SCS

All I'm saying is this site takes simple thing and makes them complicated.  If it helps you guys keep detailed metrics on whatever initiatives are in place to optimize management, then that's cool.

 

It just seems annoying and distant for some of us users.  It's a friggin' internet forum, not a police department or a Fortune 500 company.  I've run forums for a very long time, and did just fine without a tenth of the meticulous oversight and self-imposed red tape you guys have.

 

Personal preference, I guess.  In any case, I do appreciate the time and effort you put into explaining your thought process.  Even though I disagree on the methods, it's good to see that you care as much as you do.

 

Peace out.

I'd argue that's a rather harsh assessment. In my opinion, the support ticket system is far from cold and distant. In fact, the fact that there is a support ticket system in the first place with dedicated staff to manage it shows how much they care about us and our experience here. 

I'm an admin on a different website, and we don't have anything cool like that. We just tell people to PM one of us if they have a question. It works out fine because we're not as active as this site, but the lack of organization when using that method is apparent. MLP Forums receives a greatly substantial amount of traffic, so if the staff here did not have a support ticket system, they would be having to deal with questions in PMs frequently in a highly disorganized manner, taking time away from moderating and developing. 

As for moderation disputes specifically: I don't see the point in contacting the moderator in question instead of using the support ticket system. If you disagree with the moderation action, you can't take any action about it yourself. However, if you use the support ticket system, you can bring whatever occurred to the attention of an administrator, who can take any necessary action.

We could tweak the field to simply not let you add any more characters once you're at the limit. It would make people aware of the limit without cutting the status off or adding visual clutter. I'll add that to our task tracker.

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

I've also experienced this issue when commenting on other's statuses. Perhaps, everywhere on the site where there is a maximum character limit, you could instate this feature. 

Sorry for not replying to this thread sooner.

 

I would more than love Pony.fm to be a site that artists can legally make money from pony fan music on. Operative keyword: legally.

 

CloudFyre and I have discussed the issue at length before, and it looks like I can make it happen, at the very least, for fully original fan songs (ie. nothing that uses sound clips from the show or is remixed from an official song). If at all possible, I would like to do it a legitimate license from Hasbro to do business with their IP.

 

At the minimum, it would be nice to offer artists a means of accepting personal donations via Pony.fm. Any kind of monetary transaction between artists and fans on Pony.fm will, in all likelihood, happen with me taking a cut from it for Pony.fm.

 

However, until I'm able to sit down and do my due diligence in legal research, Pony.fm will remain noncommercial, and there will probably be a hard ban on linking to external sites like Bandcamp or PayPal where users can pay the artist. Allowing any of that would be allowing artists to indirectly make money from Pony.fm by using my traffic to make money for themselves and a third-party that has nothing to do with Pony.fm.

 

Separately, I plan to have some kind of donations button to make donations for Pony.fm's upkeep; however, these will not come with any kind of rewards or perks attached so as not to imply that the donor is "buying" anything.

 

 

tl;dr: I want to do this, but I won't do it until I'm absolutely sure I can do it right. I hope that's fair.

This sounds good to me. I like the idea of donations and compensation if it would be entirely legal, as to avoid pony.fm being shut down.

That is an interesting interpretation, but I do not personally agree with the use of the chaotic and lawful adjectives. From what I have seen, Princess Celestia, and eventually Princess Luna, put goodness over tradition or social expectations. Princess Celestia is shown many times to act with benevolence and unselfishness, and not acting like she is better than anyone else, or to generalize, not acting how one might expect some royalty to act. 

Here is how I would order them. 

Good: Leaders

Princess Celestia

Princess Luna

Princess Cadence 

Prince Shining Armor

Zecora 

These characters are on the side of goodness, light, and love, as well as being leaders who effectively guide others in positive directions. These characters are able to do that due to the wisdom they have gathered from their great experience. Out of these characters, I would say that Princess Celestia is the most good.

Good

Princess Twilight Sparkle

Fluttershy

Rarity

Apple Jack

Pinkie Pie

Rainbow Dash

Spike

Discord (after he chose to join the side of good)

As well as many more minor characters, and the majority of the inhabitants of Equestria.

All of these characters are on the side of goodness, light, and love. They are not necessarily as wise as the leaders, but they are also not necessarily any less good. I place Twilight Sparkle here instead of in the leaders category because, although she has gained enough wisdom to be coronated as a princess, she has not had the amount of experience as others in that category have.

Neutral

Some of the inhabitants of Equestria who are not necessarily either good or bad. These are primarily characters who do not show up in the series regularly. I'll include Diamond Tiara and her friend in this category, because their meanness could be primarily attributed to immaturity, and they very well could change their behavior once they become more mature.

Bad

Some dragons

Iron Will

Nightmare Moon (before Princess Luna became good again)

Discord (before he became good)

These characters range from being bad influences, such as Iron Will, to wanting to harm others, such as Discord before he became good. However, none of these characters are seriously hateful or evil.

Evil

Queen Chrysalis

The Changelings

The Windigos 

King Sombra

These characters are solidly against the side of good, and are all anti-love and anti-light. This is evidenced by the fact that both Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra wanted to enslave everyone, and in some way destroy love, light, and peace. Out of these characters, I would say that King Sombra is the most evil.

I hope that they keep the theme song the same, aside from any touch ups or enhancements to slightly change it up a bit. I also hope that they keep the general structure of the visuals the same, but add some scenes from the Crystal Empire, and accommodate for Twilight's transformation into an alicorn.

The last time some online friends and I tried to do an MLP marathon, it didn't work out. We watched like two episodes, and then our endeavor dissolved into a mix of spacing out, being distracted, and going off to play League of Legends. 

However, I do sometimes group certain episodes together when I watch them, but I don't watch enough in a row to call it a marathon. For instance, I showed my parents The Crystal Empire parts 1 and 2, Just for Sidekicks, Games Ponies Play, and Magical Mystery Cure all in a row, because there's a fair amount of continuity between those episodes.

But, aside from that, would I do a marathon just to do a marathon, of season 3 or otherwise? Probably not, unless I was doing it with a few friends. 

That's really cool. When I focus on different parts of it, my mind offers different interpretations of what the being is, despite the fact that I'm looking at the same picture the whole time. That's pretty interesting.

Good job!

One of my favorite aspects of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is how love and light, and not weapons, are, in the end, victorious against darkness and evil.
 
In A Canterlot Wedding, the changelings were driven away by love. Princess Cadence's love strengthened Shining Armor, which enabled him to cast his spell to drive away the changelings. However, I think there was far more going on here than only moral support. 
 
If you look closely during that scene, you would see that a very powerful energy blasted out of both Shining Armor and Princess Cadence that pushed their bodies that, together, formed the shape of a heart, while turning them both into shining white light. This is more than any spell could ever do. 

 
What drove away the changelings was pure love, channeled through the union of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence.
 
In the Crystal Empire episodes, King Sombra, arguably the most evil character by far ever to appear in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic so far, was markedly anti-love. The Crystal Empire seems to be a sort of hub of love and light in Equestria, where its inhabitants spread those emotions around universally. If King Sombra chose to enslave them as opposed to any other habitation in Equestria, then that, to me, implies that he wanted to deliberately crush all love and light in the entirety of Equestria. If he enslaved the crystal ponies, they would be unable to power up the crystal heart, that reflects love and light throughout all of Equestria. I argue that free will could overcome this, but it could still be a heavy blow to all of Equestria, just as the mane six having their destinies changed did. It would upset the balance, the harmony, which could lead to darkness. 
 
However, King Sombra was not only stopped, but destroyed easily. I viewed the events in this episode as an extension of what occurred in A Canterlot Wedding. In A Canterlot Wedding, the love that, specifically, Princess Cadence and Shining Armor had for one another drove away Queen Chrysalis and her changelings, who were also patently anti-love and anti-light. In The Crystal Empire, the love that all of the inhabitants of the Crystal Empire had for not only one another, but all of Equestria, drove away King Sombra in a united meditation. This meditation channeled the light and love within them, through their free will, into the crystal heart. The crystal heart then radiated this light, this love over all of Equestria. It operated in two stages. Firstly, it let out a finite, extremely powerful burst of energy that easily destroyed King Sombra and his evil crystals. Secondly, it launched the love and light energy into the sky, resulting in a phenomena that looks visually similar to a sonic rainboom, sending an aurora over the entirety of Equestria, representing the feelings of love and goodwill that were reflected. 
 
In Magical Mystery Cure, I noticed a curious new visual element: rainbow light. It looked like a flat rainbow consisting of several straight lines radiating as if it were a heat wave. I had never noticed this visual element in the show before. After watching Magical Mystery Cure several times, I noticed that this appeared more than once in the episode, and that it also reminded me of the aurora of light and love that radiates from the Crystal Tower whenever the crystal ponies perform their united meditation to spread those feelings throughout all of Equestria. 
 
Now, we know that this energy is love. But, all of this brings me to my question: what exactly does that mean? The beauty of this is that it does not have to have a specific meaning. Being art, it is open to interpretation, and can mean different things to different people, none of the meanings being necessarily right or wrong, but different ways of looking at the same thing. 
 
One possibility is that this energy is something from Gnosticism known as the Absolute. I read on the MLP Wiki that, allegedly, The Crystal Empire contains allusions to the concept of the Absolute in what the crystal ponies did to defeat King Sombra. 
 
According to Wikipedia, this is what the Absolute is:

The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine"[1] especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to anthropomorphic presumptions. The concept of The Absolute may or may not (depending on one's specific doctrine) possess discrete will, intelligence, awareness, or a personal nature. It is sometimes conceived of as the source through which all being emanates. It contrasts with finite things, considered individually, and known collectively as the relative. This is reflected in its Latin origin absolūtus which means "loosened from" or "unattached."

 
So, it is possible that this energy of love is God, in a more abstract, spiritual sense. This actually comports with my spiritual beliefs. In my spiritual beliefs, God is not necessarily a being, but is truly all that is. Perhaps a similar concept is at work here in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where, as one put it in terms of the spirituality I believe in:
 
Life is love is God. If you add anymore to this definition then you are not making it any better.
—Chuck Griswold
 
So, it is possible that this Absolute, this all that is, life, love, God, are all different names for the same fundamental energy behind all that is in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. In other words, the Absolute could be the foundational energy from which the Elements of Harmony, love defeating Queen Chrysalis, united meditation of love and light destroying King Sombra, are drawn. The Absolute would not really be a being, but it would be everything. All of the love, all of the thoughts, all of the actions ever made.
 
In fact, the Absolute could not only be the source, the foundation of all goodness in Equestria, but it could be the foundation of all that is bad as well. It could be the foundation of everything, the very source from which magic in the show is drawn. This universal energy, the Absolute, God, could be what is tapped into whenever anyone in the show uses magic. Whether or not this power would serve good would be determined by the free will of he or she who was performing the magic. However, in order for life to exist in happiness, in order for life to last, some form of harmony must be present. Through love, kindness, and acceptance of others one can find peace, and therefore harmony, so when the Absolute would be channeled for that which is good, its true power would be unleashed, due to the very reason that the one who would be using it would have no interest in its power, but would be using it for an unselfish reason to defend life. This could be why King Sombra was so easily defeated. 
 
Whether or not this is actually the case is open for interpretation. I do not necessarily believe that it is, but it is interesting to ponder, and certainly makes sense. I just do not believe that the interpretation I have pondered here is the sole possible understanding of what occurs in the show.
 
I will continue to post here later if I can think of other aspects of the show in relation to this topic to comment on, since I believe that this is a good place to end this post.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:
 
Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is to love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is.
—Dr. George Rodonaia
 
 
A life of piety without a life of love (which occurs only in this world) is not a spiritual life. Rather, it is a life of love, a life of behaving honestly and fairly in every task, from a more inward source that leads to a heavenly life. Such a life is not hard. 
—Emanuel Swedenborg


We are to leave the world a little better than we found it.
—David Oakford


The most important thing in life is love.
—Dr. Raymond Moody


We are sent here to live life fully, to live it abundantly, to find joy in our own creations ... to use our free will to expand and magnify our lives.
—Betty Eadie


We mustn't wait to find our heaven in the clouds. We must find it here because it exists here and will be whatever we make it and whatever we are willing to accept of it.
—Tina


The absolutely only thing that matters is love. Everything else, our achievements, degrees, the money we made, how many mink coats we had, is totally irrelevant. It will also be understood that what we do is not important. The only thing that matters is how we do what we do. And the only thing that matters is that we do what we do with love.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross


By giving away food we get more strength. By bestowing clothing on others we gain more beauty. By donating abodes of purity and truth we acquire great treasures.
—Buddha
 

Monday through Friday (when there's school):

1. Get waken up at around 6:30 am
2. Get ready for school, preferably leave no later than 7:25 am
3. Go to pre-calculus class
4. Go to advanced english 10 class
5. Go to IQ academy room, work on AP art history or programming II, or other homework. Sometimes I'll just goof around on the internet.
6. Go to advanced physics class.
7. Repeat step 5.
8. Go to lunch and goof around with my friends. 
9. Go to AP european history class.
10. Go to spanish 2 class.
11. Go home. On Mondays and Wednesdays I usually need to leave for taekwondo class no later than 6:45 pm. At home I usually use the internet and relax. 
12. When there's school, I try to go to bed earlier than 10:00pm. My goal is to go to bed at 9pm.

The weekends are different, I'll either stay up really late on Friday or go to bed early enough to wake up earlier on Saturday. I'll usually spend the day using the internet and watching TV unless I go to a friends house, which isn't too often. I'm fine with that though, I see several of my friends in school almost every day, and when I do hang out with my friends it's a lot more special. 

On Sundays sometimes I'll go to church. I'm not a Christian, but at least my dad thinks I am, and I don't want to cause any unnecessary conflict by not going to church, especially since I'm not against Christianity at all. I do have spiritual beliefs, they just don't comport to every aspect of any specific religion.

I don't really want to put a picture of my room on the internet, for privacy reasons, but I'll share my computer specs. This is a copy of my system summary, generated by the System Information program. I've removed anything private, and I've also added information about my hard drive space, which was not in the summary.

I've used Windows primarily, as well as a DOS operating system (without Windows installed as well.)

I don't remember what operating system the first computer I remember using had. It was very old, so it might not have even had a Microsoft operating system, but I'm not sure. 

After that, when I was still a young child, I primarily used a computer at my mom's office. I think it had Windows NT on it, or perhaps 98, or Millennium. One of those ones that are sort of in the middle, not primordial but before XP.

My mom's home computer many years ago had Windows 95 on it. I remember breaking it at some point in time by deleting a system file, for science of course. (No, I did it on accident, not really understanding the concept of system files back then, and I felt bad.) Later on I think I ended up installing MS-DOS on that computer as an independent operating system, my plan being to give it to my dad. I don't think he knew how to use DOS, because I remember then installing Windows 98 on it. 

My first computer to call my own had Windows 98 on it. I ended up putting on my science goggles once again by deleting all of my personal files that I later wished I had saved, and installing DOS on it as an independent operating system. Once I got tired of that, I think I put Windows 98 back on it, but I'm not sure. 

After that, this still being several years ago, I used my mom's laptop. It was newer, and had Windows XP Professional on it. 

Eventually, around four years ago or so, I got my own laptop that was even newer. It had Windows Vista on it. 

I got my newest computer a few months ago. At this point in my life I finally had enough experience with computers to know what to look for when buying one. I asked my parents for a laptop four years ago, simply because it was a laptop. I didn't realize at the time that its specs were pretty low, but I did get great use out of it. My current computer has Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. 

Running was the bane of my existence back in P.E. class. Having to run laps around the track was always a chore for me. 

I'll keep an open mind about it, though. I'm sure if I became physically fit, and learned how to run properly, I might very well find it to be an enjoyable activity. I already do know that I enjoy walking and biking. 

well im bored with nothing to do. My RPs are at a standstill, my Homework is done, i've played all my games 10 times and no one is talking to me to skype. I guess i could always watch my hair grow

Unless it's late at night where you are, you could take a walk or something. I like walks, they're relaxing.

I think it's more fun to leave the background ponies ambiguous, so fan fiction authors and artists can come up with their own interpretations of them. 

I like it a lot, good job!

If I tried to draw Rainbow Dash, I'd end up making her a stick figure. They're about the only thing I can draw, lol.

So, first of all, I am currently in middle school. Being in middle school, I am surrounded by people who are immature and ignorant. No biggy, just regular middle school stuff.

 

But I freaking hate it.

 

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only conscious person there, save a few of my friends (who are girls). I feel this way because all the other guys there are obsessed with every inappropriate thing they hear about, and apparently think it's completely cool to talk about it in front of everyone. This acting, by the way, is totally fine from their perspective seeing how they show zero signs of restraint when spitting obscenities or      lewd comments. They laugh at this crap every day, as if it's the pinnacle of comedy when you say the word "shit." This is, of course, why I mainly hang out with girls. 

 

Now, this is probably expected in kids about my age, but nowadays I am seeing kids much younger doing things like this. Children these days are taking out what is actually good about childhood and replacing it with crap that probably should only appear much later in their life. 

 

Deep breaths...

 

Anyways, forums, what are your opinions on the subject of recurring, obnoxious immaturity in children and young teenagers? 

That's how I acted back in 8th grade. In 10th grade, I can still be inappropriate when joking around with my friends, but no where near to the extent of how I acted in 8th grade.

You see, my parents shielded me from adult stuff until I was around 13 (which I am very thankful for now - if they hadn't done that, I probably wouldn't have been able to become the person that I am today, with the views that I hold). Then, once I got into middle school in 7th grade, they started sheltering me from R movies, the news, and such way less. This was also close to the time I hit puberty, which resulted in me saying as many obscene things as I could at school, especially by the time I was in 8th grade.

When I got into 9th grade, my infatuation with these things began to wane considerably, as I began to learn that my parents had sheltered me from these things for good reason. These things that I had been obsessed with during middle school began to not seem so great anymore. 

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic played a huge role in pulling me out of that negative phase and helping me to find the right path in life once again. I don't know what kind of person I would be right now if it wasn't for the lessons I have either learned or been reminded of in that show. 

Now, in 10th grade, I've calmed down considerably. I'm turning away from R movies, TV-MA shows, all those forbidden things that once they weren't forbidden anymore, I began to learn that they often aren't worth watching at all. At school, when I go over the top with jokes it's usually because I feel like I need to make my friends laugh all the time in order to reassure myself that they accept me. My fear drives me to go as overboard as I need to some days with the jokes to make sure they accept me. Ironically, if I were just myself, they probably would accept me, and if they didn't, then they wouldn't be true friends anyway. I'm just not sure if I know how to be myself in public, because I'm so used to acting in certain ways to please people. I can only really be myself around my parents, when I'm alone, and most of the time on the internet.

I'd say that you handled it well. This reminds me: one of the things being a brony has taught me is to try to not judge other people. I used to make jokes about Justin Bieber and his fans a lot, for example. Once I found out what it was like to be generalized against and hated for liking something in the media, I realized that what I was doing was no different. 

The two worlds I've thought about being in the most are Equestria and the Harry Potter universe. However, out of the two, I'd much rather be in Equestria.

However, I do not wish I'd been born in either of those places instead of here. This is due to the fact that where I am does not determine who I am. Of course, it has a huge impact: our environment definitely affects who we are, because we live in it all the time as we grow and develop. However, it does not have to determine who we are, unless we allow it to.

Take King Sombra, for example. He lived in Equestria, but that didn't stop him from choosing hatred over love. 

In the Harry Potter universe, Voldemort chose to be evil instead of hanging out in Hogwarts and doing awesome stuff. 

The earth we live on has seen both Hitler and Mother Theresa. These facts prove that, in the end, we choose who we are. We have control over our thoughts and actions. The only exceptions are people who have mental disabilities that make it impossible for them to do so. 

Therefore, living anywhere other than here would not necessarily make me more or less happy than I am now. In fact, I don't want to be anywhere other than here right now, because here I have my friends and family who I love so much. We can only find peace from within. We can choose to live our lives with joy, cherishing love and peace, just as Princess Celestia and most of the other inhabitants of Equestria do. Or, we can choose to live our lives in fear, hating others and turning to violence, just as King Sombra did. Where we are, in the end, does not determine the path we choose to set ourselves on. 

"The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart." ---Buddha 

What's your favorite animal? 

(I know that's not a very creative question )

Hit with an invisible kangaroo, because visible kangaroos are just too mainstream.

I've actually been a huge fan of the character limit, but I am interested in experiencing the new junk post prevention mechanism that will replace the character limit. I can't offer my opinion on whether or not it will work based on the description I have read of it, so I will keep an open mind and see what will be seen once it is released.

I definitely agree with the decision to give Equestria Girls its own subforum.

The rest of the announcements don't personally affect me, so I am not strongly for or against any of them. But, I can definitely understand and agree with why the skype chat may have been removed, and why mailmare was let go.

I love nature, too. I also like your welcoming post, it's very honest and detailed. I hope you'll enjoy your time here

Judging from Bohtty's replies, I think it would be safest to avoid tying donations or compensations with pony.fm in the slightest. However, I'm pretty sure neikicorn was saying that donations would be entirely separate from pony.fm, and handled independently by the artists, which I don't see a problem with, just as long as they don't do it through the pony.fm site. 

You have a good point, I honestly never really thought about this before. I don't see any purpose in them being kept separate, either.

And yes, I agree, expanding the discovery features to encompass albums as well would be a good idea.