I’ll start by thanking everyone for all of the congratulations and kind words I’ve received over the last couple days. I’m very excited about this and I know a lot of others are as well, but I’m also very inexperienced with the technical side of running a website, so even some of my seemingly simple plans might be a little far off.
This is a new beginning for Twinkinfo, and it’s only right that everyone will get to start with a clean slate. Unfortunately there is no “unban all” option, so I’ve just gone through and unbanned a bunch of the accounts that looked like they were someone’s primary account. If you want your primary account unbanned just message me and I'll unban it. I want to avoid permabanning actual members or prospective members of the community unless it's absolutely necessary. Much of the bracket is still fairly young and people change a lot at this stage of life. I was permabanned from Twinkinfo for years but I've gone on to become a constructive and significant contributor to the site and community.
I plan to be more permissive than Shane was, but I also don't want the site to descend into anarchy. I think the best way to foster a competitive atmosphere is through actual competition, not through the shit-flinging and perpetual dodging of the past. I have some great memories from BC and WoTLK, including the battleground forums, but I still think the community right now is the best that it has ever been. I want Twinkinfo to be a place where everyone feels like they're welcome and among friends. There's always going to be rivalries and people that just don't like each other; banter is ok, bullying isn't, if you cross the line you'll still get banned.
I appreciate the support and enthusiasm that the community has shown for the Twink Cup, and a large part of why I bought Twinkinfo was to try to better harness that enthusiasm and give it back to the community. In the future the majority of the profits that are made by running Twinkinfo will go into the prize pool of the future Twink Cups or towards funding other community events and endeavors. The easiest way to contribute monetarily to the Twink Cup in the future will be to whitelist TI on your adblock. Whether it's a $1000 online tournament or a packed exhibition center with paid flights and accommodations, the Twink Cup will be as grand of an event as the community can make it.
Some other things I have planned are bringing back bracket managers, bringing back the streaming subforums, adding a featured streamers sidebar that will show which streams are online, adding an event calendar, bringing back the auction house with the explicit rules that people can't talk about exchanging real world money for in-game items, badges/icons that will be displayed below the likes/dislikes, bringing back featured articles, probably in a more flexible way where people will be asked to write about a certain topic, and possibly letting people vote for a post to be set as a featured article with the writer being rewarded, shirts, more cooperation with bisnation, more podcasts, more tournaments.
I truly believe that as a community we have the ability to accomplish anything.
I'm glad you phrased your wording as you did. Whining in your eyes is fighting for 29s and 39s to get what is fair and what they deserve in my eyes. Last I recalled our conversation on the same topic ended up with you saying that you won't participate in 39s therefore there is no need to indulge in further conversation.
