Staff Blog

HEY GUYS!  The staff has worked its ASS off to bring you a new, and hopefully improved, RCR!  We haven’t gotten the old domain to connect yet, so the new link IS *drumrollplease*

http://z8.invisionfree.com/redcarpetrebellion/index.php?

<3  LOVE YOU GUYS

I really, really hate to say this but: we’ve been hacked.  I never thought this would happen to us– we never get threats, but it seems that it has happened.  The staff is working hard to figure out what to do next.  I personally hope that it will somehow reappear, but as that is not likely, we will begin rebuilding today.  I will keep you updated via blog and our sister sites– RPG-U and maybe Caution if I can get in touch with Kara.  Thank you so much for your support, guys.  PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.

aim: mutenew

msn: driveuntilyoulosetheroad@hotmail.com

Why hello there, darlings!  Just here with some updatesssss:

As you can see, we had some amazing Valentine’s Day festivities over the holiday.  Secret Valentines were left by St. Valentine here, and all sorts of V-Day related challenges are still being held in this forum right over heeeeere.  Go check them out, things are still running (but not for long!)

RC&R Mass Aim Chats (RMACs?… lmao, should there be an abbreviation?  DISCUSS IN THE COMMENTS.) have been instituted for the past three weeks, and they have been gloriously successful!  They take place on Saturday nights at 7 PM EST (though we are considering moving them every other week to Fridays, so it would be like, Friday, Saturday, Friday, et al).  I ADORE meeting more members, and the chats are hilarious.  PLUS PEOPLE MAKE ME BUTTONS.  Lmao.

RC&R is hiring!  Yes, you heard me… check out the thread posted here.  We’re looking for both new Graphics Staff and people who would like to be part of an entirely new squad of moderator… the Welcome Wagon/Public Relations!  If you think you’ve got the stuff to be a staffer here at RC&R, you should send a PM on over to Sabs (lady hsu).

Just as a secret hint to you all (because I am a huge gossip), keep a look out for a new skin in the coming weeks.  I won’t say another word about it except that everyone should bow down to Mimmy and her ridiculously incredible coding skills!

Promotions are finished at last, congrats to everyone who got promoted!  And of course, keep trying to those of you who did not receive a promotion.

Lastly, happy belated Valentine’s Day to everyone!  My V-Day was lovely, I spent it in the pool mostly xD Oh warm weather, I miss youu. *wistful*

xoxo

Gossip Girl  Emily

I want to publically apologize to the members and staff of OTS that I do not know, yet have somehow come to be on bad terms with because of recent events.  It has come to my attention that a feud concerning me and the head admin has been blown out of proportion– and for this, I would also like to apologize to her, Sophie, and her co-admin Zack.  No matter what was done against me and RCR, it does not condone my abrasive attitude and unwillingness to deal with the situation.  I would like to stress, that however bad an excuse it is, I was under extreme pressure from school and cranky from five different medications I was taking because of a case of Mono that I’ve had for two months now.  Anyway, because this catastrophe has been made public, I thought I’d address it so it didn’t look like I was ignoring it.  Every argument has two sides, and if you wish to make some kind of judgement on either party, I do ask that you hear both of us out so you can make an educated decision.  Just as Sophie claims to have chat logs and the background of being on RCR staff to make her a more trust-worthy source, I would like to stress that the conversations that occured between her and I are just that– conversations that occured between two people.  There is no way for anyone besides us to really genuinely know what happened.  Thus, I shall give my contact information here.  If you have any questions or wish any clarification, please contact me:   aim: mutenew.

I too have chatlogs, and a screenshot from my admin control panel that proves that Sophie broke RCR rules by having 3 accounts and therefore deserved a banning.  However, that is not what the arguement originated from.  I met Sophie when she was an admin on her and Zack’s original site– Disco Supafly.  When he deemed her insufferable and impossible to work with, he banned her from the site and she was hurt.  I spoke with her and, mistakenly, judged Zack based on only one side of the story.  For this, I owe Zack an apology.  I am sorry.  Over a bit of time, I realized that Sophie was a hard worker and an asset.  I asked her to be on RCR staff and was elated when she accepted my offer.  After being hired on staff, she immediately got to work banning IPs and doing the bitchwork that our senior members were less willing to do.  Thus, when she asked for her first project I willingly gave her control of our coppermine gallery– Picture Perfect.  However, mistakes were made and something she did made the site crash and come offline for a period of time.  In the mean time, she asked me for another project.  I told her I didn’t think that it was appropriate yet because the first project she had was not flowing well.  I assumed she would drop it.  The next I heard about it was when I received an angry phone call to get online.  When I did, I found that she had basically confronted one of my head moderators and told her that she didn’t do her job well enough.  This head moderator had a project, one that still hasn’t been released yet because we’ve been working on it for some time.  Sophie, a level one staff member, did not have the permisson masks to view all the staff forums, thus believed that no work had been done on this project that we had been planning for a while.  She jumped on my head moderator and demanded from me that I give her the project because clearly, it was in incapable hands.

I told my head staff that they needed to treat her better, as it was under my impression that they had become somewhat rude when Sophie didn’t back off.  I then apologized on their behalf to Sophie and proceeded to explain to her that she already had a project to work on and that I wasn’t going to make my head moderator give up her hard work.  I also stressed that RCR is a democracy.  I’m not the Queen, I’m more like the President.  While my vote counts, it’s not the only vote that counts.  All the votes on the head staff board count as well, so it’s not what Sabs says goes.

Now, concerning the ripping allegations held against OTS.  We never under any circumstances accused them of stealing anything graphic-related, it was all idea based.  There were a few projects in the staff section that had not been unveiled yet, projects that only staff could see and knew about.  We stress secrecy because we try to avoid circumstances like these.  Before they came out, OTS opened and my staff saw them magically appear on their board.  In addition, I would like to clarify the request ripping allegation.  We never accused them of stealing forums– just layouts.  The staff member in charge of making their request forums notified me that when they asked Sophie how to do the forums, she replied with a response of “just like RCR’s.”  In addition, (now this isn’t against any rules, it’s just kind of rude) members of RCR that had been recruited by Sophie to join OTS were telling me that her way of advertisement was telling people to join her site because it wasn’t RCR, it was better.  In any other circumstance that would have been fine with me, but coming from one of my staff members, I didn’t appreciate the negative words.  So, I approached Sophie about these things and she responded with something along the lines of “So, are you going to fire me?”  in the end, she said something like “Demote me, it’ll give me more time to work on OTS.”  Really, I didn’t fire her.  She chose to leave.

The main argument that took place about the ripping allegations were in a chatroom with one of my fellow admins and I, Sophie and Zack.  My fellow admin had taken the time and compiled a list of everything she found to be too similar for her liking, and showed the other side.  They basically refused to even listen.  My co-admin had to leave the chat because she was so frustrated she was in tears.  Sophie approached me afterwards and I asked her to apologize to my co-admin.  She responded with, and I quote “apologize to her for what? and that’s not meant to be phrased in a mean way.  because there are things that i do recognize that i legitimantly do have to apoglogize for.”  This shows that she knows that things have been done on her side, yet she never actually did anything about it.

I have made mistakes too.  This is definately not all on her.  For example, my last blog post.  I admit that it was not in best of form, even though I tried to make everything anonymous.  For this, I apologize to Sophie and Zack profusely.  I will explain the reason behind my frustration for them at that particular incident, however.  One of OTS’s head staff had recently been fired for inactivity and I was not aware of this.  This same member was on my coding mania team and remained active.  When it came time for me to look for new staff members, her name came up as a good coder and asset to have.  Thus, I hired her.  When Sophie caught wind of this, she remarked to my new hire “I really hope you aren’t the one who ratted on me to Sabs, because I have a feeling that my replacement did just that.”

I would like to stress that all I’ve been wanting since the beginning of this ridiculousness is for the whole thing to be over.  Drama is exhausting and really, this is the internet.  Every time I’ve been approached by Sophie, I ask her to please stop talking to me.  To leave me alone.  And when time after time she didn’t, my frustration came and I was rude and not exactly PG-13.

For being at the head of a 17,000+ member site, I don’t talk to nearly enough of my beloved members.  I speak to quite a few, and I love them all dearly (on and off my staff)  but I am always willing to get to know more members.  So, please, even if you don’t want to talk about this drama, but instead just want to drop in and say hi, contact me!  I’ll repeat my aim sn here and also add my msn.  aim:  mutenew  msn: driveuntilyoulosetheroad@hotmail.com  I look forward to speaking to  you!  Thank you for taking the time to listen to my side of the story.  It’s much appreciated!

Love, Sabrina.

So, hi guys.  If you don’t know me, I really don’t blame you.  I haven’t really been around the past couple of months, and the fact that I’m popping back up might give people more of a headache than I’d like to cause, ha.  Just in case you are confused, I am indeed Emily, also known as penny, formerly known as expo, and yes, I do enjoy long walks on the beach, pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain.  In all seriousness, I am a senior in high school and have been absolutely drowning in college applications.  Thank goodness that it’s almost over, though!  I have had just about my fair share of essay writing.

But that’s all besides the point.  What I wanted to talk about with you guys are the movies.

I’ve always adored the movies.  My parents would sit me down in front of Beauty and the Beast at the age of two, and I would be captivated for hours.  I grew up with The Lord of the Rings, the Disney animated classics, action thrillers and tense dramas.  My favorite kinds of movies are musicals and those of the epic fantasy genre.  I just finished watching the movie Fame, which is what really inspired me to write this post.

Good movies, I feel, are rare experiences to a rule of mediocrity in cinema.  It’s not just about the quality of the film, but it’s about the manner in which you view it: whether it’s in a loud theatre where it’s hard to catch the words on-screen due to the screaming pre-teens two seats below you, or the fact that you’re watching Jurassic Park in the privacy of your own home with surround sound, and the T-Rex devoured the cow ten minutes ago and you’re still shaking, the way in which the audience observes the film is, I believe, crucial to how much you enjoy it.  I know that if I’m watching a kid’s movie with my little sister (she’s seven), and she’s giggling all through it, I’ll be able to deem it “cute” by the time the credits role, even if it is just Mertopia.

But besides all the context and pretext, there are some movies you can just connect to.  It’s different for everyone.  Some people have always had that inkling feeling that they’re secretly wizards that are waiting for their Hagrid to come burst in the door; some have always wanted to be a star, such as in Fame; some have often daydreamed about a different era– Victorian, perhaps, or Elizabethan… or even of an alternate reality, that of Middle-Earth.  Either way, there are certain reasons why you, or me, or that guy across the hall will enjoy a movie.  When there is that real connection, though, when there is that essence in the film that is so tangible you can almost roll it around in your fingers, that’s when you know you’re viewing something really special.

So, the sixty-four thousand dollar question: what’s your favorite movie?  what genres do you enjoy?  and most importantly, what do you think makes a good movie?

Hey guys.  Sabs here with her first ranting post ^__^  Things have been kind of ticking me off lately and I thought I’d vent.  Mainly, forums that alter their stats to make it sound like they’re active when they’re really not.  I was recently looking at a new forum, let’s call it “HECTIC FRENZY!?!?”  While perusing their features, I noticed that they were almost exact copies of things I had seen on various other sites.  I know that there’s only a few original ideas out there, but really, it’s not that hard to come up with something unique and personalized.  It makes your site more fun, you know?  Anyway, “HECTIC FRENZY!?!?” had something like 24 members online and it was the first or second day of opening, so I thought that it was a pretty decently active site.  Ohboy was I wrong.  I looked at the details of their statistics, the place above the member list, normally on a colored bar, and it read as follows “24 user(s) active in the past 600 minutes.”  Six hundred minutes!  That, my friend, is simply ridiculous.  In the invisionfree admin panel, I know that it gives you the choice to alter the amount of time IF uses to count the number of people that are currently online.  I’ve seen some sites change it to ridiculous amounts like: 45 minutes, 1 hour, etc.  I have never, ever seen a site change it to 600 minutes, though.  That is just ridiculous.  I feel like if “HECTIC FRENZY!?!?” is that insecure with their member base, they should either be more original, or approach their problem from a different angle.  I view it as cheating, somewhat, to fool members.  I mean, other sites can have a decent amount of people on with just 30 minutes, we have ours set to 25 minutes, and I know of a site that has it set to 10 minutes and is perfectly active.  Why?  Because of the features on the site, and the quality of the forum.  It’s just really frustrating, especially since I know a lot of people aren’t as anal and detail-orientated as I am.  I always notice the little things.  Anyways, I wish “HECTIC FRENZY!?!?” good luck with their self esteem and member base.  Really, I do.

Your loving admin,

sabrinaaaa.

There once was a member of staff,
Who thought that a plan was quite daft.
He did what he was told,
And, lo and behold,
The members had forgotten their craft.

That staff-man, oh he was nice one
So he asked for suggestions and got none.
He was quite shocked to see
People hate poetry
So he took it off, not to be undone

Thus, here is this staff-man’s appeal
To those who can write with great zeal
Sign up for a promotion,
It’s not a crazy notion,
And Johnno will love you for real.

hello.

First off: I decided I had better introduce myself, since I happen to be continuously absent from the forums. My name is Lea. I am 18 years old, an ENFP (if you know what that is), a college freshman and a design student interested in interior and graphic design. I generally vote democratic, I am an atheist and am slightly addicted to tea.

Part of the reason for this blog, was so that we as staff might seem more human to the members. So here you go–I wanted to get it out somewhere anyway:

I am at a point in my life right now, where I’m trying to take control over the things that are happening to me. There are a lot of things that scare me about moving forward, but I’m also really obsessed with the concept of “growing up.”

• Art is scary. it’s so subjective. Sometimes, succeeding in this field feels really intangible. I wonder why I’m wasting my time. No one goes in thinking they’re going to fail. I might be one of the ones that does.
• Art school is f-ing expensive. it’s a gamble. That’s scary too.
• I’m a little afraid to let go of graphic design. That’s what I’ve been doing for so long. Interior is new to me, but I’m sure that in the long run, I’ll love it more. I can’t imagine myself sitting in front of a computer for so much of my life. I love people too much. I want to do something more involved and personal.
• I get those random little insecure moments, where I don’t feel I’m good enough.
• Generally though, I’m just ready to get on with my life and prove I can do it.

Change scares me. The most horrible feeling is when something static in your life completely changes. Something that was so second nature and constant to you:

it changes.

I feel like that’s happening to me all the time now. With how I view the world, certain people, the value of my relationships. My life is completely different than how it was a year ago. I think it’s for the good, but I want this transitional period to be done with.

& there you go: my inner turbulence.

Ok one of the things I’ve been wanting to talk about for a LONG LONG TIME is the idea of like Graphics and how we seem to follow a wave of style. I mean I can’t say I’m not a big fan of it, but I hate it when people follow graphic circles in endless trends. Once in a while people should try to step on the wild side. I was glancing through galleries, and although they were beautiful, many of the graphics kind of looked the same. This is, what I think differentiates experts from like… accomplished. Even though some may seem questionable, almost all of the experts’ stuff is unique and like there’s a new side to it. Many of the accomplished people stick to the same coloring, textures, and style. It’s kinda repetitive. Ok I feel bad for saying that, I honestly love the stuff there on RCR, but I’m not a fan of how much we stick with trends.

SO! Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to create something totally weird and wacky and crazy. Do something you would never normally do! And now, Therese must go study for her math test and complete an essay. Post your unique new styles as a comment if you want!

Hi!

Sabs here, with RCR’s newest feature.  Some of the staff and I were thinking about wanting a place to write about things that we come across on the forums that drive us insane, or just want to talk about.  Hence– the staff blog!  Here, you’ll hear about everything, from rants to complaints to people we’d like to thank or honor :)  So it’s not all negative at all!  Here, you’ll get to see the more human side of the staff members: a community journal, if you will.  Enjoy!