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FantasySquare Articles 23 Sept 2003, Hajimari wa Koko Kara ~ This is the Beginning - [ Author : Webmaster ] Wow, does time fly man. I'm already 20 years old. I sure remember the times where I was only 15 when I first started FantasySquare, just like a teenager like most of you here. Don't you dare think that I'm old! Lol! Like any other male in Singapore, the time has come for me to be enlisted in military service for slightly longer than 2 years. It's compulsory for us here, so there is little that we can do about it. In most cases, we will only be able to come out from camp during the weekends, which means only 4 times per month. My military service will start on 2 October 2003 and end approximately December 2005. So, what does this mean? It simply means that I will be seldom on at FS anymore due to military service. Even if I still do come online, I probably won't have much time on the website anymore, at least for 2 years that is. Most of the stuff will be handled to my webmasters, administrators and Ling (my girlfriend and secretary). No worries, as during this period of time, I have converted FS to be a passive business, where it doesn't physically need me to be around in order for the organization to operate. FS will continue to grow and expand into different sections and sequels under the other webmasters. For the department leaders at FS, I urge you to expand your department by getting new members and start doing even greater things for FS. Do not be satisfied with just where you are. Every healthy organization grows, and that includes FS. When there is a lack of growth, mutation occurs and that's normally where internal/external disputes and fights take place. I am not ashamed to say that I have indeed noticed mutation within the FS staff itself, even after the allocations. When such incidents start to occur, it normally results in the doom of the organization. So please continue to grow your department at FS while I am away. Throughout these many years, I have learnt a lot from running an organization such as FS. Even though we might not really be a huge website, it has taught me how to run a business, organize systems as well as handling people. Even after 5 years, I still realise that there are still a lot of things that needs to be learnt. Indeed, learning is a life-long process. Just recently, I've seen another few quarrels spark out at the forums. I've even heard of weirder things like conspiracy against the FS staff. Surprising? Not really to me. I've seen this happen so many times during the 5 years of FS that I've lost count of it. Even though people learn valuable lessons through disputes, history tends to repeat itself. Either it's different people doing similar things, or the same people doing different things that cause strife between the community, staff and its members. It's a real saddening sight. FantasySquare isn't a perfect place, and there isn't such a thing as a perfect website, simply because; we are all imperfect people. We should learn to live harmiously with one another, especially while we are online. The Internet is a place for many people to feel 'big' about themselves, and they sometimes forget basic courtesy with one another. The lack of physically presence seem to make people forget that they still must remember their manners. And yes, words do hurt people. The quote: "Stick and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a big lie. While I am away, I won't have much chance to talk and commune with you guys in the forums/MSN/IRC anymore. As such, there is a little less amount of authority and decision(s) that I can make. I won't be around much anymore to resolve disputes, gain information and feedback anymore. However, I do still hope that you guys will always remember to maintain respect with one another. "Do to others what you want others to do to you" is indeed a great quote. You can still email me before 2 October, but once I'm in, all my mails will be redirected to my secretary, Ling. I'll still try my best to reply any emails that are personally addressed to me though. It really breaks my heart sometimes to see people fighting, especially if they were great pals once. Most of the time, we tend to see things one sided from our views, and ignore others. Because of this unseen bitterness that builds up, people start fighting and the FS forums starts to plunge into depression. The community is like a stock market. In a bull market, everyone is happy as stock prices rise slowly. However, in a bear market, the stock prices suddenly drop, people start finding things and people to blame. A lot of things in life are inevitable. Instead of fighting with one another, why don't we start rebuilding our community and return it to the bull market that it was? It only takes one person to make such a decision, and one person can make a difference. When I'm out (from military) during the weekends, I do hope to see a happier FS. Tough times will come, but I hope we continue to mature individually, as well as corporately through bad times. Bad times are where the greatest relationships are built. We should all never fail to overlook that. To be honest, I did have the thought to close the forums and remove it completely from the website. During the times when the forums were offline (down for a few weeks) about a few months back, we didn't suffer any loss of traffic to our main site. However, for the minority, we kept the forums. It's a lot of maintenance and labor to keep up a forum, so we hope you appreciate the effort. Unfortunately, I have to say that if the FS forum continues to have lots of problems and issues, we'll have to remove the forums entirely off the server indefinitely. I certainly hope that that day doesn't come. After all, we all tried so hard for 5 whole years. Military service will be a great test to see how strong FS really is, and I'm looking forward to it. For those who are planning for the doom of FS, I wish you luck. I hope that the bitterness doesn't sink in too much into your head. With friends like you, who needs enemies? In closing, I'm sure military service will be fun, and I'll certainly miss you guys. While I'm away, help me say "hello" to your Playstation(s) and future FF's. It looks like I won't be touching them for quite a while. This is the beginning... of a better FantasySquare. Love, |
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