User blog:Ballistic Planet/My (belated) two year wikia anniversary.

Dang, it's hard to believe that it's been more than two years since I joined the website. Though my wikia anniversary was yesterday, today is still a fine day to look back at once was, and to look forward to what will be.

How has 2016 been as a year for me?
To be honest, 2016 has been a very interesting year all things considered. I've had some rough personal issues, along with some with some other wikia conflicts that I'd, quite frankly, want to put behind me.

If there's one thing 2016 has done though, it's help grow. 2016 has been a learning period for me. I've gotten so much better at writing compared to 2015. Not only that, but I'm actually some what active on Mainspace, at least at the end of this year, as opposed to 2015, where I think I was inert in mainspace, and even at the beginning of this year when Content Moderator was introduced, I think I was what you call power "hungry".

Yeah for 2015, I think going for Rollback and Chat Moderator were actually good things for me, as those were the best ways that I could help out the wiki. At the same time though, looking back on it, going for Discussion Moderator (Forum Moderator at the time) and Content Moderator were mistakes. I never should have ran for those. I think all I wanted to do back then was just have more power. And while yes, I'm actually quite active on Forums now, back then, I feel like I only became active on Forums because I wanted the position. So, how did all of this change with Admin?

Well firstly, I wasn't entirely the one who ran for Admin. nominated me, saying that I'm active incredibly active on the wiki in general (which is more or less true), and that I could fill in case any of our Admins were offline (which I have done before). I more or less agreed with his statements there. For me, going for Discussion Moderator and Content Moderator weren't ways I could actually help; they were ways to gain more power and respect. For Admin though, it was different. At the time, we only had 4 Admins. And a lot of these guys have been busy with school and whatnot. This left severe time gaps where we had nobody actually moderating the wiki. And since we only had 4 B-Crats (most of them being Partially Active right now due to school), that felt like an opportunity to try. Now, should I have let Mognox nominate me so soon? Looking back on it, I don't think so. I think he nominated me a little too quickly after I came back to full activity. But even still, I'm ok with having Admin, because unlike with Content Mod, I actually use my rights, and pretty frequently too. I have edited the CSS pages quite a few times, blocked a few users, and even promoted people during and even outside of the staff reboot. I've also continued to edit Mainspace after Admin, which is something that I failed to do with Content Moderator. I think I've done a much better job not only contributing, but also as a person here as well.

A Retrospective; Who were the staff here on my wikia anniversaries?
This is something I wanted to do for fun. I took a look at all of the staff who were here on my wikia anniversaries. I created my account at around 10am (Pacific Standard Time) on October 16th, 2014. So I will be looking at the staff who were her during these periods. I apologize if some of the names are unreadable.

2014
2014 was an interesting era for the Plants vs. Zombies Wiki. The first thing that comes to mind, at least for me, is that at that time, we had 15 Rollbacks. You think having 9 Discussion Moderators today is bad? We had 15 Rollbacks at that point. And a lot of them I don't recognize today. Yeah, I know who Angry, Cheetah, Ranger, Breakfast, EP, GMXX, Iama, Repea, and ZN are, but I don't know who ZERO, CW369, Heat, LD, and Ron are, and I barely remember Tiger. Surprisingly, a few users have not only stayed during this time, but have actually kept there rights today. Brainulator9, Jackninja5, Starfruity, Someone456, Itsleo20, Iamarepeater, Crazyzombie168, and Drek'TharSuperSword have all been here for over two years, and still had rights to this very day. Good job guys!

2015
Only a year has passed, but already the staff table looks noticeably different. For one, we actually have more staff in 2015 then we did in 2014, but they were a lot more spread out with the addition of this Forum Moderator position. Additionally, here are some other fun tidbits:


 * Out of all 6 Admins, only one of them remains an Admin (or even a power user) today (Itsleo20).
 * We had 11 Forum Moderators at this point, two more than the 9 we have today. Three of these (me, SSU, and Drek) have gone on to become Admins.
 * We had more Bureaucrats than anything else this time, as we had a total of 12 (6 active, 6 inactive) Bureaucrats.
 * Besides the Bureaucrats and Leo, the only other staff member to have kept thier position for a year has been Lily8763cp. Good job!

2016
*: Though PrimitivePotatoMine was demoted later that day, he was Discussion Moderator two yeas after I created the account, so he counts.

Here we are. Just last year, including the inactive Bureaucrats and Founders, we had 49 users on staff. Now, we only have 38 (37 today, as PPM got demoted). A lot of this is due to the staff reboot, but also some of it just due to the changing of the times. Some users just didn't want to contribute anymore, and that's fine.

Looking ahead; What's next?
To be honest, I don't think anyone expected me to the last this long on the wikia. I feel like all bust the most dedicated only last for a year, before leaving. Just look at how much has changed. But I'm still here.

So, what does the future hold? Firstly, I'm not going to leave the wiki (well, unless I get banned for doing something stupid) before 2018. I'm probably going to stick around for a while, and continue to help and contribute. Even though my favorite PVZ game, PVZ2, is in its twilight hours, I still wish to support the community, as they have done so for me. In 2017, I do plan on running for B-Crat at some point, but it's probably not going to be until this time next year. And if I run, I'm running when I think I'm ready. There's still so much for me to learn and explore here still, and I hope that we can make the ending of this year, as well as 2017, a good one.

Huge thanks to all of my friends for supporting me. You guys are the best!

Special thanks to, , , and for being my best friends during my time so far. You guys have truly made this wiki a great experience for me, and I hope I have done the same for you.