My IB Story

I have been an Icon Buffet member since before there was even a forum! Yeah, that's right, we had to sign friends up and hope they were given different deliveries to trade! Happily a Vanilla forum was installed PDQ and it was no longer necessary to travel in pixelated circles. Things were a bit primitive compared with the custom system we have today, but somehow we got by as long as we remembered to enter our e-mail address for the delivery. I always checked in about every month or so and was lucky enough to have all the icons when the new system was put in place.

I knew changes were planned, and I was not surprised to find a whole new site when I made my regular visit. I was happy because my one complaint, the lack of persistent session cookies, was fixed. Little did I know...

I made my first sappy blog post on Mar 08, 2007. At the time, there was a sidebar discouraging flames, trolls, or misguided, angry words. It seemed fair to me, I am getting free high quality icons here to use as I choose. What's not to love? I started checking back more often, perhaps even daily, then after that hourly, then constantly, to see what the icon collectors would say.

I soon found out that there can be sadness even in a happy icon-loving society. Bright stars were lost. Even worse, harsh words were directed towards well meaning folks who only wanted to share the icon love. It almost seemed that the competitive nature of earning points could kill the joy of sharing.

I wish I could recreate a day early in May when the revolution took place. It was early on a Sunday morning, and I had developed a hint of the colic and was unable to venture into town with the family. By then logging in and checking the forums was as natural as waking up for me. What greeted me on that day was a bold and reckless commitment to sharing that was as reckless and visionary as an uprising ever was.

As I mentioned, all of this took place during the weekend, when the chefs were out enjoying the early spring sunshine, and those of us who participated had no clue as to what would happen come Monday morning when the sun of a sober workweek rose on our doings. In a bold display of solidarity we all donned identical icons crafted by the talented cheiie so that no one would mistake that something large had happened.

I do want to tell you that I have never laughed so much for so long in my entire life. That entire day was filled with brilliance and humor both on purpose and entirely accidental. It was a good day to be alive.

History tends to flatten important events, and it is easy to summarize our accomplishments with phrases like "115 people are interested in The Pirates (225,460 points between them)". The spirit lives on, however, whenever a hapless new recruit shares with impunity. Enjoy your freedoms, and feel secure that otherwise normal and mostly geek girl pirates has got your back.

Arrr