community review: HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board!

#1
Aidan
hey fucks, on today's community review we're going to be checking out "HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board!" exclamation mark not mine.
[Image: sKQZ67V.png]
i'm putting this here in lieu of a board logo because it appears roughly in the place of one. in fact, that image appears just about everywhere onscreen, including tiled infinitely in the background. a copy of that image appears next to each board, in much the same way an 8bit sparkly cock appears next to our PPP, and the symbol on kyo's jacket appears next to our life chat. being 240x240, this stretches the absolute fuck out of the page and makes it probably twice as tall as it needs to be.

after the photobucket prompt, the most eyecatching thing is the news ticker zipping by at 4000 miles per hour. the text contains such helpful messages as "Can u tell I'm bored?" and "3..." "2..." "1..." "LET IT RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP," fitting for the theme of a beyblade website run by an illiterate weeb girl. i commend the webmaster for dedication to the theme

there are no less than 25 forums, divided helpfully into "General," which includes general chat as well as boards on several Beyblade series, "Fandom," a place to share one's Beyblade fanfiction, fan art, fan poems and fan couples, "Fun Stuff," where you can either post your favorite Beyblade quote or post threads about which character you hate, "Role Play," which contains two boards that aren't for roleplay and one called The Park, and "Other," where there are boards for links, affiliate, the webmaster's favorite quizzes, and more.
i was extremely pleased by the easy to use navigation on HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board! it's incredibly intuitive to go to the General section to talk about my favorite beyblade character, then scroll for 20 minutes to get to the Fandom section and discuss my least favorite.

clearly there's nearly endless depth in just the front page, but in a community review we should get to the meat of the communities: the posts. the most recent posts are all from around March 2009, but some boards haven't been posted in at all, and the rules haven't been updated since 2004.

let's take a look at a thread from 2004 entitled "Who do you think is the best Beyblader?" this one is actually a poll. Kai comes in the lead with 12 votes, while Rei and Max trail behind with 2 and 1 respectively. none of the other 5 choices received a single vote. HimawariGurl herself contributed to the discussion, telling fellow posters that she picked Kai "...BECAUSE HE'S MINE!!! What kinda person would I be if I DIDN'T!!!" as the results would imply, most would agree, claiming "Kais the best blader hands down" is this hive mind mentality evidence of potential power abuse? more investigation is required.

i next browsed the Couples board to see if HiwatariGurl's iron fist was there stamping out love, but there weren't actually any threads about couples. instead there were 400 consecutive ads for valium. spambots are a threat to any message board, and it seems HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board! couldn't escape them either. will minus world one day become a repository for web crawlers shilling penis enlargement pills? only time will tell

next up is the Fanfic board. here we have chapter 1 of a story entitled "Can't We All Just Get Along?" i'll let the author describe her own work: "Kai’s supposed to be the cold and solitary leader. Then why does he talk to me? Well me, him, and Ray have been palying these mental games with one another for a while now. And up until last year it was all innocent fun. But now I think Kai and Ray are both falling for me causing the way things were to go upside down." chilling stuff.
this community has an overwhelmingly positive response to writing. one user says "[glow=red,2,300] :)Hey this is good! Keep it commin! I'm on the edge of my seat here! 8-) ??? ;) :)[/glow]" her post had four more emojis but they, too, turned into dead photobucket links. another user threatens "If you don't keep on going, Im agonnna hurt you. J/K! I love the story."

another thread by user Ray's Girl contains this enticing tidbit of a story "I am Cassidy,aka Chii.I died and went to the beyblade world.My beyblade isa Flash Driger my age is 10.I have short black hair with a big strand growing my ankles that is red.I love Ray." this story also received positive response, with both replies assuring the author that her work "sounds good." truly HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board! must've been a fantastic community for up and coming authors. i can only imagine where their work has taken them 12+ years down the road.

the next two boards were also busts. the quiz board had two quizzes on it, and both were dead links. the roleplay board simply had no posts at all. perhaps the community preferred the comfort of solitary writing to a collaborative roleplay?

last stop on our tour, the links section. as you'd expect, it's a repository of dead links. one thread, simply entitled "Kingdom Hearts," caught my eye. it's a link to another board. though the rules explicitly state that the section is to be used for beyblade related links, HiwatariGurl excuses the flagrant misconduct because "she's my friend I allowed her to do so." clear mod abuse. perhaps her corrupt nature and loose grip on the rules is what did HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board! in.
the link is, of course, dead, but it was also hosted on proboards. why is the kingdom hearts site dead, yet HiwatariGurl's Beyblade Message Board! still lives? is HiwatariGurl planning a big comeback? and will she again rule with an iron fist? it's not for me to know.

anyway i hope you enjoyed voyeurism: ten years late. make sure to downvote, and don't comment or subscribe. thanks.
#2
Mario
Fantastic review. I'm glad you did a Kingdom Hearts Deep Dive into the community, really gives us a powerful window into this community. It's nice to see it lived for around 5 years!!! Though we were too late for this one... I'm shocked to see both Proboards still around and them not purging this forum, clearly they don't purge their dead boards ever if at all.
#3
Shroomguy
We should revive the forum
The Beef Baron
#4
Mario
(Oct 11, 2017 at 5:46 AM)Shroomguy Wrote: We should revive the forum

If we post in it, Would They Come?

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