So, today is my birthday. It's also my wikiversary. As of today, you've all put up with my Bean the Dynamite nonsense for the entire span of two years.
Wow, where does all the time go?
This has been quite a year for me. I've learned great things, made amazing friends, and got promoted not once, but twice. Have I ever mentioned you guys are the best?
So I suppose I should do what everyone else does on their wikiversary, and talk about how I started out on SNN. So, here we go. Fair warning: It's going to be a bit long.
Starting off[]
On August 24, 2018, I officially joined SNN, with the intention of editing pages. My first edit was a blog post, which was really just made to get a badge. It wasn't very great. Because of this edit, I received the automated welcome message on my wall, and surprisingly, a user known as RussianOlympian101 actually commented on it, welcoming me to the wiki, and making him the first user to engage me in conversation. Despite the quality of my first blog post, he later commented on that too, sharing his opinions.
My first actual edit was on Super Sonic/Gallery. This was my first experience editing a FANDOM wiki page, and as such, the edit was awful and was quickly reverted. I made several more edits, some were reverted, others were good enough that they were only edited by admins afterwards. The point is, my first edits were not very good. I also generally stayed away from commenting in discussions at the time, as I didn't really have anything worth saying. But this all changed, thanks to inspiration from user who had left the wiki over 3 years before I arrived. He was known as Admiral Leviathan.
"That guy who makes Sprite comics"[]
So one day I was bored. Very bored. And on a whim, I decided to scroll through the images page, starting from the back. Nothing interested me incredibly much until I noticed a sprite comic made by the Admiral. The first sprite comic made on SNN. I thought it was pretty cool. I moved on, and saw even more, each one intriguing me more than the last. Going to his blog page, I saw he had made hundreds of these sprite comics over the course of years. Suddenly an Idea popped into my head: These can't be that hard to make, can they? Maybe you could make some of your own? I was all for it, and opened up Paint 3D (This was what I used at the time. Paint 3D is not good for creating sprite comics, as you will soon see.), and created my first Sonic comic.
My first Sonic comic
It wasn't very good, but I learned from it, and switched over to a program called GIMP which I still use to this day. My brother showed me how to use it, and from there I created my first "true" comic. Sonic Sprite Wars: part 1. The first user to comment on (and probably the first user to read) my comic was a user known as SigmaHero045. Starting in Part 3, SilverPlays97 became a regular commenter on the series and one of my best friends on the wiki, sharing his opinions on almost every part after that. So you might be asking "How did making Sprite comics improve your edits in any way?" Well, since I could create Sprite Comics, I could work with sprites. As such I would post sprites in any article lacking them. This was only the start of my edits, though. The real game started when I found out how to use the Source Editor.
Discussions[]
As stated above, I generally avoided discussions when I first joined, as I didn't have much worth saying. Anyways, one day, after seeing my favorite Sonic fangame (SRB2) had received a major update, I decided to make a discussions post detailing that. Surprisingly, people actually commented on it. After this, I decided to comment more on future discussions. It was here that my "obsession" with Bean the Dynamite started, mainly as a joke. I usually helped out new users, or clarified that fanart wasn't allowed in discussions, but at least I was doing something worthwhile. I made many friends on the discussions board, Including Mystic Monkey , Top Hat Silver, Myself 123, and Disco the Hedgefox.
Actual good edits[]
So one day, I was looking through the Policy, and I noticed a section I hadn't before: ".ogg file extension creation guide" I read through it, as It detailed how to add music to articles. I noticed several of the 8-bit titles lacked '.ogg's of their music on their page, and I decided to add them. The real "trouble" was the music was to go in wikiboxes, which I wasn't great at using. Since I wasn't able to work the wikibox correctly, I decided to check out the source editor, and actually found it easier to use. Over the next few months using that editor, I made many more edits of increasing quality. I also reverted vandalism whenever I saw it.
Nomination(s)[]
On July 22, 2020, I received a message on my wall from Silverplays97. He wished to nominate me for the position of discussions moderator. I was overjoyed, and gladly accepted the nomination. On July 24, 2020, (Exactly a month ago from when I wrote this.) the nomination was held. I expected some at least a few people to vote against me, but the actual nomination went differently. 36 people voted, and all of them supported the nomination. On July 31, I was officially crowned a Discussions Moderator. I expected I wouldn't get nominated again anytime soon, but on August 14, Luma.dash nominated me for the position of Roleback. I accepted. And was promoted again.
The future[]
I'm currently working on adding appearances to all the post-reboot Archie issues, infoboxes to any articles lacking them, and moderating discussions. My sprite comic is still being worked on, despite going slowly.
Conclusion[]
And there you have it. My entire history on the wiki. It's quite long, and I probably missed some things, but I wanted to get this out on time for my birthday. I try to learn from my mistakes, so I'm always improving. Heck, even this blog post taught me something: "If you're going to make a long post like this, you probably should start a few days in advance so it's not rushed". I've been on SNN for two amazing years now, and I hope for many more. Thank you everybody.
13:38, August 24, 2020 (UTC)