The Ba Sing Se Times, Issue 43: 28 July

avatar wiki's community newsletter

Discussion report
Announcements and discussion results:

Technical report

Wikia's new forum feature is now available for testing with our general noticeboard, admin noticeboard, help desk and university sub-forums.

User rights report

Prince James is now a rollback user
MateyY is no longer a rollback user
Lemongrab is no longer a rollback user
SparksFromHades is now a rollback user
Thebigofan is now a rollback user
Sokka's Sword is now a rollback user
Iceland77 is now a rollback user

Message from the Deputy Editor
BlackMonkey

What the heck? BM posted the Ba Sing Se Times issue? Isn't that 888's job?

Let me explain - when your Ba Sing Se Times issue is eight freakin' days late and only has what, three or four articles, they deputy editor has to lend a hand. So yeah, I pulled out a Natsu and sort of overthrew our editor for this issue (sorry wjxhuang) and posted it myself, using what articles we had on the BSST wiki. I really want to say thanks to KFB and Minnichi, who gave me columns at the last minute, allowing this issue to happen. Please give them a pat on the back when you have the chance.

The downside of all this is that I really don't know what I'm doing with HTML compared to 888, so I probably just completely messed up the coding format that we usually make our issues with. I got it done, though, right? It only took an all-out brawl between me and the damn dotted line coding to make it happen. 888, if you have a spare instruction manual on how to make one of these things the correct way, please lend it to me. :)

The actual downside is that all of the articles that were just sent to 888's email are not featured in this issue. That includes the ones sent in by Andrew2070, Omar067, and the second column by KFB are not here, but will be in next week's BSST. If there were others who I wasn't aware of, the same applies to them.

Oh, and about next week's Ba Sing Se Times. You see, we just completely went off of our newsletter's schedule with issue, dead in the center of when we were supposed to have it up and when we want the next one up. Now, the reasonable thing to do would be to move all the scheduled BSST dates back a week so we have the regular two weeks to make the next issue. However, the unreasonable, overachiever method is to get back on the schedule and release Issue 44 on the 11th, as planned. I am going for the latter, getting the Ba Sing Se Times back on track. However, to do so, we will need to construct an issue in six days. We will have all the articles from 888's email that were supposed to be in this one for the issue on the 11th, but it won't be enough. Please, help out and write something - even something small helps.

Information(?) and the Internet
KettleMeetPot

I doubt it comes as a surprise to many of you that this would feature in the Ba Sing Se Times, what with the revelation of cheating in the annual User Awards poll - a momentous occasion every July to celebrate not only the creation of this wiki, but also to thank the hard work and commitment of certain people in building it.

However, it comes as no surprise that it too can be subject to exploitation, on an Internet where popular pages and polls are rampant with trolls, hardcore illogical fanboys (Clarification: Not people with just "Fanboy" in their names ofc!), and the uninformed who click whichever option seems to be the best.

In years past, the popularity of Avatar wiki was not as it is today, and this allowed the polls to retain their honest functionality. The community was far smaller, and this accordingly scaled with trolls and people who would choose to exploit the system rather than play fairly. It also meant that everyone knew who all the nominees were, and subsequently, their merits and contributions. The votes (and nominations) were thus fair and equally weighted. the anonymity was, to an extent, helpful as no one would have to be afraid to act on their opinion, and choose the user who they thought truly deserved the award.

But, as we all know from our experiences on the Internet and just watching the (exaggerated and conservative?) news, anonymity can be a double-edged sword. You have but to look at the frauds and felons committed via this digital medium to figure that one out, as well as the fact that any scientific poll or analyses done on the world web are formally considered as non-evidence.

In any given popular online community, it isn't very hard to find users with unscrupulous intent; there will always be those who will try to sabotage the community under whatever motivation with which they legitimize their actions (or perhaps not even that). The wiki has scaled to a point where freely unregulated systems are an unfeasible method not only to conduct tasks of importance, but also, it seems, to even run relatively trivial award ceremonies.

I'm afraid that, like the War Room, such polling systems as in the User Awards must adapt to fit the new and crowded environment, or risk rigging and malicious tampering. There is a reason why all wikis record both user accounts and IPs, why some pages are locked to users, why the User Awards were so susceptible to manipulation - it is all part of an increasing realization that in order to maintain an efficient and constructive wiki community, anonymity must be largely done away with or restricted in certain aspects.

Like the Internet as a whole, wikia and its subsidiary wikis have tolerated anonymity to a large standard, but the general trend in larger online communities has adapted to the point where you must be identifiable in order to contribute almost anything meaningful or substantial. Furthermore, as the the entire world wide web becomes even larger, that tendency is not set to become any weaker... And this wiki is set to follow suit.

Shipping in Book Two: Spirits
Dcasawang1

After the Comic-con, the creators have been revealing some other details about the second book of The Legend of Korra: Spirits. In different interviews Bryan and Mike have announced important parts of the plot and the fate of some characters after the first book's ending.

The creators and voice actors have expressed their knowledge about the "shipping wars" and the discontent of several fans of the series' pairings. "I'm just trying to hide from the fangirls that are a little upset with Mako at this point, he's not really clearly deciding between Korra and Asami. There are some pissed off fangirls out there, so I'm in hiding" has said David Faustino, Mako's voice actor. Despite of this, it has been confirmed that Book Two will have romance as an important topic as well. Mako and Korra are now together, and they both have really important jobs. While Mako has become a cop in Republic City, "making a big name for himself busting triads"; Korra has yet to adapt to her role as a fully realized Avatar, having to "learn how to really respect her abilities and role". Because of these separate ways, the couple will find that things can get a little complicated as they will try to maintain their relationship. In the other hand, Bolin now will have one of the "most bizarre stories", which may become in a new love triangle. When DiMartino refered to the development of "relationship stuff", he said that "...the ones we deal in Book Two, we've never done before. They're different dynamics".

Click to continue reading!

Another important relationship they commented about was Tenzin and Lin. Janet Varney, Korra's voice actress, expressed her liking on their storyline: "I feel like it's one of the biggest things that happens in Book One, I am so not over what happened to Lin Beifong. I am so not over it. That was one of my favorite things, getting all the tweets from people after that episode aired. So many people tweeted me saying, 'I cannot stop crying!'".

Konietzko then commented: "I think we've learned that it doesn't matter what we do, we'll always upset most people. Most movies and stuff, it's all about leading up to the relationship happening. But very few things deal with 'Now we're together,' [like with Korra and Mako] or 'It didn't work out,' like with Tenzin and Beifong - yeah, you still love these people, but it didn't work out. I think those are kind of interesting things for us to deal with." We can expect much more of romance as a big part of the plot in the upcoming book, new pairings and shippings are meant to continue.

Home, sweet home... Or at least, that's how it should be
The Ultimate Waterbender

Could the word “home” really become synonymous with “Avatar Wiki”? After all, the only thing before you is a screen. A collection of data floating around in the vast universe that is the Internet. Usernames and avatar images belonging to people scattered across the continents, many of whom you couldn’t even match a face to.

Well, that’s the beauty of a community like Avatar Wiki. For many of us who stick around on the site, we find ourselves throwing our heads back in laughter or venting to someone about the horrible monster that can be real life – talking as though we had known someone for six years instead of six months. Through the mystery of cyberspace, you can feel that human presence and you sit back, kick your feet up on the coffee table and think, “I’m at home.” And for once, you’re not talking about your house.

So when cracks appear on that picture-perfect surface, when conflict rears its ugly head and goes hard to work tearing at the seams of our community, you find yourself shaking your head in disgust and asking, “What the heck went wrong?” And whether you’re in the thick of that conflict or silently watching it play out from the sidelines, the truth is, it’s a patch of gray that encircles everyone and threatens to rip apart that “home sweet home” atmosphere. Well, let’s face it – struggle is inevitable. But do we throw away the rules of common courtesy and etiquette just because, hey, another conflict is just bound to happen at some other point? Never.

Respect – it always comes down to that. I know sometimes someone says something nasty to you and in that moment, you just feel like ripping their head off and screaming, “Who the hell do you think you are?” But where does that take you? You come back with a mean remark of your own and the person who offended you in the first place feels threatened and does something even greater to hurt you. And you just keep going at it, sinking lower and lower, until you hit rock bottom and can’t go anything further. Then you wonder where everything spiraled out of control when the real question is “How can you expect to receive respect from someone if you can’t be respectful yourself?” When you feel offended, just take your fingers away from the keyboard for a moment and relax. Think about what to say before you type it, because once you hit “enter” or press “publish”, there’s no taking it back.

And if things are already out of hand, if an argument has already ensued and there’s no turning back now – learn. There is always something to be taken from an experience, no matter how nightmarish. Promise yourself that the next time you receive a hurtful comment, you will relax and remain thoughtful of that person, even if they have irritated you to no end. In the end, that promise may be broken when you slip up and say something biting, but make that pledge anyway because you have to start from somewhere.

And going back to the beginning, the reality that most of the users you can’t picture because you have never actually been in their presence before… Well, there is a face to that username; and a name, a life, a person. You may be communicating through a machine, but you’re not communicating to a machine. Somewhere out there, there’s a person reading and reacting to your comments and they deserve the same consideration as if they were sitting right in your living room.

Conflict cannot put miles between us – living on all corners of the continents does that already. It can’t mar that feeling of home until you struggle to log yourself in because this place has begun feeling more like a prison yard.

We’re Avatar Wiki. We’re better than that.

The Ba Sing Se Times needs YOU.
Have a great Avatar or Avatar Wiki joke?
An interesting opinion about the wiki?
A fanfic that desperately needs readers?
A review of a fanfic you'd like to publish?
Just write a column,
and send it in to the editor.

from the fanon portal

Fanon - Half Booming, Half Dead
BlackMonkey

People, I included, are always complaining about how inactive and dead the fanon portal is these days. Well, it's sort of still is. And sort of not. The fanonical side of the wiki has really been coming along recently. Now with no new Korra info streaming in and trolls spamming Makorra comments after the finale, the community seems to have drifted towards fanon - which is a good thing, for us fanon folks. So part of me wants to congratulate everyone for getting into this side of the site and starting writing stories. We're getting more than we can imagine, oh, and it seems like fanonbending is the new fad these days also. Business is just booming around here lately.

And then, parts of fanon portal still are very much dead. Dead as a doornail, whatever that means. I feel like the guy who just figured out global warming is actually real. The fanon portal is really, truly, inactive, in some areas. Lets look at Featured Fanon and Featured Article voting - that's a big thing, and it used to be buzzing with activity. I think up until the second to last day of July, there wasn't even a single Featured Article nomination all last month. So yeah, that's one thing, go vote for this month.

So yeah, I see a lot more fanons being made, but a lot less fanon activities being contributed too. I really hope we have a good voting turnout for the 4th Fanon Awards, which, as a member of the Fanon Awards Council, is well on it's way. The final ties for council nominations are currently being broken, so the event will officially open and community nominations will begin shortly. There are a lot of variety in the selections we've made - lesser known fanons, popular fanons, new and old alike, so we should be attracting pretty much everyone to participate. Please, check in often, activity should start up in the next week.

Now, this is either a great way to show how dead the portal is these days, or it's a blatant insult to my system, but no one even participated in the Fanon Advertisement System's Promotion Contest in the past two weeks. So if anyone actually wanted to know who won the drawing for the contest this time around, there is no winner because no one even played! If you want to enter to win an exclusive userbox, recognition in the next Ba Sing Se Times, and your name in The Fanon Advertisement System page forever, please just read the current Fanon Promotion and post one or two sentences about what you thought here.

And that brings me to my next topic, this week's Fanon Promotion - The Lifebenders! It's actually a fanon that I help Suzon write, and it's pretty good so far, (we've only got one chapter out) if I do say so myself. It tells the story of an earthbending master named Toka, who is supposed to teach Avatar Yangchen her earthbending. However, he is extremely cocky and conceited, so his veteran teacher, Lee, destroys Toka's legs in hopes to teach him a lesson about his arrogance. Now, Toka has to adapt to his new body and learn modesty and bravery to defeat a rising clan of evil deformed benders, The Lifebenders, who threaten to disrupt the balance of the world forever. Read the first chapter, write a sentence or two about what you thought, and then get put in the aforementioned drawing. It's a good deal, I'm telling you.

And that pretty much wraps up my fanon portal recap of the past couple weeks. What more can I say? Vortex may or may not begin soon, with Omar's final block in all. Readers of my fanon, expect The Final Seminar to still not come out for a bit longer, I've been very busy and might have only five or six paragraphs written so far. It's going to a pretty lengthy and action-packed chapter as far as the "seminar chapters" usually go, so be prepared for a long wait but a good piece of Rhythm.

That's all, folks. BlackMonkey, signing out.

Bending was always a tool for mankind.
Now, mankind is a tool for bending.
The Lifebenders

The Second Round Preview
PSUAvatar14

"The Inaugural Pro-Bending Match", chapter four: "The Second Round"

Here we go with round two! The Winged Lemurs are frustrated about round one, and oh, does it show! Halak goes right at Kuska and blasts her back to the edge of the zone! He wants revenge on her for the round one knockout! Meanwhile, the captains are going at it. This is an interesting strategy to see fire versus earth on two fronts at the moment, and bang! A big fire blast from Shao Fung and Sagashi is back in zone two! The buzzer rang out and Sagashi was left frustrated. He had failed on his own strategy in a matter of a few short seconds.

The Sloths' earthbender tries to pick himself back up, feeling the heat as Shao Fung bears down on him! With the first fifteen seconds gone, right now, it is currently all Winged Lemurs in an apparent repeat of how the first round began! The question is, can they hold up this time after the Aardvark Sloths bounced back last round?

Now is Kuska trying to fight back, but she does not look good right now! Halak's attacks really seem to be putting the strain to her. She is not the same girl who ended round one with a last-second knockout to propel her team, and oh my goodness, Halak drives her into the corner and she is down! Kuska struggles to her feet though, and keeps fighting! Never quitting, what else would you expect from a student of Master Katara?

Well, assuming Mr. Tao is still here, he would be disappointed in the Aardvark Sloths. They are not doing the job he said they needed to do! Right now, it is all Winged Lemurs! Miaka steps up and he hits Sagashi now! The Sloths' captain is now teetering on the edge of zone three, can he survive? Shao Fung drives back at Gitsu and throws him back a zone!

With another buzzer, Gitsu, whom had fallen to the ground from the blast, got up in frustration and quickly gathered up another fire blast.

Thirty seconds gone. Gitsu is set, and wow! A huge fire blast right near Shao Fung's face! Very close to a dangerous shot, but Mantia does not call a foul! Shao Fung looks like he's trying to sell it with his hands to his face, but no dice. Now the Lemurs' captain better watch himself, because Gitsu looks angrier than an untamed dragon! He fires a huge blast again, but this time Shao Fung dodges!

Meanwhile, Halak and Kuska are still brawling with water, as it looks like we are back to direct element-on-element duels! Kuska looks a bit spent at the moment; perhaps exacerbating a bit too much effort at the end of round one, or maybe her nerves are holding her waterbending skills back. Nevertheless; she'd better get it going or she will be in zone three!

Fanon Review: The Lifebenders
Minnichi

Hey fanon portal! Minnichi's signing in for another review, in hopes that it'll distract her from all the back-to-school commercials slowly haunting her TV. Time goes by too fast! But I'm thrilled to see more activity in the fanon portal these days, and that intimidating review schedule of mine only makes me happier. Today I offer my commentary on The Lifebenders by BlackMonkey and Suzon, a fanon still in its beginning stages but that also shows endless potential already.

The Lifebenders is BlackMonkey and Suzon's upcoming fanon. It tells the story of an earthbending master named Toka. He is supposed to teach Avatar Yangchen how to Earthbend. However, he is extremely cocky and arrogant, so Lee decides to teach him a lesson. He destroys Toka's legs in hopes he will now realize he is not the best. Now, Toka has to adapt to being handicapped.

Toka is quite an interesting fellow - and wildly talented! His arrogance has no end, but the writers display it in such a fun and humorous way that you've still gotta love him in the end. Gee, thanks for only letting me read one chapter about him, guys. Update, I say!

Click to see the scores!

The Scores[]

Plot - 8.0: Only one chapter is released at the moment, which hinders the amount of information that can be provided. I don't know too much about the story, and the majority of what I do know comes from the summary on the fanon's main page. Something like this is still not enough for me to consider a deduction, though; the main flaw I want to point out here is that there were many opportunities I saw for the writers to hint at a central plot, most of which weren't taken. This made the story unclear to me until the very end of the chapter, in which I realized Toka had just gotten his legs broken - and even that assumption relied solely on the fanon summary. There are still many events to come, but I believe that that Lee's plans to teach Toka a lesson could have been hinted at before it actually happened; his actions are kind of abrupt the way things are now. It's important to provide these intermediate events so that the story is more obvious to the reader and flows better.
Organization - 8.8: Based on the one released chapter, things seem pretty well-organized, and I can see where things will probably go. Like I said earlier, though, the only unclear aspect was the violence at the end of the chapter. Aside from hindering the plot, this sudden change appears slightly random at the moment. In the grand scheme of events, this is the only one that seems to have been rushed, and that's where my deduction comes from. A little extra effort to work it into the chapter more smoothly would do great for the fanon, and I think that's pretty much all I have to say here. Nicely done!
Creativity – 8.0: I'm sure there are thousands of creative ideas that the writers are planning to release to us later, but based on the first chapter I only see a limited amount of originality. The idea of a talented individual learning his lesson the hard way is common...though breaking his legs was definitely something I didn't see coming! There are many creative methods to go about an unoriginal idea, as we can see here, and I believe the writers are well on their way. I'm just waiting to hear a little more of the story.
Writing – 8.3 (x3): There are hardly any grammar mistakes here, and the descriptions are very nice and easy to picture. I see room for improvement in the dialogue, though, and this greatly affects the fanon overall since the first chapter is mostly made up of conversations. It's not that there's anything missing in the dialogue description, but I just think the way things are worded are somewhat simple at the moment - particularly when it comes to emotions. We're told what each speaker feels either through their tone or through their face, but it's usually expressed by a plain statement that stops us from really connecting to conversation. It's good, but it could dig deeper is what I'm saying. Rather than describing to a reader that someone's anger is spreading over their face, for example, think about how it actually feels...and tell us that instead. Anger can be expressed in many ways, whether a character's face starts boiling red and is ready to explode, whether he speaks in a low voice with an ominous gleam in his eyes, or whether he looks like he's straining to keep himself from unleashing the entire dictionary of curse words. It's crucial to let us in on these details, or we won't feel any of the emotions being described. This actually leads back to my "naming" theory of deduction, which usually only applies to action and the usage of "he (insert element)bended," but in this case it applies to emotion. Don't stop by just telling us that someone's angry or sad, show it! The dialogue is still great and in-depth at the moment, but that last element is what'll bring it to life.
Character Development - 8.0 (x2) The first chapter would've had a huge deduction for character development, since it's too early and none of the characters have developed at all...but the hints are so strong that I just can't do it! The fanon summary itself couldn't state more clearly that Toka's going to learn how to stop his arrogant ways, and practically everyone who speaks to him in the first chapter is pointing out his need to get over himself. It's going to happen. BUT...I still must deduct here somewhat because I don't hear too much about Toka's inner feelings. All we know is that (of course) he's really conceited, but what's his take on it? Does he feel any doubt at all, or does he feel like he has the right to be proud and show it because of his accomplishments? Does he hide any remorse when he insults his teacher, and how much does he truly care for those fangirls? His personality is shown mainly through his dialogue, and I just need to see if there's a "true self" somewhere in there. Perhaps it's exactly the same, but it should be indicated nonetheless. Also, Lee's feelings about his arrogance that lead up to the leg-breaking should definitely be elaborated on as well to reduce the randomness that occurs at the end. Still...something about Toka's fun-loving, charmingly obnoxious character draws me to him, and I must hear more!
Action - 8.6: There wasn't too much action yet, considering that it's only the first chapter, but what I saw so far was pretty high quality. Even Toka's conceited description of his feats had pretty clear visuals. However, I think there's a slight lack of description on movement. We're told what is done and how it's done (such as turning a rock into sand, making it cut into someone's skin, etc.) but what the body's going through is still unclear. It's just as important to show the movements of bending as it is to describe the element being bent (e.g. when "sending a rock," there's a big difference between hurling it through the air with both arms and kicking it across the ground with a foot). This is just a little detail I'd like to see more of, but the action is well-done nonetheless.
Believability – 9.3: Everything I've read so far is pretty believable. Realisitic towns, realistic characters, realistic conflicts...not much to talk about here. The only thing I might mention is that Toka could use some more backstory of how he's so talented. Right now his domination of other Earthbenders makes him sound a tad bit more godly than human!

Overall Score: 8.36

My advice for BlackMonkey and Suzon: Dig into your dialogue, and I'll pretty much have nothing else to complain about. Your fanon will continue on to become a glorious tale, no doubt, and I can't wait to see things get moving!

Who should read The Lifebenders? Anyone who appreciates a good fight will get a lot out of this one, and I can see us all enjoying the intense journey that our lovable protagonist will soon face. It's the work of two great authors at their finest, and you won't want to miss out!

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