Showing Support

Y'know, when I first signed up for the PokéCommunity nearly 5 years ago, I would have never believed that I would get to 1,000 posts. I've joined many a forum on the web, and while I've done a lot of lurking on those different sites, I'd wager I never posted more than 500 times on all of them combined (and trust me, there have been quite a few). But with that being said, on Wednesday I finally hit that milestone mark. Personally, I'm a big fan of post quality over quantity, but even I can't ignore a number like that. And don't worry, if you're confused while reading this and I still happen to be sitting at 999 posts, you must have not clicked on that first link- it shows that my first account had a grand total of one post. If you do the easy math, my lifetime total nicely adds up to the 1K mark, which doesn't even include the handful of posts I've made in boards where posts don't add to your count.

To be perfectly honest, it took me a while to think about what has kept bringing me back to PC over these last few years, so I made myself a little list to try and find out exactly why I'm still here.

• Yes, I still play the games (just bought White 2 the other day, but have yet to start), and I even buy myself a booster pack from the TCG every once and a while, but I'm nowhere near as big of a fan of the franchise as the 10 year old me was.
• I'm a part of a few clubs on PC, but they aren't always that active, so it's not like I'm chomping at the bit to see what's new and exciting everyday.
• I'm not a moderator and highly doubt I'll ever get asked to be one, which means that I have no obligation to be here if I don't want to. The only time I actually had the opportunity to help out was by co-hosting the Retro Gaming Event at PCX this year with Luigi-San, but I had a good time doing it.

I kept racking my brain to figure out exactly what it was, and then it hit me: it's the community itself. Looking back at the other forums I used to post on and have stopped visiting, there were always threads filled with arguments and conversations that continually went nowhere, so I moved on. At PC (like any other good forum), there are always going to be different threads that don't really go anywhere either, but for every one of those, countless others bring about healthy discussion, and really get you thinking about the topic at hand. There have been times where I might spend 10-15 minutes crafting a good post, because I wanted to make sure the integrity of the thread continued, which is more than I can say I would do for other forums.

I wanted to show my appreciation for the community, and I knew that the best way to do that would be by donating what I could to the site (I wish it could have been a little more, but working only part-time doesn't give me a lot of extra money to spend right now). I do appreciate some of the little things I get as a thanks for donating, like having a larger profile picture and having access to my own blog, but the community itself was incentive enough for me to help out with what I could. And to be quite honest, I don't see myself having too many blog entries beyond this one, since this probably isn't the best place to share my insight on hockey. :cer_tongue:

If at least one of you has taken the time to read through this whole post, I thank you very much, as it's generally people like you that have contributed to me sticking around. I may not be the most active poster (I've been sitting below 1 post per day since I joined), but that doesn't mean I'm not here everyday reading through the forums, enjoying everyone else's thoughts and opinions.

I truly think that we've got a good thing going here at PC, and when you see that there have been over 15,000 active members in the last two months alone, I think you'd agree. But I'm very proud to say that I am one of them, and hopefully will continue to be for a long time!

Thank you, PokéCommunity!

- Brendan