with a hard wall. Then? Then there was pain; first the pain of the collision, then the pain of his body bouncing back off of the wall, onto the floor. While not the worst pain he had ever felt in his life - he didn't feel as though anything was broken, at least - it wasn't exactly a minor thing, either. Now, in the minutes following his skillful landing, as he lay sprawled out, back-down and hooves-up, Keystone noticed with a strange sense of pride what appeared to be a fresh crack at the exact point in the wall that his forehead had struck. Still suffering from the shock of his impact, Key laid, largely immobile save for an occasional pain-induced wince in the rain. There would be plenty of time to get up and save himself from dying from exposure later - for now he was quite content to bask in his own pain whilst glaring balefully at the still storming sky that he had only moments before been forcibly and quite gracelessly evicted from.

Sometimes life hands you a rough hand of cards. This was a fact of life that Keystone was well acquainted and quite knowledgeable about. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, despite all action on your part, reality itself conspires and sees fit to throw some decidedly sour cards at you. And sometimes - sometimes - reality sees fit to simply skip right by the rough hands, right by the sour cards, and present you with something so mindbuggeringly frustrating that you're left wondering which deity you've managed to make hate you. Thus was the situation facing Keystone. As the only pegasus employee of the lock shop he presently called home, Key often found himself in the decidedly unenviable position of being the go-to pony to conduct service calls in areas beset on all sides by difficult to traverse terrain, at the most irritating hours imaginable, and - in this current case - the most irritating weather imaginable. Keystone had no illusions as to his ability as a flier. He wasn't a trickster, nor particularly athletic; he could fly further than most Earth ponies and unicorns could comfortably travel, but that was assuming ideal conditions, which he most decidedly did not find himself in presently: flying over a forest, soaked to the bone by utterly obnoxious amounts of rain, being thrown around by asinine gusts of wind, with more than a few bolts of lightning thrown in here and there for a bit of added spice. It was, if he were to be completely honest with himself, a situation that was quite above his pay grade. It was also a situation, he decided, lightning struck not terribly far in front of him, that he wasn't going to deal with - underpaying job be damned. His original idea was to try and find some sort of cave or crevice to cower in until the worst of the weather was over with, but that idea was set to the immediately as he caught sight of something far more appealing - a lit structure. Signs of civilization, of life. He altered his trajectory toward the strangely isolated structure immediately and without a second thought. He didn't know what to expect from the sort of pony that would live so far out in the middle of nowhere, but if there was even a chance that the owner might be gracious enough to provide a roof for at least a short while, he would take it. And so, with a landing that was quite a bit harder and less controlled than he would have liked, Keystone descended - stopping only when he collided head-first with the wall just adjacent to the structure's front door.

Maintaining a list of every pony that appears in the show is a poor use of time, in my eyes. Limiting it to the mane six covers most bases and doesn't require additional upkeep every time a new pony is introduced. While it may seem a very minor thing to do, these sorts of things add up extremely quickly and can easily bog down staff that would be better served putting their time toward something with greater benefits to the community.

"I'm going to a gathering of extremely distinguished gentlefolk that have come together from all across the nation for the sake of celebrating candy colored equines" Sounds legit to me. Shouldn't get any complaints.

I am so amazingly observant that I managed to miss this! Better late than never, at any rate.

The first thought that ran through my mind when I saw this on the recent blogs listing was "oh hey, I haven't seen them around here in a long time!" Speaking of which, was there anything that caused you to leave for the time you were gone? As for new stuff... well, there are some big things over here. :3

If a question is asked again and again, it really ought to be added to our site FAQ. If people repeatedly make tech support threads about things that are answered in our FAQ, I'm all for adding a topic multimod that allows the tech board staff to lock the thread and post a generic response directing the OP to our FAQ in one click.

This is all your fault. ;~;

And now, with the power of the oop duo fully restored, nothing can ever hope to stand in our way. The chain has been unbroken at last.

Is there really any point to making a full board for them if there's already an unobtrusive index for them? I don't really see the benefit it would afford. I hate to sound like a spoilsport, but I think the test for creating a new board ought be a difficult one to pass. The twilicorn board was added for the sake of fencing off discussions that were starting to annoy the heck out of a lot of people while at the same time giving the forum a decent SEO boost for related searches, the Equestria Girls board added partially for the same reason, and partially because it's going to be a new and potentially significant FiM spin-off, etc. Im not against adding new boards (heck, I proposed one myself), but they have to really be sold hard to me.

@, you make good points - to be completely honest, the blame for the whole global>section perspective ultimately does lay with us. Many of the things we were doing served to reinforce that perspective, all the way to how the user title listing was organized at the bottom of the index - which was made semi-random not only to avoid the perception that section mods are lower than globals, but also to destroy the perception that Poniverse Staff are below moderators in general. As we move forward with some of our plans, we'll have more and more staff members that aren't involved in moderation, but are at the same time just as important to the community as a whole. Likewise, I agree that the color situation was a bit silly. The entire thing looks much cleaner now, and is far less offensive on the eyes... though I regret that my proposal to make admins pink was shot down nearly universally. As for the chart... we are going to be reworking that. Right now it's... not... truly representative of how things work, especially given that some of the people on it aren't really involved in MLP Forums operations at all.

This is precisely the perspective that we're trying to correct. It's not a matter of rank, as much as it is a matter of focus. Consider: Section Moderators Focus their attention on specific portions of the forum. Actively seek out and resolve issues that have not yet been reported. Seek out and monitor topics that are likely to result in arguments and warfare. Ensure that thread titles are accurate and feature reasonable spelling/grammar. Global Moderators Focus primarily on resolving reported issues. Police blogs, status updates, and similar things as needed. Act as section moderators for the Welcoming Area and Feedback boards. Fill gaps in section moderator coverage where needed due to absences and similar things. While it is true that global moderators have access to some extra tools, that access is provided because they are necessary to carry out the functions that they are intended to fulfill. As far as additional access goes, I can't think of anything that they have that section moderators don't have, to be honest - no secret global moderator areas or other things. While it is true that we have made a habit out of putting people into the section moderator role prior to transitioning them over to to global moderators, this is done primarily for the sake of giving them a chance to get used to forum moderation in a focused environment before throwing them into everything else - the focused nature of being a section moderator makes it a good way to get a firm grasp on the fundamentals of how moderation is carried out here on MLP Forums, after all. The pay is the same, the benefits and stock options are the same, no orders are given, and no special consideration is provided.

I can't believe that I didn't catch this before you pointed it out. That is entirely too golden. x) Who knows? As the Poniverse is developed and grows into a massive and far-reaching entity maybe there will come a day where we will have a true need for that many unique groups?

It shifts the burden from the high level tech admins who need to be spending their time on Poniverse development to people that we're hiring specifically to deal with basic tech support. Only issues that the base level support staff can't handle will be elevated to the tech admins. At this point we need our developers focused on developing. ^^;

My master plans are coming to fruition. Soon I will never have to do anything ever again... nothing can stand in my way now. Soon all of the work will be thrust upon other people.

Ah hell.

Today, in Skype. Key Gear: My finger is getting happy. Zoop: What Everyone else: ... Everyone else: lolololololol