I don't expect you to care about this story: it's long and not very thrilling. This thread is just a reference for all the people who are continually confused by which ranks I technically hold and have held in the past.
The Story of my Ranks
Beginning
The story starts on July 1, 2015, when I was OPaSed by Mark. The *PaS (
I went through the ranks to get Telnet, Telnet Clan, and eventually Senior. If you don't know, Telnet Clan gave you access to ClanForge, the control panel we were using when Mark owned the server. The next change came when Mark opened up applications for a position as Assistant Security Officer. This was not very common: executives were usually directly appointed by Mark, and assistants by the main executive. The main Security Officer at that time was Windows. I applied and was accepted together with Mike, also a Senior at that time. As assistants, we did not have any extra permissions.
Then, the unthinkable happened: Mark stepped down and appointed Windows as the new Owner. I was quietly moved into the main Security Officer position, with Mike continuing to be my assistant. That didn't mean I now got extra permissions: that was not part of the rank.
Forum Mod
At the time, the Security Officer was responsible for dealing with small security incidents, which there were quite a lot of when we were cracked. Mark was still active and sometimes PMed me to watch out for certain things on the forum. I replied every time that I couldn't because I didn't have any more permissions on the forum than a regular Senior. Eventually, he was annoyed by this enough to create a thread in the Forum Mod lounge requesting my promotion to Forum Mod, which Windows approved.
Back then, the Forum Admin rank was called "Forum Administrator", while the Forum Mod rank was called "Forum Administrators", with an S at the end. They also had the same rank badge and color. I never figured out why we tried to hide the difference. However, there was a flaw in the setup: because of the way ProBoards works, any Forum Mod could simply go the forum's Admin Control Panel and promote themselves to Forum Admin. When I brought this up, Finest removed the Forum Mod rank, essentially promoting everyone who was a Forum Mod at that moment to Forum Admin. We eventually reintroduced Forum Mod (still with the same flaw), and as time passed and people went inactive, I was the only one left who was promoted to Forum Admin that way. In the meantime, Windows had suddenly disappeared and was replaced by Seth, and Mike had gone inactive as well, leaving me as the only Security Officer.
Then, I went inactive ingame but continued to be very active on the forum, something that no one had done before. I was eventually removed for inactivity, but only after quite a while, because ingame activity was previously not a requirement to retain your rank. However, when I was removed, it was not just my Senior Admin rank, but also my Security Officer and Forum Admin ranks. Seth explained that the Security Officer position was being removed entirely because he thought it was redundant. In response, I created a thread where I explained why I went inactive, but also that I would have been happy to continue as a Forum Admin. This caused Wilee, known for his advocacy, to create a thread arguing that the ingame status should be separate from the forum status. Seth gave in, and I was now a "naked" Forum Admin. The Executive Policy was retroactively changed to include an independent Forum Admin position similar to Forum Mod. Although it was written to be generic, it has never been applied to anyone else.
Permban requests
When Mark stepped down, he continued to process permban requests for quite a while, calling it one of his last remaining duties. When he eventually stopped, it was taken over by a variety of people, including Video and the members of smartnt. This was not considered an executive position, just something they did as a side job. After a while, I noticed that the speed of permban requests being processed was dropping dramatically, so I privately offered Seth to take over and was given access to the permban list.
My task of handling permban requests was later turned into a "title", a new type of non-executive position. I handled permban requests under this title for a while, until Admin Officer Zaid decided that it was necessary for the position to become executive again. He called the new position Security Officer, even though the name didn't fit because it was only responsible for permban requests and nothing else. An application was held for it, but I was the only applicant. I was officially confirmed after a public vote, making me an executive once again.
Then, another unthinkable thing happened: Seth had enough of the community and deleted everything, from the forum to the Discord server. The immediate restoration process was led by Admin Officer Fionn. When he created the new Discord server, he gave all executives Discord Admin, since there obviously was no Owner to decide who should have it. When things settled down and Wild was confirmed as the new Owner, the rank was removed from everyone except Fionn and me.
The final change to my ranks came when Wild agreed that the name Security Officer didn't fit what the position was about and renamed it to Ban Manager. He also changed the scope from just indefinite bans to all bans. That is the position I am in today, but I would be very surprised if the story doesn't become even longer in the future.
Mentioned People
- Finest (Finest95): the Owner of the ProBoards forum and a former Senior.
- Fionn (fionn123, FionnTheGuy, DarkPug108, FionnThePug, PugByron, PugTheWug, Pelgrimp, MopsDenWug, 0xFionnx0, Fionnn, Fionnnco, YoureASociopath, Fionnn_lol, UYScutix, discordmods, squeadiv, RealFionn, safent, Catholic_Luigi, dewonye1000, fionnn, ZeroEpoch1969, fiogga, PhotoGameSmash12, fionnsx, spox): a former Admin Officer and Senior.
- Mark (markbyron): the Founder and a former Owner of TotalFreedom.
- Mike (TheCool1Mike): a former Senior.
- Obi (Obi2kanobi, _Obi): a former Senior.
- Seth (CreeperSethT, CreeperSeth, PurpleGirl12500, ZeroEpoch1969, Catholic_Mario, Demonic_Mario, scripthead): a former Owner of TotalFreedom.
- smartnt: a group of high-ranked admins which held a significant amount of power in TotalFreedom while Seth was the Owner.
- Video (VideoGameSmash12, VideoSmash512, PhantomOediv215, VideoSmash215, TheSuspense76, TheVideo, _Video, xXWilee999Xx, CreeperStalin, ban_robin, PolarisSeltzeris, videogamesm12): the current Admin Officer and a Developer and Senior.
- Wild (wild1145, Wild1145): the current Owner of TotalFreedom.
- Wilee (xXWilee999Xx): a former Lead Developer and Senior.
- Windows (Windows_i7_920, ChargedCreeper, Root_User, _Windows, criticsquid, TheMinecraft): a former Owner of TotalFreedom.
- Zaid (Tigermca, Nablus, RealZaid): a former Admin Officer and Senior.
Frequently Asked Questions
What ranks do you currently hold?
- Ban Manager, by application.
- Forum Admin, by appointment (independent of executive position).
- Discord Admin, by appointment (dependent on executive position).
I currently do not hold the Senior Admin rank.
What ranks have you held in the past?
- Super Admin, by application.
- Telnet Admin, by application.
- Telnet Clan Admin, by application.
- Senior Admin, by application.
- Assistant Security Officer (old), by application.
- Security Officer (old), by appointment.
- Forum Mod, by appointment.
- Permban Manager (title), by appointment.
Are you an OP?
If you define an OP as anyone who is not Admin or Senior Admin, then yes. If you include Forum Admin and Discord Admin, then no, because my Forum Admin rank is technically separate from my executive position. In any case, I personally think it's not very useful to see me as an OP.
