Alright guys, I posted that quiz on page 11 or so, I'll put you out of your misery now!
Note that some of these answers may not be 100% correct. These are my impressions only.
* Who were the original moderators? One of these moderators temporarily became an admin-level user. Who was it, and on which continent did they live?
Asherlee answered this: she was the first community mod, followed by Dank. By the time AG2 went live, Calm, Moegreche and Flipski were on board. Carlie was also a moderator at this point in time. Flipski was the moderator who temporarily took on admin level status, he did live in Europe (as did Calm). Note that a number of the resident game devs, notably Krin and Tony, were also ranked as mods.
* What was the legacy of FallingUp?
See below.
* When the user Switchfoot melted down, what triggered it, and what were his various acts of subversion?
Switchfoot was the first account to reveal the potential dangers of alt accounts. It was actually the second incarnation of FallingUp. The user of both accounts had a tendency first to pass off hastily edited images as art, then as time went by, perpetrated increasingly severe acts of art theft. Switchfoot was best known for being an aerospace engineer who was expecting a child to partner Crystal when she allegedly cheated on him... this turned out to be complete fiction by the user's own (vehement) admission. Switchfoot actually got into real trouble by attempting to impersonate JayIsGames, after which Asherlee got tired of his crap. Switchfoot responded by posting a) a sheet containing all the unlockable armatars (which were then accessible by simply locating their storage URLs), and b) posting pornographic images on every single thread visible. After that, everybody was like "BUT I THOUGHT HE WAS MOD MATERIAL." And this is why AG admins are so careful about who they pick.
* What is "the Great Debate"? How was it run? Who started it?
The "Great Debate" was an experiment to try and introduce structured argumentation to interested users. The people who actually implemented it were Moegreche, assisted by Devoidless. They created a number of user accounts which were to act as hosts for the debates. Two users would then post their arguments in the comments, and the adjudicator (Moe) would tally scores and announce a winner.
* What was SHOPS and why did it get shut down?
I don't know whether SHOPS actually stood for an acronym. However it was intended as a user-based police system which reported stuff to the moderators. As one might expect, it became corrupted with users either using it as a tool for their own interpersonal conflicts, or exchanging recommendations to give merits. So it was shut down.
* There used to be one additional way to gain armor points. What was it, how many points did it yield, and why was it removed?
Referrals. Worth 10AP each (I think). This too was shamelessly exploited by some users, and many conversations were entirely based on how to "launder" more referrals. I'm pretty sure it was also the source of quite a few annoying links dropped on other boards.
* What does "the great reshuffle" actually refer to?
Total reorganisation of the forums is one way to put it. Not only was a separate section for discussing flash as opposed to other videogames implemented, but it was also the time of introduction of the 0AP forum sections, particularly "Forum Games". After that, the mods at that point also went on a spam cleaning spree.
* Which user was permanently banned after he started spamming the forums with suicide threats as an attention-grabbing ploy? What was his rank at the time?
Username was Starscreamer. Was ranked #2 at the time, though may have been lower seeing as Carlie was also in the process of removing many, many spurious posts at the time.
* Do you remember when the Sonny forums first appeared?
Indeed, it was shortly after Sonny 2 was released.
* How many users have ever bumped Firetail off the number one spot, and what were their names?
Two. kingofgames, and fst6.
* What happened to these users?
KOG was a slightly obnoxious German who left shortly after he got #1, then came back a few months later but seems to be currently inactive. Fst6, otherwise known as Adam, was permanently banned after going on a penis bender when SKWP deleted all his wall posts.
* What is the actual function of the red/green dot next to the username on the profile page, and how many times has it been activated/deactivated?
It's supposed to tell when a user is online or not. I have to say though, it's highly temperamental and depends really on when the server refreshes. I'm not sure exactly how many times it's been activated/deactivated but I'd say two or three times each.
* The AG2 forum code was very messy as it was a hastily thrown-together home-grown bunch of scripts. As a result, the forum tended to lag greatly and was quite unable to do many functions considered ordinary on other boards. Others were removed to preserve performance. How many of these functions can you name?
Apart from the red/green light, users online in last 5 minutes is the most noticeable one. There is also an inability to edit posts, and the community section can't read any characters other than plain alphanumerics, hence a lot of weird symbols when people cut and paste stuff that autoformats smartquotes (i.e. just about everywhere).
* How many official armatar artists have been commissioned to draw the normal AP-based armatars?
Two. If you look closely there's a difference in style between the gradient-colour vectorised armatars, and the hand-drawn armatars.
* When was the first user-based armatars submitted?
Halloween of 2008, incidentally also the time Zophia drew that comic about stealing Strop's clothes and dressing him in a pink slip instead.
* What was the first game-based contest which actually gave away tangible prizes? Who wrote the game it was based upon?
I think it was the Compulse Obsession tournament, the game being written by John. Prizes included an ipod all the way down to a compulse stress ball and stickers. By the way John, I never got that Compulse stressball, maybe you've got an extra lying around the office that I could grab sometime in the next month?
* What was the preferred suffix for the wannabe troll who suicided several hundred accounts over the course of several weeks? What is his real pseudonym? Bonus points if you know the url of the board he runs himself.
It was in fact 420 (and now that I think about it maybe I should have said prefix.) Original pseudonym was DemonicPriest. And the url of the site he (used to) run contained that name.
* (A personal favourite as it's a very difficult question but contains a special piece of forum history): What is the last known thread in which John, Carlie, and DanMcNeely posted all on the same page? Based on this event, what major feature of the forum was created? How many incarnations of this feature has appeared? What happened to the last one?
It's a thread about drawing mudkip, started by shottytotheface. I hold that it spawned the first pokemon drawing contest, which then evolved (get it? haha) to start the Art Skills Contest. There have been, I think, three incarnations of the ASC, since the first one was casual and needed updating when the thread became immensely popular, one of the founders of the second thread was found to be an art thief. The last one is currently on hiatus as the thread doesn't have a reliable judge.
* Why is Carlie inactive on the forums? Who has effectively taken her place with an official staff position at the AG office?
Carlie married John in September of 2009. I argue that Cormyn is her spiritual successor (but different position, obviously), as he's the admin who has taken the reins of the community affairs and is active on the forums.
* (For those who really pay attention, I'm not 100% sure I know the answer to this. However it's an extremely important question as this has been the single biggest key to AG's burgeoning economic success): what was the first game the AG devs ported to a phone platform?
I actually believe it's a game called Phit, which, incidentally, has been around since, like, beta.
