Warning: this is gonna be a huge trip to memory-land, but PLEASE read it until the end. Maybe anda might feel the same.
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Two years ago, when I first joined fanpop, things were a lot different here. I was 15 years old and I only watched one TV show: Heroes. I was insanely addicted to that tampil (I still am, it’s my detik favorit tampil ever) and I was searching for some episodes online on some acak site. That site (I have no idea which one is now, Lol) had a lot of link to episodes, and some of those link bought me to fanpop.

The first think I noticed about this site was those funny options things where anda could vote, also known as picks. =P
And those were the reason why, in June of 2007, I joined this site. To answer those picks and eventually get spoiled about future episodes I hadn’t seen yet. xD (if anda watch Heroes, anda know how it works, in season 1, people were always dying there. LOL)
I got totally addicted and I joined the heroes spot, and I eventually made my own first link. That pick gave my first prop ever, oleh no other than Dave (YAY, thank anda Dave <3), and I swear I jumped around the house when I saw the little prop thing. xD
Then I made some lebih picks. =) It was the only thing I was doing on fanpop, lol. (It’s sill my favorit way of contributing, because I cinta to choose the right gambar to add, and I cinta to read other people’s comments.)
So, after 15 picks on the heroes spot, I got my first Dedicated medal ever... And almost a heart-attack when I saw it. lol xD
See, on those days, it wasn’t very common to watch people with many medals. It was VERY rare to find people with fanatics, I think I only met one atau two.
Back then, the heroes spot was the spot with lebih fan and the most populer (which made me extremely happy, yay go Heroes! xD). It had about 3000 fans, and I might be very wrong, but I’m pretty sure it hadn’t had lebih than this. Yea, pretty crazy right? Considering how much fan the Twilight spot has now. Lol

But this was then.
For some reason, I went un-active a few months. Season 2 of heroes was starting and I didn’t want to be spoiled oleh picks, since I was waiting for it to come on TV (which took quite time actually, it sucks to live in Portugal). Also, I was running out of ideas for picks. LOL

Months later I got back and I had started to watch other shows. So I joined lebih spots, like One pohon bukit, hill and Supernatural.
OTH is my favorit tampil ever, and my detik dedicated medal was for that spot, also with just picks.
Then I started to add video and my first die hard was for that spot, I got it on August of 2008.
My first Fanatic medal was for that spot too. Now, anda don’t ever forget your Fanatics (especially your first), so I know that I got on October 22nd of 2008. I also know I’m a nerd for knowing that date.
oleh December, I was the 6th puncak, atas contributer of that spot.
And right now, I’m proudly the 3rd. =]

And this is what happens when anda work hard to something. All the wait and all the work feels undeniably great.

But situations like these are lebih rare and rare these days. And I guess that’s the point of this article.
anda see, I must really be a naïve person, because it took me a LONG time to figuring out the medal system. I had no idea what kind of “amount” of contribution was needed. And when one time, I read somewhere that the ratings helped, I thought WE had to give ratings to get medals. So I kinda rated ALL the video on the OTH spot. lol (I don’t regret it btw, I found some great video there xD). Anyways, silly me for being slow, no wonder why people call me “looser” atau “Joey”. =P

Some new fan aren’t naïve at all. In fact, they were very quickly to understanding that whole thing. So it’s simple, they ask people to rate their stuff.
There was a ratings forum on the OTH spot, on the friends spot and maybe on others spots too. All anda had to do was posting link of your stuff and people would rate it. Those forum no longer exist, they were deleted, because it wasn’t a fair way of getting medals. I honestly couldn’t have agreed lebih with this decision.
Now, those new fan (new fans, not the fan who were using those forums), are fully aware of this. So instead of having a forum, they do it oleh messages. They message other users asking for ratings. As I see it, this is exactly the same thing as having a forum, except that with messages, there is no prove of the cheating. This kind of cheating is like air, anda don’t see it. But anda know it’s there.

A lot of users have an incredible number of medali right now. All because of those ratings.

At this moment, I have 26 dedicated medals, 17 die-hard medali and 7 fanatic medals.
I’m a member of fanpop lebih than two years now. And I feel really accomplished.
Trust me, it’s not about the medals. It’s how far I’ve went, from having zero medals, to have 50.
So, I think it’s very unfair to see some users – cheating users – who are here, for less than FIVE MONTHS to have way lebih medali than me atau other users, that work harder for them.

It’s not even about the medals, it’s about the content that they add to getting those medals. To add icons, all anda have to do is find some LiveJournals atau some fan sites. Also, anda can add repeated ones. And it gets even easier when anda ask other people to rate them.
Now imagine how I feel, when I’m working for a medal, adding stuff and NOT asking anybody to rate them for me, to witness situations like these.
Let me just use a couple of hypothetical examples.
Let’s say a certain user added, 75 video and 120 gambar to a spot.
Let’s say I added 875 video and 1485 gambar to the same spot. Which means, I added lebih than 800 video and 1000 gambar than that user. Now, let’s say we both have Die-Hard medals.
Does this scream fair to you?

Other example. Hypothetical. On other totally different spot, with much less fan than the first one.
A user added 170 video and 130 images. That user has a Fanatic. She’s the puncak, atas contributor.
Other user added 20 video and 200 images. That user has a die-hard. She’s the detik puncak, atas contributor.
I added 350 video and 1500 images. I have a die-hard. I’m the third puncak, atas contributor.
Fair? Excuse me for not thinking so.

The thing is I don’t even care about medals. I don’t. This is about other people taking me the pleasure of feeling ACCOMPLISHED. How can I feel that way, knowing that I worked so hard, knowing that I waited months and knowing that some other user got it easily with less work and in two weeks?

I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Some other people do too. Some other people tried to do something about it. And I watched some of them getting banned. We lost Myra, the puncak, atas contributor of all fanpop because of this mess.
Myra, who I truly admire because of her work. There are a lot of people who might not like her. But even those, anda can’t honestly say that Myra didn’t work for her medali and that she didn’t deserve EVERY SINGLE ONE of them. Because she did. And not only just her. Gogokef, Clarkfan, Addie, Tvfan95. Does this names ring any bel, bell to you?
I hope whoever who is membaca this, understands what this artikel is about. This is not me bragging and/or trying to get lebih medals. This is me trying to stop unfair situations.

The fanpop 4 built the best site on Earth, hands down. This is not just about picks for me now, lol. I spend most of the times talking on forum and I met the most amazing fan here. <3
So, I’m not, in any way, trying to tell them what to do. But I can’t help to say that this rating system It’s not working. In my opinion (and notice that this is just an OPINION), I think the ratings shouldn’t count as much. They can count, but not as much as they do now.
On one side, I think the video should be considerate lebih important. anda can add all the gambar anda want, all the times anda want, but anda can’t add repeated videos. And if anda notice, the users that “cheat”, don’t add much videos. It’s not hard to understand why. But on the other hand, there aren’t as many video of one subject as there are images, so yea, it’s not right than the video count lebih than images.. In the end, it’s better to leave this situation to the people who know the best, aka the fanpop 4. =P

I was just trying to express how I feel about this.
Sorry If I offend anyone. I didn’t use any names, just to avoid that.
I’m not trying to get anyone banned, like I don’t want to be banned. I cinta this site way too much.

I guess this is what I’m trying to say:
I honestly don’t know why people cheat to get medals. There’s no better feeling than getting new medali when anda least expect it. Especially if one of those medali is a fanatic. anda get the accomplished feeling and when anda told other users about, they also get REALLY happy (sometimes happier than anda ;)), because they know how hard it is to get a medal. And they totally prop spam the hell out of you. LOL

This feeling is great. Don’t take it away from fanpop. There’s no point of having 20 fanatics if they feel like a normal medal to you.
Let’s get this feeling back! =]

EDIT: There’s something I think it’s relevant and I forgot to add. The thing is that, the “cheating” users I mentioned above, don’t just message each other asking for ratings, they also ask to rate others users stuff low. Some users tried to stop the cheating, but not only they couldn’t do it, they saw their perfectly fine stuff being rated with one star.

I’ve saw/read one of those messages, sent oleh one “cheating” user. I think someone has that message screen caped somewhere. The content of the message was simple, it berkata to rate everything of their “friends” group high (as in 5 stars), and rate everything of the users who tried to stop the cheating low (as in 1 star).
And I’ve seen stuff rated low.

Seriously, who wastes their time like this? Also, who wastes their time creating tons of fake accounts? Because those are against the fanpop rules, but I’ve seen a LOT of them. I think it’s just mean, not only they are getting medali not playing fair, but they are making it hard for other users to get them. Users than DON’T cheat.

This is not what fanpop is about.

Again, I apologize If it seems that I’m menulis this just to attack someone.
That’s not really my point.

This is just to tampil how tired I am of all the situation. =/

To finish.. I promise this is my last edit. LOL
This artikel has 5 pages on Word already, I don’t think I would be menulis as much if this was for a school paper. XD