SCP Foundation

For nostalgia purposes, I thought that it'd be fun to relate what your newbie experience was like. Things to mention:

1. How you discovered the site
2. How long you lurked before you joined
3. What your first days on the site were like
4. Your very first SCP/Tale or draft
5. Influential people during your first few days

I'll start. I joined in late November of 2013 (jeez, that feels like a lot longer than it is) after lurking for only a week or so. I discovered the site through Youtube Let's Play's of SCP:CB, and I decided to do some follow-up research on the game.

I didn't really do much for a while, though I eventually made my way onto chat. My first draft was absolutely terrible, and got destroyed in the forums. Second one wasn't much better, and it was trashed as well. I went through the standard newbie "OMG, gotta write something nao phase," and tried to comment on everything.

I remember Voct being extremely helpful, and he helped me through writing my very first piece, a tale about SCP-326. After that, I kinda got the ball rolling, and stopped being such a dingus about giving unwanted critique and exploding over the whole site.

1) Through a friend.

2) Not long.

3) Sarcastic.

4) First SCP got mixed comments, but was down voted/deleted anyway.

5) None to speak of.

1. Through a creepy gif image collection. Someone mentioned one of them looked like 096 and provided a link. I read through it and was hooked.

2. All of about 1 day or so. I like leaving comments and voting, so being a member was a no brainer. (though I did fail the application process a few times..)

3. Nervous, I guess. Read a lot of articles. So much my eyes were always bugging out on me at the end of the day. Left comments on things, but always felt like the new kid at a party, not knowing anyone or what all is and is not acceptable here.

4. My first tale was the 'Wanderer Symbols' though it is also my only tale at the moment. Maybe more to come. Tale or otherwise.

5. I wish I could name more, though I'm better at recognizing familiar people when I see their posts with their screen name/profile pic. Roget was most kind in my very early days, (back in May 2013), and he kept bugging me to post my scp symbols as a tale which lead to the Wanderer Symbols. I'd say that was influential to my experience. :D

1. Through a link on /x/ to the EditThis site.

2. Depends on what you mean by "lurked". I was in and out of SCP threads on /x/ for awhile, then after I registered for EditThis I started participating almost immediately. If I had to guess, I'd say I lurked…uh, two months, maybe?

3. Looking at it retrospectively, very interesting. It was really mostly just a continuation of /x/ mentality, so a lot of stuff was allowed that wouldn't be allowed nowadays.

4. Oh god, uh…the Animal Talker, I believe? I can't remember if there was anything I did before that one.

5. A lot of the early members, but Gears especially helped mold me from being a dumb newbie into a relatively okay writer.

1. I found the site through a scary spaghetti wiki; I believe I had read about 106 and was intrigued from there.
2. I lurked for about a month before applying in October 2013; wow, that feels like a whole different era.
3. Nervous and a little over-hyper; I went through a "gotta-contribute-now" phase, and didn't really know anything about how the forums and chat worked.
4. Oh, don't remind me. It was some really crappy mushroom thing that ate electricity.
5. Accelerando was definitely cool. He was the guy who critiqued the above-mentioned mushroom draft and gave me my wake-up call. Thanks, Accel, really!

1. Tvtropes, back in summer 2010.
2. A couple days…?
3. Newbie making dumb comments, reading 2009-era articles and stories, when the Fishmonger incident was still somewhat relevant. I remember wanting to get the three articles so that I could write a page pretty badly, but I kind of sucked at writing articles.
4. SCP-891. Doesn't really hold up to site standards as well as it did three and a half years ago.
Oh, shit, my first ever anything, not counting successes? This, like…this story which was a creepypasta and then as you read it it happened to you…yeah…
5. …the one person who really stands out in my mind from back then was pooryoric, mostly because he posted a shit ton on the wiki and in chat. He was a good writer with high standards for himself; he was really abrasive and whether intentionally or not, probably the latter, he infused me with a sense of inferiority in myself. Honestly, he kind of encapsulated what I felt the wiki was like in 2010—people laughing at the new kids and the new kids desperately not wanting to be the ones laughed at, and then compensating for that fear by laughing at other, newer kids…
But like, yoric also offered a ton of really good writing advice and helped me not suck. Abrasion and helpfulness were really two sides of the same coin, because they're both products of people who really want to see the site grow and improve, and in my case I was just thinking "fuck it if I'm polite and seem decently intelligent hopefully I land on the right side."

edit: i fucked up 4

1) A Let's Play on the youtubes.

2) A month. And it helped, even though my first article was a dud.

3) I'll just link you to my first introduction thread, which no one responded to (for good reason).

4) SCP-1940, but I'm not linking it cus it kinda sucks. I'll clean it up sometime in the future.

5) Crayne made me understand what a hook was, and was a big part in improving 1940 and 1920. Roget was always there when I needed help with a thing, and he still is today. You're both awesome people, and you both should feel awesome. :D

1. TvTropes, shortly before Containment Breach really became a thing
2. Like a year and a half. I read for a few months, left for a long time, and then came back like a week before I actually joined.
3. Reading stuff, voting. Lurking in IRC, only talking when it was late and there were like 10 people active at max. Voting was actually the main reason I joined, I didn't think I'd be writing so much.
4. My first draft was this crappy thing that like… it was like a questioning inner-child thing that affected your psyche depending on how it reacted to your answers. Bleh. First thing I actually submitted was SCP-1672.
5. Uhhhh. Everyone? That seems like a cop-out, but I had never been a part of a community like this so it's kind of true. In a weird sort of way, I guess Bright? I was never really familiar with who-wrote-what prior to joining, but I knew of Bright's work. Then I met him, we chatted, he looked over a draft of mine. That was really cool, doing all that with such a well-known site author. Knowing his voting habits, seeing him upvote my first thing was also really cool.

1. Reddit. r/TipofMyTongue
2. About two days, because the picture of 173 scared me and 408 fascinated me. Butterflies won out.
3. Eeeeeeee I'm posting my first article eeeeeeee also talking to people eeeeeeee
4. Some glass bead that would teleport and integrate itself into accessories and make people paranoid and keep trying to look over their shoulders, and gave them dodging abilities
5. Soulless and Scantron were nice to me then. I read a lot of TroyL's work, and also tales involving the butterflies.

1. Through a friend who showed me the offline database app, which I bought
2. App: 3 weeks. Site: half an hour. Within my first hour knowing the site had existed I had already gotten my app accepted.
3. These people are real!?!?! (remember I was on the app) They're actually nice to me?!?! I gotta post naaao. This IRC chat is awesome.
4. Neurogenesis Bed (I will save it!) My first (and only) mainsited thing is SCP-2010.
5. Accelerando, Zyn, and Tuomey all got on me for newbie critiquing in the forum and being an idiot in chat in my first week (I didn't like y'all then, but I like y'all now :) ). The most influential people to me in a more positive way were Soulless, Djoric, Dmatix, and thedeadlymoose. I also got to know some people (Weizhong, Soulless, Jabonicus, AndarielHalo, PrycyonLotor, CryyogenChaos, etc.) in chat early.