I'm wide awake (thanks to a four hour nap) so this is as good a time as any to write another piece of the owner blog. This piece will go out to my staff who have helped me out through the years.
Malte - Malte was the first person "hired" to help me out in the treestars.net forums (our predecessor to the GOF) and has been practically my strong right hand since 2002. I saw in Malte a compassionate LBT-aholic with everything LBT-related under the sun in a German flat. Malte will analyze and analyze again the philosophy that is LBT and how other stories can be fashioned from that environment. I would call him "Mr. LBT" if he'd accept that.
Besides being familiar with our target business, Malte is very good at debating and rationally looking at board matters and I'll be the first to admit, I don't always see eye to eye with him about things. It happens, but the trust is there, and that's why Malte has been a GOF admin since its creation in 2003.
Jason - Jason was another person I met very early on when I decided to look around for LBT related topics online in 2002. I've never known Jason to be angry at anyone (though I'm sure he is at times!) and he's flat out the friendliest and calmest individual I've come across online in difficult situations. Its his ability to keep a cool head and think through issues that quickly brought him to the GOF admin staff in 2004 when we moved to Invisionfree (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember you being on staff on the old forums).
Nick - Nick kind of just showed up one day looking for LBT topics on our old treestars.net forums and later helped me out when I was fumbling around with the idea of a LBT forum for discussions and games. I didn't talk much with Nick in the early days, but he was willing to work with me and try to get what would become the GOF online and running. Eventually, we abandoned my old ideas and he joined up on the GOF officially in 2004 when the old LBT forum was shuttered on ezboard. Nick, like Jason, thinks through things rationally and his ability not to give up despite the odds being against him (that old site never had a chance) is what made me make him a mod on the GOF upon joining here. He later became an admin in 2005.
Brian (Intrepid) - Most current members of the GOF will likely have no idea who this Brian is that I'm talking about (don't confuse him with the Brian who is Aves). I met Brian on another couple of furry sites, and worked with him on his own forums and built a very strong trusting friendship online with him. I appointed him to admin staff on the GOF in 2004 to help out because I could trust him and besides myself, he also knew how to work with coding of Invision PB. Unfortunately, friendships don't last forever, and ours broke apart when Brian worked out his personal life and found that he needed to focus more on life around him, than the life of online chats, video games, and technology. I was happy to see him get his real life in shape, despite the fact I haven't been able to contact him since 2005, and he was (respectfully) demoted from the GOF staff.
Tim - Tim is another one of those who just kind of showed up one day in 2005 looking for LBT sheet music I think it was. We didn't have any sheet music here, but he liked our forums and stuck around. I think it was his and my passion for music that made me like Tim, and through chats I found out that he'd be a welcome addition to our staff as a friendly person, who can hold his own in a debate over strong issues. Tim started as a board moderator, and I later bumped him up to administration in 2006. He's become quite handy with working on various pieces of board code when I'm not around, and I thank him for doing so.
NewOrder - Once again, most people here would not recognize NewOrder (never knew his real name) as a staff member. He was a member of the old boards under a really confusing name I couldn't pronounce, and followed us over to Invision in 2004. He was one of the GOF's forum mods to basically keep order and keep things going. I never spoke with him as much as the rest of the staff, and that probably is one reason he only was a limited forum mod while others were promoted over him. He did his job well as a mod, and I've never been disappointed with his ability as a forum mod. Due to his lack of time online (and on the GOF) his duties had been lessened over the years, to allow those who are on often to help out on staff.
Brian (AvestheForumFox) - A fox walked into the GOF in 2008 looking for LBT roleplaying. What he found was a dying section of our board that none of us staff seemed to focus a lot of our time on, and frankly didn't care much about (except for Nick..he kept what was left alive). Anyway, Brian wasn't a member for two days and I received countless PM's on how to make the RP section of the GOF much more inviting and creative which would spark interest among members. He also had something the rest of the staff didn't really have--the drive to do something with role plays. I hadn't role-played seriously since 2006, Malte, Jason, and Tim didn't have much of an interest in it, and poor Nick was doing what he could. The section needed help, and I put Brian on the job immediately. He still holds the record for the quickest to reach staff levels - a mere few weeks once I chatted more with him and found out just how important and useful he could be for the community.
Gustav - Gustav is the latest addition to our staff and has only been on the job for a few months now, and that's considerably short when you consider all my admin staff has been here for years and years, but he's fulfilled the role I created for him. Gustav is a very active role player and Brian honestly needed a second helper once I realized how much he needed to concentrate on getting his real life on track over his duties here at the GOF. I put out a search for a second RP mod and found that I liked the truthfulness and honesty I found in Gustav's responses to my questions and he seemed very well liked from the role play community that grew out of Brian's cultivating of the section. Gustav has done all I've expected of him.
That pretty much covers every personal story I can come up with about our GOF staff as I have known them, why they have earned the positions they have, and why I feel you can put your faith in them as much as you could me to keep the GOF community in tip-top shape. I can't do it without you guys...this blog was for you!
EDIT: I forgot someone on the list! If you read this before, read it again!
