Age/Gender: 32, Male
Location: Wyndmoor, PA
Job: Web Developer
I harness the power of Teh Intrenets.
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Entry #24
Man oh man, I spent weeks dreaming about today.
The idea was first mentioned as a "what if..." when we were discussing how Google sold out to gain market share in China. The idea snowballed from there: What would Newgrounds actually be like if it were run by Chinese officials? Now we get to find out.
Anyway, getting back to my main point: the new site skin. I'll admit, it's a little abrasive. As the guy behind all the CSS, I was a little annoyed when I had to sit down with the Chinese officials and listen to their ideas about a new color scheme. I hate to admit that it's growing on me but still I wish they listened to just a little more of my input. Would it kill them to allow a little blue or green somewhere? Hell, maybe even a little black. At any rate, the entire re-skin took me only 8 hours total, including a little back-and-forth on the approval process.
The other changes are trivial. A few restrictions on free speech for starters, which is perfect since were were looking for a reason to close down the BBS anyway. We're phasing it out slowly by allowing our new Chinese users to post there for a while but it'll soon be gone for good; I just wish the moderators hadn't leaked the story until we were ready to break it ourselves. Anyway, people can still post on their user pages of course since it's more of a private area, though we may still have to censor speech there too. We can't have Newgrounds users saying just any old thing they want or we might get in trouble. Also, many user page banners are offensive so we had to fix a small percentage of those as well.
One major upside is that the Newgrounds Chat is finally up and running. We're still approving people as they come in, and there's a bit of a backlog while the moderators approve comments, but it's a definite step in the right direction.
I'm probably most psyched to work with my good friend Xi-Jinping on his first Flash submission (now that he can finally see the site in China). He did almost all the work, but I did the voices. The guy has a sick sense of humor but he's right: life's too short to be worried about offending someone.
Speaking of which, it's a little disconcerting to me that Tom is going along with the new rules about adult submissions. There are some pretty funny movies that I can't watch right now, but Tom assures me it'll be for the best in the end. Plus, there doesn't seem to be too many people in the BBS complaining about the content restrictions anyway. I guess that means no-one has a real problem with the decision and I should just accept it already.
Well, hope everyone is as psyched about the new changes as I am!
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