BZPower 101

[TinkerTech]

Greetings, readers of humorous works!

 

Upon seeing the revival of the forums, I have decided to drag an old work or two out of the dust, clean them up, and present them once again to the world.

 

A disclaimer: This comedy was written way back in 2010 (WOW! I hadn't realized it had been so long!) Although it has updates to reflect certain changes, it also makes references to certain events that occurred on the old forums, or people who no longer frequent BZPower. If there is a joke that does not make sense to you, this is probably why. Simply ask, and I will do my best to explain. (It seems the old forums no longer exist, or so I heard last, so examples will be tricky.)

 

Enough with this! On with the show!

 

***

 

 

Why are we here again?” Lewa asked as he shifted his legs to the side of the desk.

 

“You know why. BZPower asks that all new members take a basic class on posting, creating, and the like. And as new members, we have to come.” Gali replied.  The small classroom seemed even smaller that morning as there were several teenagers, Toa, Matoran, and other beings crammed into the small wooden desks. As most of them did not even fit in the desks, they either sat on the floor, the ceiling, or leaned against the wall. 

 

“Can’t we just go out and figure it out on our own? I’m sure it’s not that hard.”

 

“Apparently the staff is getting tired of the rampant trolling and flaming.” Gali said. At that point, a bell rang somewhere outside the virtual classroom. The door opened and a small Ta-Matoran skipped into the room. The class quieted. 

 

“Good Morning everyone! Welcome to BZPower 101. I’m Turakii #1 Lavasurfer, a retired staff member, and I’ll be your teacher today!” The plucky matoran jumped up onto the teacher’s desk in the front of the room, sat down, and swung his legs back and forth. “I’m glad to see so many new faces in here! Although I do see a couple members in here for a remedial course.” Turakii craned his neck to glare at a couple of teens in the back of the room. After pulling his head back down, Turakii continued. “And, of course, there’s my assistant Toa_Velox in the back.” Everyone turned their heads around to see the tall figure with the “Forum Mentor” tag standing by the door, looking as if he strongly wished he were elsewhere.  Everyone then turned their heads back to the front of the classroom. 

 

“Well then, let’s get started. I’ve got a lovely presentation for you all.” Grabbing a remote from the desk, the Matoran jumped down and pointed the remote at the ceiling, pushing the button. Nothing happened. Frowning, He pushed the button again, with no result. After several more attempts, Turakii threw the remote away, rolled his eyes, and slammed the wall with his fist. A large projector descended from the ceiling and clicked on. 

 

“Velox, if you could get the lights please?” Turakii said, retrieving another remote from the desk. The room went dark, and the projector displayed an image that said “BZPower 101”. The class finally went silent. 

 

“Now, first, let me congratulate you on becoming members of BZPower. BZP, of course, stands for Bionicle Zone Power, which is a fan site for BIONICLE and LEGO fans. I am sure you will all become Outstanding BZP citizens one day.” Turakii said. “First, let me introduce you to the staff.” He pushed a button, and a new image appeared, filled with pictures. Among the pictures was a floating rock, a power ranger, a puffin, a couple of super heroes, a cloaked man with an energy gauntlet, a bunch of faces, and other assorted items. 

 

“This is the BZPower administrative staff. There are several different tiers in our staff chain of command.There are the BZP admins, the Global moderators, the Forum Mentors, the Forum assistants, the Blog assistants, the Reference keepers, and a variety of others. You may have seen them around BZP, keeping the forums clean of flaming, spamming and pointless topics. You really do not want to get on their bad sides.” Turakii glanced back to the classroom. “Any questions? Yes, you with the bad hairstyle.” He said, pointing to a kid with messed-up hair and a name tag that said Tahurules12538.

 

“I saw a member with a dark orange name name tag. Is that person a Staff member?”

 

“No. those are the OBZPCs, the Outstanding BZPower Citizens. They are not staff members, but regular members who have contributed enough to the community to earn a special title.” Turakii replied. “To become an OBZPC, you must have a full proto bar. You can earn proto by sending in news reports, becoming a Premier Member, and generally helping out around the forums. These are not guaranteed ways, but they are good examples. Any more questions?” The room was silent. 

 

“Alright, now for the good part: Posting in topics, and posting your own topic.” Turakii said. Rather than the cheering he expected, the entire class burst into laughter.  “What’s so funny?” Turakii asked. One of the students, barely able to speak, pointed at the powerpoint. Turakii turned and gasped. He had left the computer untouched so long, he had forgotten the powerpoint and the computer had gone to screensaver, which was covered in hilarious pictures. Among the pictures was Arpy writing “topic Closed” on his socks, Gatanui hunched over a laptop with bloodshot eyes, A Rock monster dancing with a gnome, Kex playing with a dancing lock, A couple of admins chasing each other around in circles, and Turakii holding plungers to his ears with a goofy smile on his face.

 

“OH NO! OHNOOHNOOHNO!” Turakii cried, punching buttons on the remote as fast and as hard as he could. The computer, after taking forever to wake up, finally changed back to the presentation. 

 

“Well, now that that’s over, we can continue with the lesson: Posting. To post in a topic, you simply click the “reply” button at the bottom of the topic page. REMEMBER, your posts MUST relate to the topic, and not be filled with spam or flaming. Doing this will get your post deleted. Doing this multiple times will result in lost proto.” Turakii said. “When posting your own topic, it must have a point, make sense, and belong in that particular forum. Otherwise, we would have a bunch of topics like this one:

 

brakelatabasaasta feed me 

 

 

“As you can see, this topic makes no sense and adds nothing to the forums whatsoever. Please make sure your topics and posts make sense, and add to the discussion.” Turakii said. “Another example is from the Comedy forums. In this forum, all comedies must be over 300 words. they must also be funny and somewhat sensible. otherwise, the forum would be full of comedies like this:

 

 

Tahu woke up in the morning and went to the bathroom. When he used his toilet paper it wraped around him and turned into a ninja outfit. c

 

 

 

“Obviously, this comedy was closed. Remember, class, please read the forum rules before posting.” Another teen in the back raised his hand. “yes?”

 

“Don’t we get to send IMs and stuff? and don’t we get blogs?”

 

“As new members, you will have to have ten decent posts that are approved by the staff. After reaching ten posts, your posts will not have to be approved, you will earn the status of a normal member and you can use the message center. As for blogs, those are only for the premier members. Premier members also gets special rank images, increased message storage, and other goodies. Any other questions?” 

 

Tahurules12538 raised his hand. “I saw a couple of posts with blue words, or green. What are those?”

 

Turakii grew excited. “Ooh, those are the special fonts. you see...” He never got to finish his sentence as a bell suddenly rang and the students leapt up from their desks and ran from the room. “Have fun posting! And please read the rules first!” Turakii cried at the student’s retreating backs. A couple of backs waved back in reply. Blinking, Toa_Velox closed the door behind the students. “Do you think this class actually helped them in any way?”

 

“Who knows?”

 

 

***

 

“C’mon! We can finally POST!” the class ran out, and scattered into the forums. Lewa, Gali, and Tahurules12538 ended up in the General discussion forums. “Hey, I’m going to  post my first topic!” Tahurules12538 cried. He hit the ‘new topic’ button, and typed this in:

 

I thnk TAhu Ruls!!!111! Hes Awsome!!1 No othr toa can compre!

 

 

 

“Are you sure you can post that? Didn’t that turkey kid say that topics need to have a point, and add to the discussion in BZPower?” Gali asked, looking at the writing with concern.

 

“Aw come on! What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

 

 

 

***

 

Word count: 1,357

 

Remember, folks! You can always check out the form rules over at the Reference Desk!

[Lewa0111 Nuva]

Glad to see you posted this, and welcome back to the Comedies forum, Jalina! I don't actually recall this comedy from the old forums; must have been around one of my many hiatuses. (Hiati?) This was a really fun read, expertly combining humor with good advice for members! With luck, the newer members visiting this forum will check it out, too.

 

Some parts in particular I liked: the crowded room at the beginning, the reference to the classic Secret Stomache Message, and of course the screensaver! Very nicely done.

 

Lewa0111 Nuva

[25K Now!]

Wow, this is a blast from the past.

 

Some things are before my time, but I'll enjoy reading this once again.