Should the Congress of Awesome change its name?

[Hyperguy]

Moquin brought up a very good point today.  As follows:

I vote to rename this site to Carrerachan.  Congress of Awesome kinda sounds like a site from the early days of the interweb, or something Michelangelo or Keanu Reaves would say according to their limited vocabulary.

To which I added;

That\'s because it is!  The Congress of Awesome was created around 2005.  The internet has changed A LOT over these last few years, and I\'ll be the first to admit that \"Congress of Awesome\" does sound a bit juvenile.  Actually, we as a community have changed much and grown as well.

As much as I love Carrera, changing the CoA\'s name to Carrerachan would feel a bit off.  I\'m open to the idea at least, but think that Carrerachan works for our wakaba board since, well, wakaba boards are associated with \"chans\".  I suppose I could integrate the two somehow.  This warrants more discussion.

For a bit of a history lesson, the Congress of Awesome was originally created around 2005 in response to YTF's Engrishy friend creating the very first Bakunyuu Baka forum(the blue one.  I swear JG's probably the only other person who remembers it),  and me being disssatisfied with it and thinking to myself "I could do a better job at running a forum than this!"

So I made the Congress of Awesome.  It ran on PHPBB and had a red, orange, and gray template.  Originally, it was just called "The H-Forum", was basically just a place to talk about fighting games, Viper series games, and general hentai discussion(and especially Variable Geo!)  Things went okay for a while.  ROMate was my roommate at the time(it's where his nickname came from) and wanted to be the second user registered on the forum, so I let him.

Things happened.

At one point I let Yuka Takeuchi Fan have his own forums here and the entirety of the Bakunyuu Baka community entered the picture.

There was drama.  Lots of drama.  And posting.  Actually, the time that drama was at its peak had the highest posting rates ever recorded.  There was always some kind of divide going on, and I was a pretty busy admin trying to put out fires while not sounding too much like a dick.

Basically, people were insecure over their favoritism towards mammoth size cartoon tits, and felt persecuted by those who didn't.  Lots and lots of drama, and Voltron.  Looking back at it, a lot of it was entertaining, and yes, if given the opportunity, I would do it all over again.

Finally, YTF issued some kind of crazy ultimatum and initiated a self destruct sequence for his boards, at which point I had to revoke his super powers on account of it being absolute madness.  He agreed with me that he shouldn't have the ability to nuke boards on a whim.  Never really heard from him much after that, but he still links to Hyperguy.net.  I think he might be bitter.  I won't ask him!

After that spat, things slowed down a bit.  We entertained ourselves with YouTube videos, and HOLY SHIT, through a fluke I found out how to extract all of the graphics of every Viper game using Grapholic.  Legendary poster Bluelyth showed up and we did halfsies on a release of a complete gif collection for Viper GTB, which we never released on account of my hard drive dying(the one with VG Perfect Collection on it!  Only yeldellgw has a copy left! ;_;) and Bluelyth ascending back to the heavens from whence he came(Eh, left without a trace.)

A bunch of other things which I don't remember happened.  Oh yeah, in part 1 of the original triology, Viper Thumbnail Theatre was created.  A legend was born at that moment.

Then, the Congress of Awesome grew up.  We got a front page going, a lot of the crybabies left, users got older and boards were merged or deleted.  We experimented with a lot of boards and canned a lot in response to traffic.

Oh, I should mention, during the whole Bakunyuu Baka fiasco, HMD got a huge overhaul which ascended him to high tier, though like most boss characters, had his double jumping air fireballs removed in later revisions.  I think spaceworlder also received the first temp ban for harrassing people over PMs.  Ah, someone flipped out over the reputation system also.  We ended up renaming him King Zarkon as a way of admin abuse.

importgamer13 may or may not have gotten his parents to get him an X-box 360, despite being over 30 at the time.  Nevertheless, he's still a hall of famer for most posts ever.  There are people who have been here for years who still haven't caught up to his post count.

Oh wow.  This recollection is poorly organized.

Anyways, fast forward to today where everyone is (mostly) over the age of 21.  I think Doft still registered despite being under 18, but I didn't say anything because I like their Card Captor Sakura avatars.  They're probably over 18 now, which would make them like, Mirai Doft.

---

Anyways, "Congress of Awesome" is a reference to Disgaea's "Dark Congress", an ingame feature where you go to court in order to increase the item shop's level and proceed to hit senators with meteors.

It's a name from back in the day where superlative use of words like "awesome" and such were in fashion.

Should we change our name to something else?  I mean, congressofawesome.net's already paid for, but it's only like seven bucks to register a new domain name and we could use both.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a new name?

Should we just change the whole thing to Carrerachan and integrate it with the wakaba somehow?

Should we do the fusion dance with Sogna Digital Museum and push server administrative duties onto JG while I go get a much needed sandvich(that is, make the CoA the official forum of SDM and put more emphasis on Viper stuff)?

Discuss!

---

Spoilers:  That one time we were bombarded with spam and ROMate had to clean it up, that was actually Will.

If anyone cares to read the thread that started YTF's self destruct sequence, I can move it from the moderator's forum to Legendary threads, I mean, if people want to read it.

Also, feel free to use this thread to ask me anything about the Congress of Awesome's past.

[Mirai Doft]

Woah, long post is long.

First, to the topic, no. I don't find Congress of Awesome to be juvenile at all. It is kinda silly, but is a reference to Disgaea, a game whose sillyness makes it so charming. Plus I don't like changes.

And yeah, when I registered I was still 16 lol, I'm 20 now...

I don't think making the forum more Viper related is a good idea, there's nothing much about it to talk about.

I miss some of the old users, when I joined the community was a lot more active, but some users just disapeared. ROMate, Will (who went gay, then got married, then vanished), tetsaru, bangdoll (who was like, the best poster ever)... Aside from the Viper polls, the forum really lacks activity. Don't know what could be done to help it though.

And yes please, let us read the drama.

[Moge]

This recount in the history of this site should be documented on a wiki.

Congress of Awesome don't sound too classy.  Doesn't strike a glimmer in me eye the same way other thriving community titles do, like hongfire or 4chan.  I was absolutely fine with Hyperguy.net, and the randomly-generated banners that went along with the title added an off-beat charm to this site.  Also, the blatant fried chicken promotion was a nice touch. 

I may not have been here long but i'm quite interested in hearing what this site was long during its golden days (hm, better check the the Wayback Machine for that).  I'll admit you lost quite a few members when you transitioned to The COA. 

[bfg00]

I do miss the cycling banners as well.  We had a pretty epic number of them as well.  Do you still have them around Hyperguy?

I actually joined the forum during the entire YTF fiasco.  It was pretty crazy there for a while.  I also remember when I finally managed to pass IG13 in posts.  Which reminds me I really ought to change my profile pic as I haven't done that since I first got here.

I'm fine with the name as it is currently, though I would be open to hearing suggestions.  I'm also definitely in favor of boosting the number of people who visit.  I'm pretty sure the main driver current is JG00 with his tournaments (which I am all in favor of having more of).

[Moge]

How did JGOO get over 9000 reputation?

[Hyperguy]

I don't think making the forum more Viper related is a good idea, there's nothing much about it to talk about.

A valid point.  To be honest, I find myself discussing Viper less and less these days.  The Viper forum still fulfills a niche, but lately it's been more of a 'new comer shows up seeking information>knowledgeable long time users fulfills request>new comer disappears' affair.  I still know a lot about the series, but also have posted a great deal about it too.  I'd wager that 50% of the 3,000 spry posts I've made are related to it in some way.

I miss some of the old users, when I joined the community was a lot more active, but some users just disapeared. ROMate, Will (who went gay, then got married, then vanished), tetsaru, bangdoll (who was like, the best poster ever)...

I believe ROMate went on to go to school and work full time + girlfriend, thus we don't hear from him any more.  Seems as though Will still likes men, yet is happily married, and busy with full time work also.  I don't know what happened to tetsaru, but as for Bang Doll...

Somehow, Bang Doll managed to get himself banned from the entire server...Well, somehow.  I just finished exchanging e-mails with the Supreme Kai™(the physical server's admin, i.e., the person who can press the power button on the box) and they told me that Bang Doll's IP address was in fact on the server's blacklist for some reason.  I had them correct it, and had Bang Doll's IP moved to the server's whitelist, so he should be reading this right now.

He might even be in the same room... O_o *cue suspense, dramatic pause*

Eh, though for what it's worth, it's only natural for forum users to come and go.  What really sucks about it is that we're a small, tight knit community, so when a regular leaves it's pretty bad.

Aside from the Viper polls, the forum really lacks activity. Don't know what could be done to help it though.

I'm stumped as well.  At the end of the day though, I can't help but feel that it's my fault.  There's something that I'm not doing right that's causing inactivity(ah, I don't spend a lot of time advertising the forum, now that I think about it).  My guess is that part of it is that the internet has changed so much, yet I'm still using the same methods from the internet of yesteryear.

I'm not saying that I'm going to install support for Twitter and Facebook, but if you think about it, hentai is way easier to come by now than it was years ago, and if people can access it so easily, they may not have much to discuss about it.

Actually, this may be a moot point considering that there are still thriving communities dedicated to the subject.

I suppose the difference between those communities and ours is that we don't engage in community projects or releases or produce as much original content.

If the latest Comiket stuff posted straight off of Winny were distributed here I'd imagine there'd be an influx of traffic, though to be honest, with the amount of sites already doing that, I wonder if we really need one more.

And yes please, let us read the drama.

D'oh!  It looks like YTF deleted that particular thread.  As a matter of fact, before his admin powers were stipped he deleted quite a few of his threads in an attempt to save face.

That's actually the reason why our forum has a recycling bin, that is, a special forum where all deleted posts and topics make their way.  It was from that faithful day where he went berserko and I had to post a response thread to calm everyone down that it was implemented.  While the original--

Oh, I think this thread might be it:
ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm getting rid of my board.

I moved it to the legendary threads forum.  Then there's my response thread that was used to kill some panic:
ATTENTION: Hyperguy is Hyperguy

I'm having a devil of a time finding the original, original topic that sparked all of this, essentially, a thread by Will in the moderator's forum where he says things like "Remember when we used to have discussions on this board about cool things, like girls?" and YTF taking it personal, thus starting the self destruct sequence for the BB boards.

Actually, I'm finding so many good threads about the Bakunyuu Baka saga that I may end up making a subforum in the Legendary Threads forum just to contain them all.


Another good thread!
where's the beef?

This recount in the history of this site should be documented on a wiki.

As much as I'd love to add a wiki, I'm a bit intimidated by wiki code.  It doesn't resemble anything I've worked with.  I could install one though.  I think just posting about it's similar, though not as convenient to look up.

Congress of Awesome don't sound too classy.  Doesn't strike a glimmer in me eye the same way other thriving community titles do, like hongfire or 4chan.

I agree!  It doesn't sound very classy at all!  As prejudiced as I've become in my older age I probably wouldn't bother with a site with the same moniker had I not had a hand in it!

Though to be fair, I'll admit that I've shown some restraint just so that CoA doesn't get as large as 4chan or Hongfire.  Rules are rather fast and loose here.  I'd have to get much more militant in order to accommodate an audience that size.  Or maybe notso much militant so much as, well, with more direction than "Hey this is a forum.  We vaguely like these things.  Please post about them."

I was absolutely fine with Hyperguy.net, and the randomly-generated banners that went along with the title added an off-beat charm to this site.  Also, the blatant fried chicken promotion was a nice touch.

I may not have been here long but i'm quite interested in hearing what this site was long during its golden days (hm, better check the the Wayback Machine for that).  I'll admit you lost quite a few members when you transitioned to The COA.

I can see what you mean, though Congress of Awesome has always been Congress of Awesome.  There wasn't a transition to it so much as a legitimizing of it.  It went from "Hyperguy.net's Forum" to "Established, independent web entity Congress of Awesome".  The reason for the change was that at one point it was actually even more popular than Hyperguy.net!  The domain name was added long after traffic had died down, so I can't say that we lost members as a result.

I will concede that the removal of our beloved random banner ads did negatively impact traffic.  They were removed because they still said hyperguy.net on them, despite the site's new domain being congressofawesome.net.

New banner ads for congressofawesome.net is something I've been wanting to do for a while, but because of layout restrictions I had never gotten around to it.  I have to finalize their dimensions before I can ask people to start contributing some.  Now that our template has a fixed width I'll see where I can put them.  I'm considering knocking out a large portion of the header, except that I think a lot of people have grown accustomed to the header's format and still want to see their avatar along with links to their latest content.

Ah, I know!  I'll add a block below the navigation pane that'll be displayed on all pages.  That should do it.  Just have to get the dimensions and a few other details hammered out.

Since I've never pruned threads, essentially, just about all of the site's content has been kept(it's just that most of it's in the recycle bin as a result of being orphaned from it's original subforum being deleted).
  

I do miss the cycling banners as well.  We had a pretty epic number of them as well.  Do you still have them around Hyperguy?

Yes.  I...Accidently also sent them to the recycling bin when I tried deleting the Content Share forum with the intent to move the majority of its threads to the hentai forum.  I regret not looking harder for the option to move all threads to a forum now, and will spend the next few weeks mining the recycling bin for favorable content.

Ah, restored the thread.  It's alive and well here:
Hyperguy.net Banners

I actually joined the forum during the entire YTF fiasco.  It was pretty crazy there for a while.  I also remember when I finally managed to pass IG13 in posts.  Which reminds me I really ought to change my profile pic as I haven't done that since I first got here.

I'm going to miss looking at Heero Yuy staring off into space, but approve nonetheless.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I can recall you indulging in any bit of that drama, well, ever.

If we ever do dole out those character cards, I'm going to make sure the bfg00 one has something on it like...

Drama Immunity - [Ability]: This card cannot be the target of drama abilities or effects.

I'm half tempted to track importgamer13.  I had before, but he disappeared again.  I last saw him on 1up.com, where  he was chastised by the community at large for still wanting that X-box 360.

I'm fine with the name as it is currently, though I would be open to hearing suggestions.  I'm also definitely in favor of boosting the number of people who visit.  I'm pretty sure the main driver current is JG00 with his tournaments (which I am all in favor of having more of).

I suppose now it's just a question of  how.  I know Hyperguy.net still brings in a sizeable amount of traffic.  The lack of a clearly visable link on it to the Congress of Awesome might be negatively affecting traffic as well.  I'll work on ways to promote the Congress of Awesome through Hyperguy.net.

Of those tournaments, one that I'd like to see in the future is a tournament featuring the games themselves, though I'm pretty sure that based on the current userbase Viper RSR would win, unless Anri creates extra accounts to vote for Viper CTR.

And if a matchup involving Viper GTB vs. Viper GTS were to arise, I'd probably explode from complications.

Fun Fact: There's actually a Viper GTB vs. Viper GTS doujinshi story in one of the anthologies.  In it, Mercedes thinks that she has to have sex with Akira to defeat her, and she promptly strips before being assualted by Akira.

How did JGOO get over 9000 reputation?

It's down from 1,000 actually.  When we firsts switched to Simple Machines Forum from PHPBB  I changed JG's reputation to 1,000 to both show esteem for him and to make light of the reputation system.

Then, ROMate took the reputation system seriously, so he started giving JG negative rep at every opportunity.  That's why it's in the nine hundreds now.

For the most accurate depiction of JG's reputation some math is involved.

Essentially,

JG's current reputation - 1000 + the amount of times taunted by ROMate = JG's true reputation value.

---

And speaking of JG, he's the one I'd like to hear the most about on the subject, though I think he's busy with getting his computer back to snuff after that hard drive failure(in addition to managing the Viper tournament).

[JG]

Should we do the fusion dance with Sogna Digital Museum and push server administrative duties onto JG while I go get a much needed sandvich(that is, make the CoA the official forum of SDM and put more emphasis on Viper stuff)?

For the record this is entirely possible.  About a year ago I got a working copy of the CoA installed on my server as a proof of concept in case this scenario ever happens.  (Some of the add-ons like the Carrerachan side panel didn't work, but the forums did.  With more work I could probably get it all working.)

I'm ok with the Congress of Awesome name now (though I was strongly against it when it changed from H-Forum) and will be ok with keeping CoA as the name if it remains under Hyperguy's control.  I will also be ok if he, or the community as a whole, decides to change it.  But if it ever moves to SDM, I will likely force a name change upon it to better fit the Sogna/VIPER theme.

Aside from the Viper polls, the forum really lacks activity. Don't know what could be done to help it though.

Ohhh, I don't know, maybe you could post more?  When the site is slow, *anything* is acceptable as news.  Take that PC Failure thread I posted - I could have not said anything about it at all, but now it's spawned conversation.  Beleive it or not, your standard real life happenings can occasionally be interesting to others, too.

How did JGOO get over 9000 reputation?

Magic.

Really though, I'm just that good.

Fun Fact: There's actually a Viper GTB vs. Viper GTS doujinshi story in one of the anthologies.  In it, Mercedes thinks that she has to have sex with Akira to defeat her, and she promptly strips before being assualted by Akira.

Lest you forget Graf Zeppelin's Way of the VIPER.

Also, feel free to use this thread to ask me anything about the Congress of Awesome's past.

Where can I find a place that will sell me 10 copies of Gunyarock? 

[Mirai Doft]

Yeah, maybe I should post more, as a matter of fact my brother's pc just died, he was smart enough to clean it with a vacuum, but now it says it can't find a hard disk lol. Dunno if that's interesting to anybody =P

I'm more of a quiet guy, even in real life, but I'll try to contribute more.

[bfg00]

Ah, restored the thread.  It's alive and well here:
Hyperguy.net Banners
I'm going to miss looking at Heero Yuy staring off into space, but approve nonetheless.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I can recall you indulging in any bit of that drama, well, ever.

If we ever do dole out those character cards, I'm going to make sure the bfg00 one has something on it like...

Drama Immunity - [Ability]: This card cannot be the target of drama abilities or effects.

Well we can always use the magic of Photoshop to change the names on
the Banners to CoA or whatever name we go with.

As for the drama, I more just lurked during that section.  I posted in the other areas but not in the areas where drama was happening.  Mainly because there wasn't anything constructive or entertaining I could add to the insanity.  Also I'm not the type of guy that gets involved in drama, unless of course its fake drama (i.e. the Waffles vs. Pancakes war we had going for a while).

Where can I find a place that will sell me 10 copies of Gunyarock? 

Sorry fresh out of that game but we do have Guynarock.

[MMX]

First let me say I approve of any and all name changes of things that are awesome when the names that are changed pay homage to Carrera-chama.  Because she is awesome.

OMG Carrerachan, I completely forgot about that image board.  I will check that out again if I get a chance.

Also, feel free to use this thread to ask me anything about the Congress of Awesome's past.

One thing I have always wondered; what was with the lesbians via helicopter?  I don't know if I ever saw the original thread, I believe it was before I came by.  Always thought it was funny as hell though, so I've used that reference myself a few times even though I have no idea wtf was going on.

[Mirai Doft]

OMG Bang Doll is alive! Why is your nick Mega Man X?

[MMX]

Well... sorta.  It's actually from my old AOl screenname when i was like 12.  Not kidding.  Megamatt X.

Goddamn right bitchmuthas.  And now you know my first name.

If I tell you anymore I'd have to kill you.  So stay tuned, because I'm feeling kill-hap..... you know what never mind I'm sounding rather gawdy.

Hey who has ever played an Arthur 'Mr. Podunkian' Lee game?  Dungeon anybody?  Streemerz remake??

[Moge]

Tension sure was high back then in that YTF thread.  Where was Hyperguy to fan the flames there?

I say we're better off without them anyway; don't want their junk flooding the Carrerachan board.

[JG]

One thing I have always wondered; what was with the lesbians via helicopter?

The helicopter part came first.  It's a running joke that the preferred from of transportation on the forum is by huey.  I forgot how it started other than that its funny and totally impractical for the average person.

The "Lesbain" part came afterwards.  I think it was originally a reference to the two girls in Tokemeki Check-in (the same game with the Rape/Don't Rape Ayumi reference) but has since become to represent a Carrera/Mercedes image.  I think someone asked for the photoset and someone responded that they had it but had no way to upload it or send it to the requestor.  So we said we'd send via huey.

Now you know.  And knowledge is half the battle. - G - - I - - JOE! -



As an aside, if someone can take the time to find these two threads, we oughta move them to the Legendary threads board.  I suspect they existed before the current board history though.

[Moge]

I'll compromise for the current site's title if you can snag the abbreviated domain: COA.net

Not only is it classier, but it would also be less of a pain to attach to banners.

[bfg00]

Well coa.net is open.  We could just swap to CoA and let everyon interpret their own meaning for the acronym

[Hyperguy]

Ohhh, I don't know, maybe you could post more?  When the site is slow, *anything* is acceptable as news.  Take that PC Failure thread I posted - I could have not said anything about it at all, but now it's spawned conversation.  Beleive it or not, your standard real life happenings can occasionally be interesting to others, too.

This.  People who complain about a lack of activity should instead post more.  This is according to ROMate, and I wholeheartedly agree.

One thing I have always wondered; what was with the lesbians via helicopter?  I don't know if I ever saw the original thread, I believe it was before I came by.  Always thought it was funny as hell though, so I've used that reference myself a few times even though I have no idea wtf was going on.

It came from HigherVoltage.net's message boards, where regular oblivious poster Bruthaman was asking for a VGA cable.

This is actually listed in the Hyperguy.net Glossary.
Hyperguy.net Glossary

The excerpt is as follows:

---

I’ll send you the _____ via helicopter wate whut?!: Originally started on the message board HigherVoltage.net when clueless poster Bruthaman made yet another thread asking for something he could have found easily via a google search, in this case, an X-box vga cable.  The thread degraded into posters lining up to make fun of him spouting such phrases as “I can eat peanut butter, but not in sandwiches,” “I can walk with the animals, but I can’t talk with the animals,” and similar phrases in the form of [Being able to do something, yet not able to when it’d be useful.]  Like for example, “I can breath, but not oxygen” or “I can stand, but not while on the ground.”  Finally, before spiraling into further stupidity someone jokingly made the comment “I’LL SEND YOU THE VGA CABLE VIA HELICOPTER WATE WHUT?!” and so, the meme was born.

---

I'll go ahead and move that thread to the LT forum now.

Tension sure was high back then in that YTF thread.  Where was Hyperguy to fan the flames there?

Here:

Then there's my response thread that was used to kill some panic:
ATTENTION: Hyperguy is Hyperguy

Because at that point posting in that thread versus making a brand new thread to address the current situation would have had little effect.  As for where I physically was; I was in class at the time(or at work).  I did manage to respond with 24 hours though.

I say we're better off without them anyway; don't want their junk flooding the Carrerachan board.

While I'm all for respecting other people's preferences, the real problem with the bakunyuu bakas wasn't that they liked mammoth sized cartoon breasts.  Not at all.  Lord knows some of the members here have weird fetishes.

The problem was that in idolizing YTF, they would often victimize themselves, and that lead to a lot of unneeded tension.

Best example of this I could think of is Muhznit using his "bakunyuu-ism" to explain his leaving of the forum.  To this day I still don't know if Bakunyuu-ism is the one that lets you air block or the one that lets you hold down two attack buttons to charge up your super bar.

I think the real reason the bakunyuu crowd left is because people stopped taking their drama inducing tactics seriously.

I'll compromise for the current site's title if you can snag the abbreviated domain: COA.net

Not only is it classier, but it would also be less of a pain to attach to banners.

CoA.net is currently owned by a domain squatter, and that means acquiring it may cost more $$$ than it's actually worth.  You're free to just use "CoA" on the banners if you fancy.

[JG]

Keep an eye on the availability.  Squatters eventually give up if they can't make any money on it.  I was able to grab sogna.info after a squatter gave up on it.  The registrar didn't even put it up for auction: I just went onto my GoDaddy account and bought it outright.

Hopeful but realizing its very doubtful that sogna.com will become available again someday.  I offered $200 when it was freed from Sogna's hands but lost the auction (final winning bid price was not announced so I don't know how close I was.. or wasn't)

Frankly though, if I were you, I'd only grab coa.net if it became free or practically free (plus the $8 or so registration fee.)  If it goes to auction, only consider a token bid ($10?) and hope no one else wants to pay for it.

[HMD]

This trip down memory lane is pretty darned embarrassing. To think, this was how I acted when I was like, nineteen or whatever.

[Hyperguy]

It's hard to believe it's been almost 5 years.  Even though it's been a relatively short amount of time I can't help but feel a sense of nostalgia.

Also, the internet has changed tremendously since then.