The 50 most influential users in Board 8 history

The 50 most influential users in Board 8 history was a list Smurf put together in early 2012.

''The theme of "influence" is a difficult one to quantify and looking at the thread today from yoblazers old bracket and some of the names mentioned I'll say that it may not be what people are expecting. Influence should not be confused with popularity and I'm approaching the ranking of people with a simple question in mind:

"How much did their contributions shape board 8 into what it is and was."

How much impact did the user have doing what they did, basically. Board 8 is a mix of the good and the bad, these rankings will include both.

It's worth noting my write-ups and accounts of the ranked users will be based entirely on recall, any corrections or further details you can provide are of course, welcome.''

Honorable Mentions
Alanna82, SSJ3 Popo, Punk Rock Geek, BigCow, Steinershocker, Kosmo Trainer, lol internet, Priest of Gix

The List
~*~ 50. fr0q ~*~

Shake once said about Board 8 in 2003...

''2003. Almost everyone notches that as the funnest. Still, I think the users were also flat-out more entertaining. If I can be the cranky old man again, nowadays everyone is waiting and reading for something to happen, but nobody is making it happen.''

fr0q was a prime example of one of those "making it happen" kind of guys. His reputation back then was not only as a board troll, he was "the" board troll. In the space of a single contest he'd been banned repeatedly, seen on multiple accounts, engaged in many planned ToS violation sprees and later in the year was rumoured to have received a KoS mark on his head. This all sounds a little juvenile but the reputation and the image of a "troll" was vastly different back then. For one if you even mentioned the word you often had to give an explanation as a follow up, it wasn't quite the household term it is today nor were the actions commonplace on a site pre - black LUEsday and before 4chan even existed. A troll back then had a degree of mystique, an air of danger. They were talked about more than you actually saw them post, fr0q more than the rest.

Points of Impact:
 * Banning, axes, usermaps and the KoS mark all became discussed items on the board originally due to fr0q.
 * The idea of ban evasion with multiple accounts, multiple IPs etc was also at work with fr0q.
 * This led to plenty of paranoia from people as to who was or who wasn't fr0q at any given time, it seemed apparent he had the means to have a postable account within 48 hours at will, generally leading to wild speculation as to who it was now.
 * Some of his alts were given personalities of their own to assist his trolling, one of the earlier occurrences of alt trolling.

Notable moment:

The love letters and harassing of a female user: Aerith Gainsborough. The poems and pleading for her love spanned across several boards and created a whirl of sympathy for the guy until we eventually discovered the extent he had taken it and that via a suicide at a later stage that it was just this guy again.

Legacy:

fr0q's reputation and image changed dramatically after 2003 as he settled on the username Newdalls amongst others. His trolling lessened (escapades with BEthstardust aside) and became mostly known as the resident board artist. His 2003 persona however, on a board which was never flush in trolls with intent has him as one of the most prominent trolls the board has seen.

The Poor Mans fr0q?: LightLink22

~*~ 49. Lettuce Kefka ~*~

''AHEM! There's Lettuce in my boots''

An account spawned from a memorable match picture Heffnin later become known as Lettuce Kefka or "LK". His presence was mainly sporadically during the 2003-2007 seasons. Mostly renowned as a typical all-rounder kind of board 8'er, not really fitting into any kind of niche. Was prominent in lighthearted chat, joking threads and fad topics, notably the "lettuce kefka is my god" fad. He was a bit like a Sir Chris in many ways and would have struggled to make the field in this list were it not for that one thread that I would argue was one of the greatest threads ever made on board 8, and undeniably a very significant one.

Points of Impact:
 * Creator of FFVII: ASCII Children. Telling the story of FFVII through intentionally basic and hilarious ASCII drawings.
 * The main draw from all this was a character introduced in the early stages, the Midgar Zolom nicknamed "Zolomy". The drawing, the language, its recurrence through the story was brilliantly done and he instantly became a hit with the boards. So much of a hit it practically became our mascot and answer to LUEshi. The wave behind him was so strong he even managed to get Midgar Zolom a place in the 2007 battle.

Notable Moment: .________________ ......|.................| ......|.................| ......|.................| ......|.................| ......|.................| ......|.................| ......|.................|
 * ......O....__.....O..........| Hay guyz
 * ___.....<__>.....____|

~*~48. Pleinair ~*~

It's generally impossible to engage Pleinair in a normal human conversation on any topic.

Pleinair is a fine example of a board 8'er whose very existence is a complete oddity. Pleinair displayed a bizarre consistency in making one liner observation topics and ensuring they survived for days, weeks, months, years, infinity presumably if the 500 lock didn't come sooner. Their character was largely unknown, even down to their gender. Their interests and outlooks usually restricted to the brief observations and occasional flame outbursts towards particular people on the side. A widely known anti-social presence which wasn't untypical for the place at all.

Points of Impact:
 * Usually was the owner of several of the oldest active threads on the board.
 * GanonNess attempted to sabotage Pleinairs clutch on relic threads, in a roundabout way it succeeded.

Legacy:

The prime reason for stricter thread control by moderators at the time, the rule preventing repeated bumping was enforced more stringently.

~*~ 47. SemiFinal vs Belarus ~*~

This topic shall serve as a log of my suffering, and as a chronicle of the final moments of my life should any cutscenes or plot twists prove fatally idiotic. - Semi on Xenosaga 3

Semi (alongside Popo, Aeon and AT) were at the pinnacle of high quality, snappy, rhetoric posts during the golden age of this kind of thing. These were guys who had the typing equivalent of a silver tongue and were almost always worth having their posts read. It could well be argued the staggered loss of these four was one of the major differences between the 2003 board and later editions.

Semi himself was the self-loathing, hate filled, cynic who embraced all these characteristics and made them part of his game. Despite his post-2003 departure he emerged in later years on his alt dorobou as a less frequent poster.

Points of Impact:
 * Managed somehow to win a user contest despite having not even logged onto gamefaqs in over a year.

Notable Moment:

The hunt for Semi after his absence from the board was a strange one. Most users who leave fade away very quickly and are rarely mentioned again, Semi leaving the board just simply was not allowed to happen with Alanna in particular bringing constant reminders of him in his absence. Gaining so much notoriety on the board without doing anything at all is truly a sign of someone who left a lasting impression.

The Poor Mans Semi? Do Not Even Ask

~*~46. SDragonRocker5 ~*~

If obama gets elected black people are going to run over white people - SDR on politics.

Imagine a hillbilly, a pedophile and ertyu and you're getting somewhere close to the core of what SDR was. Yet another user who never really interacted a huge deal with the denizens of board 8 much preferring to use it as BlogFAQs to proclaim his twisted views.

The subjects of his threads usually revolved around two things: guitars and young girls. His guitar playing hobby was borderline obsessive and the hook on these threads was his lack of interaction on the subject and just generally making the same thread about wah foot pedals dozens of times despite absolutely nobody caring. SDR could never seem to understand the communities reaction to him and continued making the threads.

His hugging young girls business and associated church groups made him appear a very seedy individual.

Generally SDR was one of those individuals that appeared so twisted, warped and single minded that many on the board thought there was no way whatsoever that he could be legit and had to be an alt. Until his personal details was found and everything he said checked out....

Points of Impact:
 * Making multiple threads about foot pedals / guitars / riffs / amps day after day.
 * Attraction for young girls

Notable Moment:

His photo being found and posted. Naturally he was holding a guitar, most likely in the process of playing a riff of an awesome quality.

Legacy:

Anytime a topic involving young girls is made it is often called for to compare the author to SDR. The Awesome Riff! catchphrase remains a relevant thing to say in any discussion involving guitars.

~*~ 45. nintendogirl ~*~

In the many years of board 8 we had a lot of female alts, females who wanted to be left alone, lesbians who didn't want your attention to begin with and females with all sorts of weird baggage attached that were best left alone. What we didn't have was a legitimate, all action attention whore.

Ngirl changed all that and was very quickly providing pics nao, sex stories, nudes (later claimed to be fake) and just a general reminder of what she was as a suggestion for seedy attention. The hilarity ramped up when she was later made a mod which was met with initial skepticism and hostility from the board before eventual acceptance.

The mod powers, attention seeking and edgey posters could have landed a different person into a polarised position amongst the board but ngirl thankfully had far more substance to her board 8 repertoire boasting a wide range of contributions in areas of stats, soccer discussion and general gaming. Making her generally well liked, ...generally.

Points of Impact:
 * Whoring
 * Controversial Mod appointment and the associated drama.
 * Posts continuing into sigs.

Notable Moment:

She enjoyed attention so much from CE she kept screenshots of times there were several threads about her.

Legacy:

Signature posting was popularised from her witty additions. She laid down a marker as the standout attention whore which may never be bested.

~*~43. Slowflake ~*~

If there was ever one user who characterised all the perceived negative traits of a stats user it was slowflake. Being highly eccentric, emotional and easily wound up when discussing matters of the contest were common in slowflakes posts, he took anything to do with the contest as a matter of utmost seriousness. His relationship with the non-stats part of the board was notable in his general disdain for entertaining the thoughts of anyone outside his posting circle and was rarely seen posting in the non-contest parts of the board.

Points of Impact:
 * Rage quitting a thread or line of discussion which wasn't reaching a favourable conclusion. He generally held a poor capacity to debate often leading to dramatics.
 * The very definition of a stats poster. Interesting, in-depth views with projections and a strong manipulator of stats.
 * Host of the board odds project.

Notable Moment:

Being the host of the 2006 nomination rally tournament and literally abandoning the project because of fixing accusations. Not even just abandoning the project, he abandoned the board as well for several months.

~*~42. The Albion Hero ~*~

I am mentally incapable of reading because I have ADD.

Albion shot to prominence around 2005, in a timeframe which generally did not yield a productive crop of new users. Albion was possibly the most undesirable of the lot with his dry, transparent attempts to generally annoy anyone who read his posts. I find it difficult to describe him as a troll because I never for a moment thought he was enjoying what he was doing, he struck me a self-destructive depressed guy who wanted to give everyone he met a taste. Most of his early topics were in relation to the console wars; being a particularly pro-Xbox person this naturally led to conflicts on board 8. He later expanded to other areas of the board before developing an interest in the stats topic and settling down somewhat.

Points of Impact:
 * Claimed suicide at least once.
 * Has attempted multiple rallies during several close contest matches.
 * Seems incapable of joy if its not at the expense of someone or something else.

Notable Moment:

Making a thread one christmas insulting his grandma for getting him the Guitar Hero III guitar pack as someone else had already got it for him.

The Poor Mans Albion? Silencer S

~*~ 41. SineNomine ~*~

''I admit, I'm a corrupt mod. When a user flames another user and it's quite funny, I tend to forget how to delete it.''

Prior to 2005 board 8 had a very testing and thorny relationship with moderators and the gamefaqs moderating stance in general. There were frequent bannings of regular board 8'ers and often over mundane reasons which drew plenty of collective facepalming towards the staff. In general the Gamefaqs ToS and its enforcement has been renowned internet wide for just how ridiculously bad and counter productive it was. (At least until the recent changes).Naturally the moderator staff who willingly applied to enforce such a ToS would by default be met by caution from board 8 which had numerous hostile encounters with previous mods.

Then Sine came along with his sunny disposition, lenience with the b7 and being happy to explain any moderator issues with users who'd ask. As a user he was a fun, likable guy to have around. As a moderator he was a revelation in improving board 8's relationship with the staff of gamefaqs. Since then we've had many moderators who've integrated strongly into the community but Sine was the first to penetrate more than just Sir Chris.

The Poor Mans SineNomine? red13n

~*~40. SHINE GET 64 ~*~
Always guaranteed to post something interesting, and as such he's one of the most silly and engaging users on the board. Might be the most creative user on the board, except that his creativity is literally all over the place. - Ed Bellis on SHINE.

SHINE is a gamers gamer and the principle outlet of tidbits of gaming news and information throughout the years. He's a guy who eats, drinks and sleeps video games. He plays console games non-stop and probably simultaneously on a handheld as well, his backloggery and PS3 trophy collection is impressive evidence of a man with a gigantic passion for gaming and this spills off into his outlets of feverish excitement, hype and discussions like no other user. Board 8 has very few dedicated gaming users and none quite in the mold of SHINE but thats not where his contributions end.

He's also had a knack for many lighthearted and interesting projects. Apparently these projects were so creative that the creativity manifested itself physically in his vicinity.

Points of Impact:
 * Kobe battles involving a series of simple yet hilarious jpegs. The best was surely during the female contest.
 * the SHINE awards
 * Popularised backloggery, he is the resident completionist after all.
 * SHype is his brand of candy filled excitement for a new game on the horizon.

The Poor Mans SHINE? Viewtiful Darkness

~*~39. the jp ~*~

It's actually a misconception that we choose to pay attention to the jp, its an unfortunate necessity due to his weak gravitational pull. - makeyourchance on topics by the jp

the jp was a guy who showed up on the board sometime around 2004 and didn't really make much of an impression at first. He was there and most people recognised the name but that was about it. It was at a later date that something so simple made a gigantic (pun unintended) impression. He posted a picture of himself. He was an extremely obese man basically.

This brought out the worst in board 8 and the jokes and heckling towards him became incessant, literally extending over years in virtually every topic he posted. Board 8 has always had this compulsion to recycle old jokes in topics from the relevant user (see: #1 Inviso), when those snippets happen to be on a sensitive matter its often led to a virtual breakdown of the user and an eventual exit. There's more of those examples later in the list but the jp is a particularly prominent one.

I was a bit split on the whole jp saga, on the one hand he was initially a really bad and annoying user and sometimes it's nice to see to see some board karma in that regard. On the other his main detractors (Makeyourchance, Sess and Explicit Content) were like a dog with a bone, the whole thing got a bit juvenile pretty quickly and it wasn't hard to feel sorry for the guy after a while. Having someone heckled or pestered off the board because they failed to deliver on an account closure promise or something of that nature I can get behind, doing it for no other reason than their weight seems like an elementary school kind of thing. Struck me as an episode where in retrospect the board came out looking poorly from.

Points of Impact:
 * A hang up on Aeris to the point of obsession.
 * Overly sensitive with a poor capacity to handle negative comments.

Notable Moment:

The unfortunate timing of his picture release coinciding with the board popularity of Katamari Damacy.

Legacy:

"The" associated user with fatness and obesity.

~*~ 38. omegamanGXE ~*~

''what the **** thats NOTTT my boyfriend. ive met him once. oh my god..'' - omegamans girlfriend on omegaman.

omega was a typical board 8'er around the 2007 crop of newcomers. He was mostly recognised on the board though stood out for very little. Until a certain episode occurred which not only branded him for the rest of his board 8 existence but also was a symbolic event of how its usually best not to tangle board 8 into your everyday life and also the bizarre lengths and risks people would go to for board 8 credibility.

His story simply was that he was a guy who had acquired a girlfriend. A girlfriend he liked talking about very much, often in explicit detail and often accompanied with revealing pics. (Like so: http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/3968/imageeb3.png) This dominated his board 8 identity for a while and he seemed quite happy to milk the attention that came with it, I can't say I paid a great deal to these threads but they were clearly persistent enough for brakmaster to feel that it was worth checking out. He contacted the girl on myspace and it was not only revealed that he wasn't with him, she barely even knew him. In one fell swoop both his real and internet social life was demolished.

It was a ruthless and downright hilarious uncovering and while I'd have reservations with jp's treatment, omega had earned every drop of it.

Points of Impact:
 * Tried to look cool on the internet
 * Failed, was ridiculed forever.
 * Easily one of the most spectacular failures witnessed on board 8.

Notable Moment:

Why would he risk social disaster in real life for some kind of internet fame? - The event summed up by kungfu chicken

~*~ 37. Team Rocket Elite ~*~

An ever level headed, constructive presence on the board TRE's contributions are much like his character: never particularly dramatic but when you scratch the surface you realise just how much he's given to the board over a long period. He was rightfully promoted to the status of moderator a couple of years ago and is considered a huge success story in his new role compared to the adaptation of a certain other board 8'er in a similar position.

Points of Impact:
 * Long time stats contributors.
 * Maintains the stats archive dating back to 2002.
 * Became a mod, it didn't alter his character.
 * Host of the First Vote contests

Notable Moment:

The stats topic in their hunt to find the weakest character imaginable who was eligible for the battle found their man after the unknown N-Gage character "Jay Solano" was suggested by TRE. His logic was sound and his rallied fans soon became larger than even his ginormous chin. Unfortunately a contest never happened for him but he did feature in a board 8 only poll. An ironic end for somebody destined as the king of fodder to beat the contest tormentor Link in his one and only appearance.

~*~ 36. Heroic Mario ~*~ (ZFS)

Ganons route to victory: -Vincent

In 2003-2006 this guy was seen as the ultimate fanboy bar none. Each and every contest he'd his own personal flavour of the month character and vehemently proclaim their imminent glory in the upcoming battle. A definite consumer of wishful thinking, his emotions ran high during contest season and while his prediction accuracy was off his passion and excitement was unrivaled, usually adding an extra point of interest to some matches.

Points of Impact:
 * Made popular the Heroic ____ series of alts which everyone had at some point in the early years.
 * Lost his account by betting on Ganondorf beating Sonic. Unfortunately for him and Ganondorf he couldn't defeat the preliminary test to even make it to Sonic.
 * Famous for a highly dynamic top games list which usually changed anytime he played something new or replayed something.

Legacy:

Anyone who makes frequent changes to their top games list or has a habit of proclaiming their currently played game as the greatest thing ever is an appropriate situation for comparison to HM.

~*~ 35. Tombs ~*~

Tombs was the only one I could have a decent conversation with - Vlado on Board 8's attitude to serious discussion topics.

Tombs influence on the board was somewhat of a shared one alongside the likes of fellow 2004 newcomers Steinershocker, but Tombs being the most prominent will get the most credit for how this new wave of users impacted the board. The 2004 newcomers were a very different breed of person migrating to the board and easily the most striking the board had ever seen. The board for the first time had experienced an off season where it wasn't shut down and for the first time the contest board was becoming less of a temporary event full of anonymous users and more of a community of people that was permanent. The new wave of users were far more social and brought about a different line of discussion, the kind of face to face sort of chats and real life observations that board 8 never really touched previously. The downside was the board slowly becoming less and less spectacular as these guys came in and others left for pastures new on LL or GFA.

Tombs was a cornerstone of this change and while initially was a boiling over pot of britisms hilarity he later became one of the more mature culture residents. Sparking music/drinking/soccer/social discussion. What he did all sounds very mundane and it is by todays standards but at the time when the board was a raving bunch of lunatics with the rest of the numbers made up by people who wanted to run or vote in contests 24/7 being the normal guy wanting to talk about normal things made him the outright weirdo and the one pushing the board in a new direction.

Points of Impact:
 * A major contributor to the rap battle fad in its early stages.
 * A social user who engaged in all areas on the board, lacking the usual hangups of users prior to 2004.

The Poor Mans Tombs? XIII is Cool

~*~34. Makeyourchance ~*~

Thanks, Bison - CjayC interacting with MYC

MYC shot to prominence on his arrival to the board in the Sess/EC style of risque troll with an in your face no holds barred style of posting. This was unleashed on the usual suspect like the jp. While mostly being a pretty polarising user and liked for his creativity and sharp tongue it was his life decisions after this that shocked the board.

Points of Impact:
 * Creator of the match picture for Board 8's Link/Solano bonus poll.
 * Had a sex change
 * Declared intention for suicide more than once, didn't go through with it.

Notable Moment:

At one stage out of the blue to most on the board MYC decided to have a sex change and posted his intentions on this matter. It was assumed a joke topic which wasn't untypical for him but later pics/video/audio revealed the actual extent of just how serious how was with this. On various hormone supplements afterwards his moods swung wildly into the probably most volatile user the board had ever seen. He swung from the polar opposites of extreme aggression to someone who was keen to show their sentimental side. He/She became a bizarre charade of going through the emotional motions in the end.

Legacy:

Yet another example of a troubled individual of which you probably wouldn't find in other communities, MYC was particularly symbolic for these issues spilling over into his life and his personal dissatisfaction with who he was. Being one of the most unique and vocal people on the board for several years allowed him to have a powerful impact.