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As I'm sure you have all noticed, we were hit massively yesterday. A moderator abused the Mod CP privilege to mass delete EVERY topic in the Rules/Info, News, and all four Character boards and subforums (WIPs, approveds, inactives, and NPCs).

No. There is no way to retrieve these, as InvisionFree has not done restorations for a very long time. If any members are too frustrated by this to remain a part of ED, we will understand. I can't apologize enough for this atrocity. I wish I could say "I don't know what else could have been done", but I know and admit had I been online at the time, or had I ensured Ryua was more familiar with the Admin CP, we may have lost less.

My deepest thanks goes to Ryua and Jaxa, who did everything they could.


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So now, it's done, and it sucks, but moaning isn't going to fix a thing. So what are we going to do about it?


I have redone the User Groups to start. There are now two types of moderators: "Mods" and "Q-Mods", Q being short for Quest of course. (I didn't want to type out a full word as it wouldn't have fit with all ranks, and Q sounded better than J (Journey) or the like.)

The difference between these two is that Mods retain their "Global Moderator" status, meaning they still have access to the Mod CP, and can perform any mod action. Q-Mods, on the other hand, have SLIGHTLY less physical power, in that they cannot edit, delete, or prune posts or topics, leaving absolutely no method of destroying anything. They can still move topics, meaning if an offensive post is spotted it can be moved to a designated non-member-viewable area. Given that, I can't think of any particular reason there'd be a need to delete or prune topics. The downside is that a single offensive post within an innocent topic will have less people available to fix that problem, but if it's bad enough, it can be temporarily moved until a Mod or Admin can delete the offensive post and move it back.

Q-Mods, if this happens, please edit the topic title (which you CAN still do) to note what's happening to the topic; then move it and leave a trace link. Members will not be able to follow this link, but will be able to see the altered title to know what's going on. :3

And, of course, promos cannot be updated as quickly anymore, with less people able to do them. ... '^^; Well, I guess the wait time was never good anyway... A small price to pay in exchange for preventing this incident from occurring again, though, right?

Please, please don't be confused, and do not take offense if you have been moved from Mod to Q-Mod. Mods ARE NOT "better", "higher", or in ANY way considered superior to Q-Mods. If a member asks a question, or a judgement in a case must be made, the two ranks have the EXACT same amount of authority. This is purely a security matter. Mods will be extremely rare compared to Q-Mods, as they will be only the people I'd quite literally trust with my life, AND who I have no reason to question in the online world. (...One Q-Mod I'd trust with my life in an IRL environment, but have had an incident with online. 'xD; *shot*) So yeah. '^^; Being a Q-Mod does NOT mean I don't like you, does NOT mean you're less valued or have less authority; it ONLY means I don't know you as well.


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I'm going to try to see what I can't do about rewriting all the rules. Fortunately the Fakemon Creation forum was left alone, so the three approved FakeDex entries will take minutes to redo, though they will not have the formatting they used to for a while.

Also, I had been wanting to redo the Items for a VERY long time anyway, so this isn't all bad. ^^ (Optimism!)

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As to Character Profiles, I am heading now to put up a promo which I hope will help to compensate for all that was lost.

Unfortunately, even if you have back-ups of your profiles, we cannot allow them to be used stat-wise. (Though it will help you greatly with their Appearance/Personality/History if you DO happen to have them! ^^) The issue is that even if you have a legitimate back-up, we have absolutely no way of proving all alleged back-up bios are equally truthful. Mods can't remember everything. =/ Even if a Mod can remember "Well it does seem that character was level 20-something", there's a big difference between 20 and 29. To attempt to be as fair as possible, the promo criteria will be used instead. I deeply apologize for those who will lose stats as a result of this decision, but all things considered I believe it is the closest thing to fair that can be done at the moment.

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I apologize again for this entire incident, and I hope you will be able to bear with us through this time of restoration.

o.o Wow...This is just..Big. You know who did it?

I've been wanting to come back if I can transfer Rose from shapeshifter to Poke RPing. This looks like a great time. ^^ All I have to do is figure out her species and history. I'm willing to help you in any way I can.