City of Amnesia

Well, before I get started in this rant, I believe I owe you all a re-introduction. I am a [former] member who joined in pre-historic times (back at the end of 2003). I was still a child then. My reputation was defined by constantly breaking rules, harassing other members on messengers (including forcing people to participate in strange RPs in order to satisfy my need for crack "comedy") and being a disturbingly hyperactive little lunatic in general. Anyway, I was here for a good year before I left as a result of my reputation and to take on larger projects my life was currently being drawn into. I do not know if anyone remembers me, or if my words mean anything to those who do. All I can say to you is that nostalgia commands me to post this. I seriously hope no one takes offense.

The closure of Paradigm City Forums has to be the greatest mistake, or at least one of the largest mistakes since the promotion of Almasy to moderator status in 2004. Yes, inactivity ran rampant and a new generation of members surfaced. Yes there was trolling and there flame wars. However, couldn't these problems have been solved by community improvement rather than by closing a truly historic forum?

It has been two years since the closure, and now that the issue is, from an Internet standpoint, part of the distant past, it is safe to look back on it with questioning eyes.

That is why I am here. I wish to question the closure of Paradigm and propose its resurrection, much like I did with the MFL. Krang and Shredder likely still have the backups of the forums stashed somewhere. Based on this, it is physically possible to restore Paradigm if enough support was thrown behind it. I realize that the only people who might even possibly be sympathetic to my nostalgia are those from the olden days, and that those people are few in number and low on time. Just try to imagine for a second what it would be like for Paradigm to come back on line at this point, perhaps even accompanied by a mass email celebrating a forum reunion. The surge this would create is likely, if not certain to draw in all manner of the old atmosphere, perhaps even enough to put PCF back in its golden days again.

I await the result of this thread in very much the same way I awaited your reactions to my strange AIM/YIM messages back in the day.

Uh... the backups are online where they used to be.

http://www.paradigm-city.com/forums/ (http://www.paradigm-city.com/forums/)

I was aware of the archive, but yeah. I miss PCF very much. I am sure there are others who miss it as well. If I recall, Krang and Shredder brought The Technodrome back once due to popular demand. The same could happen with Paradigm if people would speak up. 

Uh, isn't this site a replacement for the closed PCF?

I'm not sure if there would be much gained if PCF was re-opened. I mean, we already have this site.

Though I guess it would help if Paradigm-City.com had a much more visible link directing users here. The one there right now isn't very obvious and you have to scroll down to see it.

Paradigm was here many years before this site, but that's not the point. There is a big difference between CoA and PCF. It simply isn't the same board.

I am not here to bash CoA, obviously. This is an excellent board. I am not even saying that a resurrected PCF should completely replace CoA. I am simply saying that reviving Paradigm would be a very good move, and might even get the Big O community back into its prime.

The only thing that could bring Big O back into its prime would be re-airing it at a good time on CN (unlikely). Even that would have a diminished return, since a certain percent of the audience will have already seen it.

I think monetary concerns coupled with inactivity are what took PCF down. If you wish to foot the bill for maintaining the webspace...

I mean, if you want to talk to Krang and Shredder about it, there's nothing stopping you.

But they christened this the replacement forum, since they didn't want to run it anymore, so... yeah.

I personally feel that reopening PCF would be pretty pointless with this forum up and going. I would however like to see a serge of new members that actually stay around for more than 10 posts.


lol no kidding. I remember coming back after a year or so, the place was a dead zone and any thread that was up tended to be a flame war.

I blame politics... ._.
>.>

It would be pointless to bring it back, and it would hardly serve your nostalgia because of the lack of former members. Face it, people lose interest and have no motivation to come back, and the proof is in this tapioca. I like tapioca with jello rather than rice, by the way. This board is made up and kept active mainly by former members. and this board is almost inactive. I come back after months and haven't missed a thing xD (which can be a good thing >.>)

So I'm sorry, I must repeat the obvious, it's pointless to try to bring back the PCF you knew. There aren't the people for it.

it's too easy to keep my ranking in posts on here xD

I think bringing back PCF would be a bit overkill.

However, I do think something should be done to make this place easier to find.

The show ended on a crappy note. Then the site kind of died out as people lost interest and left. There's really no reason to bring the site back because there's little to no interest in Big O anymore. Although getting more people to come here would be good. This place is kind of dead lately, too.

Also, Almasy was made a moderator? Holy crap, I never knew that. No wonder the place went to hell.

If my memory is correct, this and the fact that the money to run the site was coming out of THEIR pockets with little or no help is what led to Finale stepping up and saying "Okay, I'll do it."

Last time I was there, a bulk of the site is still running, but they reduced the forum to just a read-only HTML document for some of us to get nostalgic about when we were bored or wanted to remember the good old days.

Now, we have CoA, and the small group that said, "Hey, we still like each other enough to still be social on the same message board...or something like that..." and we don't complain. If it was important enough, we just restarted the thread(s).

That's easy for you to say when you weren't even around to see how bad the forums got toward the end...  :o  Anyway, it's good to hear that you enjoyed Paradigm City Forums, but they are closed and will not be coming back for the reasons I mentioned here (http://www.paradigm-city.com/forums/thread/15005.html).  I've had enough Big O-related internet drama to last several lifetimes and am not interested in inviting any more.


2003, you mean.  And that was long before anyone on the forums knew how he would turn out.  Once we did find out, he was dropped from the moderator team like a "That's Hot" potato.


No.


I can guarantee that it would sooner or later end up just as bad as it was when it closed.


That was a very different situation, especially considering it was never fully closed.


That can be arranged.  If someone can make an 88x31 button for CoA and if Finale can add a link to Paradigm somewhere around here, we can set up an affiliation, which will be visible on every page on Paradigm.

Point taken. I had assumed that after a period of time, your mindset would have changed with relation to the "NEVER COMING BACK" statement. Anyway, it's not like you can force someone to host a website. I can finally accept the end now.


2003? I had assumed the entity which I shall hereafter refer to as The Embodiment of Disturbing Photography was a staff assistant for a while leading up to a jump to full moderator status in early 2004. Ah well, I was a kid then. Thank you for correcting my memory with respect to The Embodiment of Disturbing Photography.


That does effectively solve the problem of there being no link between the most popular, most ancient Big O site still in existence. CoA has probably missed a massive number of registrations (UNBASED ESTIMATE. DO NOT COMMENT) due to the nonexistence of such a link. What this board could really use is a skin resembling that of PCF. I still have a copy of Jonny Axehandle's Paradigm skin for Invisionfree, but that's Invisionfree. XD

Mind pointing out where I made this so-called "statement"?  I said that we were closing the forums and I said that the decision was final, but I definitely don't remember using those words, especially not in all caps like that.  Unless, of course, you're just making a rude mockery of what I said?  But surely that couldn't be the case since you were a member of PCF, the place you've been hyping up all this time, and being rude like the people were back then would be like shooting yourself in the foot, not to mention that it would destroy your credibility as someone who implied twice that he is no longer a child, meaning he should be too mature to take cheap shots like that.  Nah, couldn't be. ::)

But all joking aside, once the new episodes of Big O stopped airing, PCF quickly turned into a disaster that was a chore to maintain, and Shredder and I are glad it's gone to be honest.  No "period of time" is going to change that.


Maybe so, I don't really remember and don't have a copy of the Moderator Discussion section handy to double-check.  What difference does a few months make, anyway?  The point still stands that nobody on the forums knew how he would turn out at the time.  Yes, it was a mistake, but the mistake was adding someone we didn't know much about as a mod, not knowing about him and making him a mod anyway, so it's really no different than what happened with Kairi, for example.  What was the point in dragging this up in the first place?


No link?  I see two of them in the news posts on the main page.  And you're really exaggerating both the number of people who are still interested in Big O and the number of visits Paradigm currently gets...


If that's what you guys want, go ahead.  I don't care as long as you don't use the PCF header graphic.

I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. I don't think I've made an icon that small before, but I'll try getting a simplistic while expressive "button" made. :)

I have no clue the numbers that actively visit the site... frankly I don't want to know. (It might sadden me). But I think the assessment of how many people still like Big O is not fairly measured. People I've talked to still recognize the series as a very good series (heck, had a nice turn out for a Big O Marathon at my college this semester). The only complaint given by anybody about the series was the lack of plot in Season 1 and the LACK of a Season 3. (This is not including the people who generally didn't like giant robots to start, however does count people who were indifferent to giant robots) Big O still has a fanbase here in the states and unless someone was living under a rock most people I've run into at anime conventions have at least seen or heard of Big O and have something positive to say.




Also, I should mention this before Krang up and disappears on us again. It's good to see you, Krang. How's things for ya and Shredder? Watching any of the new Anime on the block (Basquash, Rideback, Gurren Lagann, etc.)? ((actually I wouldn't be surprised if you said FMA: Brotherhood))


I keep thinking to myself, and maybe you could indulge my curiosity Krang, would the decision to close Paradigm forums have been postponed had we lasted enough to open discussions about Gurren Lagann (in 2007)? That show became a hit over there and over here, it may have sustained the community for a little while longer.

*raises hand* Considering that the rest of the site is still running, and I enjoy reading the archives, I still visit the site.

I've seen a few people at cons that have not heard of Big-O. I drug them over to my booth and beat the crap out of them with a foam sword. Yay for running a boffer booth.

And also, like Evan said, good to see you, Krang. You shouldn't be as much of a stranger as you are.

Your eagerness to dig hostility out of my posts is mildly disturbing. Not once have I attempted to insult or demean you or your past work in any way. If anything, you leave much room for me to assume that you are looking for reasons to make unbased accusations of hostility. The statement I made was not intended as a means of "mocking" so much as simply summarizing your "final decision" in a humorous manner.


Once again, you misread a statement intended for comical value as something hostile, immature or otherwise representing a nasty challenge of some sort. To criticize Almasy or to grin at the fact he actually became a staff member should not be taken offensively. I ran an IRC network a few years ago and promoted an IRC operator who I believed I could trust only to have him turn out to be a living nightmare. This man, who showed no sign of instability in the year I had known him, yet became a monster, can easily compare to Almasy. If you were to kid about my decision to promote him, I would not be offended.


First off, I was speaking about a link in a more traditional place. The ones in the news posts are less obvious. Please remember that I stated very plainly that my guesswork was unbased and should not be judged.

Before you read my post as a personal attack, please remember that there is a border between sarcasm and being an asshole intentionally. Holding a critical view of an event does not equate to having a negative opinion of those involved. If I needed to to demean you for some reason, I could easily come up with six or more paragraphs of bullshit and mindlessly overblown, highly negative accounts of every benign administrative action you took during the days of PCF. Of course, I would never do that. You are an excellent and very strong administrator. You created the largest, most successful Big O fan community of all time and kept it going for half a decade. That said, it is nice to see that you still read through these forums.

My first post was made up of sleepless ramblings combined with nostalgic blabber. The post itself stated that very clearly. To be honest, I expected reactions similar to the ones that I see now, but I didn't expect you to take offense to it. If I upset you, I deeply apologize. I am not interested in forum arguments, so please accept my apology.

...I'm going to preface this by writing that I'm not quite sure why I'm here.

I will say, though, that...it's probably for the best that PCF remain closed.  I haven't visited this place much - if at all - since it opened and replaced PCF, but I can say as someone who was quite familiar with the drama on both sides of the aisle (and who, I am embarrassed to say, participated in more than my fair share of it), closing that place was really the only logical solution for people whose hearts just weren't in it anymore.  That extends to more than just the administrative team, too - as I recall, most of the moderation team felt the same way.

But that was years ago.  Speaking of which, I have to say, Jesse's posts have certainly impressed me; you grew up quite a bit.

As for your original question, about opening PCF again...I'm not sure if it would resurrect the Big O community.  There was a perfect storm of conditions that allowed that place to thrive in the first place - a core of passionate and interested members, mixed with the news that a second season was being ordered.  Unless additional Big O content was released, be it another season, a movie, what have you, I'm not convinced that a reopened site and forums would be as attractive as it once was.  At best, I think all you'd be able to hope for would be reuniting the old guard, but based on how things ended, I genuinely believe that wouldn't be for the best.

At the same time, that was years ago.  People change, and things change.

...were it up to me?  I'd probably keep it closed.

FP...Good to see you. When I saw that you posted I was truly shocked.

Anyway, Jesse, I'm not taking sides, I just want to ask something.

Are you aware of all of the drama that took place near the end of it all? I tried to avoid it, and thus I actually avoided the MFL as a result after a while. It was years ago, and so I don't remember if I really got involved with it...

But have you actually read the drama? Or know of just how deep it went?

It was pretty %$^#ed up.

I can't really comment on the drama on P-C.com, since I only qualified as a "recent-lurker/almost-user" when it closed. Just scanning through it, at the time, I thought it was a nice forum.

However, despite, the limited Big O touches you'll find here on CoA (and which you can still find in the P-C archive), I think CoA is a very vibrant Big O internet community, and a very vibrant internet community outside of Big O as well (anime, video games, music, life, computing, etc. ... Need I say more?). Think Big O++...

As for new footage, we probably won't see any from CN, and Toonami (sadly) no longer exists... The only current Big O stuff out there right now is Super Robot Wars/Taisen game(s) w/Big O and DVD collections. Also, there are Big O video games in the P-C archive...

As for what could be done - there are now the New Voyages of Star Trek - a private non-profit endeavor that has actually earned Paramount's approval and admiration. Perhaps the same could be done for Big O, utilizing some sort of animation software (as Stan Lee did with his 7th Portal webseries)?

There also a confirmed Big O robot action figure line coming out of Japan set for this coming year. There was that one company (Max Factory) that had prototype but didn't work out, but this is with Bandai's main action figure producer. If the release gets enough sales, it might convine Bandai there's still life in the product.

Big O really does need a season 3, or some sort of OVA.

That it does!

AS still shows Big O on Saturdays, however it's at the ungodly hour of 4:30am.


At this point I wouldn't mind a 3rd season and honestly there does seem to be enough interest for a new season or at least an OVA. The AS forums alone show that there is still a good bit of interest in Big O.

The whole "middling ratings" is a bunch of crap honestly. 

I keep forgetting to log into AS...I made the account years ago and just...forgot about it...

It's based on their "Lupin Logic" as I've come to call it. Back in 2003-04 there was a [as] bump that ridiculed the fans of Lupin the 3rd. Saying that they 1) bring Lupin onto the air, then 2) the ratings go down, then 3) they pull the show due to low ratings, and finally 4) the fans start bitching again so they put the show back on. Of course what they fail to include (and I'm pretty sure the anime-hating executive in charge of [as] programming knows it) is the TIME in which they air the episodes. Back then Lupin was at the 1:30 timeslot, right before the "repeat" of Sunday's [as] shows began (basically as late as it could go).

Then they pull the same crap on Big O in a different way. They rerun the series till the fans are tired of seeing reruns (and I mean STRAIGHT reruns. From Act26's airing in October 2003 I think they reran the show well into 2004 at least twice)... they use the ratings as an excuse and pull the show from the lineup.

The ratings are whatever they want them to be, quite honestly. And now with ALL the anime being shown after Midnight on Saturday nights (1 episode of each until 6am) I'm sure they'll use the "poor viewer turnout" as a crutch to get rid of Anime on adultswim all together. And although anime is a growing industry, [as] will just keep pushing it aside because, as has been stated numerous times across the internet... Mike Lazzo doesn't like anime.

Very true indeed. I'd love to hear what Lazzo has to say about Code Geaus(spelling?) and Bleach hitting 500k viewers as of late.

He'd lie and make up some BS that it's getting horrible ratings, just to be a dick. And to help himself sleep at night. Because of Lazzo's problem with anime overpowering the need to get ratings, I've pretty much quit watching AS altogether. I don't know what's on anymore.

That and on the weekend I'm not usually near a TV.

Indeed. Showing the shows at a more reasonable time would also be a nice change.

On topic. I'd gladly welcome a newer link on PCF pointing the way here. New people are always nice, and ones that stay longer than 3 posts are even better.

We have people that make only three posts?

If I can a) find GIMP on this computer b) get it to run without making the computer cry to death (really bad computer for GIMP) and c) remember how to actually use the program, I can give making a banner a shot...unless someone beats me to it.

Go for it dude... might as well have a few choices for the button.

I made up a couple, but I wasn't sure really which to suggest.... so I'm puttin it to a vote :P

Button1: (http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/346/coa1.png)

Button2: (http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/6426/coa2.png)

Button3: (http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/1141/coa3.png)

Button4: (http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3149/coa4.png)

Button5: (http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2182/coa5.png)


Which do you guys like?

1 and 5 are my faves.

Gotta agree with Mike, those look the best.

I like 1 and 5 as well, 1 slightly better because I think it catches your attention a bit better.

I will fifth the notion of 1 and 5, with a higher preference toward #1.

Hey guys, back from limbo yet again.

This thread made me sad.  Paradigm-City was my home away from home for two or three years.  I loved the writing and RPing, and miss Phoenix a lot, but back then he was suffering life issues.  Unfortunately, a number of really vibrant members which would liven the place up are absent, or just don't know the place exists.  On top of all that, there's the deal that the many, many issues within Big O have been mulled to death, and no one has come along to bring a fresh perspective on all that.  Or even newbs wanting to know if Big O is like The Truman Show.  No one has started threads wanting to chat about the insane threads of mystery Chiaki J Konaka wove though his masterful plot.

I think the first step in that direction would be to see if we can schedule a campout here on the boards, trying to drag back in for the night, weekend, whatever, us current fans, old friends from PCF, and anyone else who has an interest in Big O, and just chat.  Maybe do it in real time on IRC or something.  And then there's this:


This interests me a great deal.  I think enough talent exists in the community to see about some groundwork on this.  There is at least one script based plot for a Big O season 3, done by 6moondance and R Daniel, which I read and have the files on somewhere, but sadly, it kind of fizzled after ep 4.  It did capture something of the original flavor, and it did chart it's own course.  I'd love to see some new discussion on the subject of either creating a new plotline, or finishing what was started previously here.