Pink Poogle Toy
PinkPT (formally Pink Poogle Toy and PPT for short) is a Neopets help site which began in February of 2001. Maintainted by Yukio, PinkPT is considered by many to be one of the better Neopets help sites with new content being added many times per week and a multi-topic forum where people come together and have fun reguardless of appearance, skin color, race, religion and origin.
Besides being a Neopets help website, it has expanded into a giant community which has branched out to include many different topics. Expanding into sub-sites dedicated to other big things, like Harry Potter and Subeta, The PPT Empire shows little sign of slowing down. PinkPT has also expanded into the online gaming world itself. A new section of the site, Kaimon, a game unlike any other text-based RPG online, is being developed.
History
Year 2001
Started in February of 2001 by Yukio and Alicia {a young woman he happened to know over the internet}, the fan site started with a meager 2 visitors per day and displayed answers to a small fraction of the Neopets games (notably Poogle Solitaire and Cliffhanger). As the content grew with each day, word went around and over 200 hits per day were being recorded by the end of February.
Alicia then created the oekaki, an online art board. Created on the servers of unixdaemons, the oekaki quickly became a popular feature on the site and grew into an online community with at least 2,000 pieces of artwork being created every day. Due to the popularity, Sako's oekaki was created alongside PPT Oekaki, to compliment to extremely talented artists that were emerging from the oekaki. Unfortunately, the oekaki grew to the extent that no host could host it anymore as it was consuming a large amount of bandwidth (mainly due to the fact that the oekaki was image driven), nor could the owner of PinkPT afford it. Sadly, the oekaki was never re-created after unixdaemons emailed Yukio telling him that they can no longer host PPT's oekaki due to its "insane amount of generated traffic".
In March 2001, one month after opening, PPT was reaching visitors of up to 2000. It was also during this month Alicia decided to leave. She had her reasons of course, her life was busy as everyone's is, and that was a blow to me as she was the person that pushed me further, to help people. I couldn't of done so much without her behind and supporting me. 2 months down the track, she returned though and everything was once again set in motion :) Unfortunately, a further two months proved Alicia could not juggle her daily life with PPT so she resigned turning entire control of the website over to Yukio which was once considered by many to be PinkPT's worst move.
Near the end of April 2001, PPT was receiving 25,000 page views a day. In August, a representative from Peel Networks approached PPT with a deal: In exchange for hosting on servers, PPT would advertise their US based magazine company. The offer was instantly approved as PPT was beginning to experience host troubles with hosts such as Virtualave, Hypermart and GeoCities.
In September 2001, a new deep blue colored layout created by Ben Williams from Hologram FX was implemented, in an attempt to make it look professional and create organization for the site much sought after as the content volume had grown to over 100 pages. By the end of 2001 PinkPT was receiving an average of 8,000 unique visitors per day.
Year 2002
In January 2002, the world once again opened its eyes to sky blue layout. Re-designed by Ben Williams from www.hologramdesigns.com, this layout became the epitome of the playful, cheery, mischievous and fun atmosphere this site.
Early February 2002, marking the first birthday of PPT, Mike joined to head the Battlepedia department, providing in depth information and statistics to all Battledome related aspects on Neopets, the Battlepedia proved to be a big hit instantly. Quickly growing into a large site itself, Mike leant towards the direction of PHP programming and MySQL database work where he quickly learned the ins and outs of programming.
The site forums opened up to the general public proving to be a big hit instantly. With over 600 signups in one week, Bob, the epitome of a good role model, with quite an exhaustive and extensive vocabulary quickly proved himself of administration quality and while guiding Yukio with many little problems in regards to the forums, was quickly picked to take over admin-ship of the forums. Alongside Bob supporting the smooth running of the forums were the friendly Michelle, a lass who once sent in a sign saying "PPT rox my sox!", Janie, a stunning model with two beautiful children, passionate ChromeFox, somewhat a celebrity for her run ins with the infamous Mari Jhane saga and all the mods with impeccable skill. The forums were riddled with problems however. The first host, powweb, proved an excellent host for the beginning. As the forum sign ups increased, PowWeb was forced to cancel PPT's account under their hosting company because PPT simply used too much bandwidth. In a bid to solve this problem, PPT was approached by an admin at YaBB with an offer to host PPT's forums under the consideration that it would change to the mysql version. This host however proved unable to handle PPT's visitor load so the account was frozen after one day. PPT then found a new host called a plus. However all the membership information was inadvertently lost. Deciding to start fresh, the MySQL version of YaBB was once again used but due to many false information about 'unlimited system resources' claimed by a plus, PPT forums were constantly down because like other hosts, they were unable to accommodate the growing fan base and visitor load. Once again reverting back to Yabb CGI in the hope that the forum problems would be solved, the forum once again went down after one week.
With the implementation of the news feature generously installed by NeoFan who worked with Neo-Net, site updating became a simple task with a little click on a button. Joining the team were three extremely charming ladies with wit to match, Amanda, Sarah and Silver!
With the tremendous growth in all the emails the site was receiving, robot_blumaroo offered to take care of all NeoPet related questions. He stayed with PPT for approximately three months before opting out. The help link was then redirected to the forum help boards.
In April 2002, PPT was reaching visitors of up to 8,000 a day.
In the month of July 2002, (Yukio's birthday), PPT was introduced to a fine young man who would later shape the future of PPT. Skilled in many programming languages, the bloke under the name of Sam quickly became one of the team, sharing ideas, creating extra features on the site and in many regards, co-webmasters the entire site itself. His uncanny ability to be able to fully grasp any concept explored and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard left the entire team staring open mouthed at his deftness, precision and timely responses to any emergency arises.
In September 2002, NeLLa joined PPT as a guide writer surpassing over 200 applicants in the first 24 hours of the notice being posted. With guides such as Swarm and Evil Fuzzles From Beyond the Stars under her belt, her writing skills possessed a jovial quality, which was a major factor in deciding the final application.
Also in this month, Harry joined PPT to head the NeoDaq, a department providing information related to the stock market game in Neopets. During this time, PPT's new host a plus was experiencing trouble's with handling PPT's Battlepedia and forum load. Reflected in constant down times and numerous forum restarts, Yukio approached Ted from simgateway and bought dedicated hosting from www.doublehost.net.
Well there you have it! Despite many hosting problems, PPT still remains one of the most popular gaming resource on the net due to its personality, its voice, and its ability to provide in-depth information on all aspects of Neopets reflect its love for the game. Until then, I'll see you around the site!
Year 2003
The third year approached and with it, many milestones and history recorded. Everyone consolidated within the "PPT Empire" had their own individual story to tell, and while this year, many feats were able to be achieved, there was also a fair share of disturbances. There was great times of joy and friendship, and even times when friendships were tried and tested, some with favorable outcomes and some not so good, watching the backs of various members leave.
Once again, many issues took place around the forums, a section when started by Yukio, had no idea that it would become quickly, a very large community of online people with close bonds of friendship. The new year saw a total revamp of the administration system at PPT, with the administrators Janie and Bob leading the crew of Global Moderators and moderators into a period of banging out the kinks in the system. Unfortunately, an issue involving ChromeFox saw her demoted to a normal member, and a furious uproar took place within the Forums over the facts and points of "the case". Forwarding another two months and ChromeFox was came back into the PPT forum Crew as a moderator again, and once again Forum life continuing as usual.
Nearing the end of January, Bob, the first ever employed forum admin for PPT aka 'man-with-big-stick' resigned. Although many were taken completely by surprise, the forum crew was to see it coming. Bob had achieved his goals of a forum admin, changing the little forum it once started out with into the largest, safest and most friendly forum in relation to Neopets. Many well wishes were given alongside many thanks, and it is safe to say that Bob had clearly carved his name into the minds and hearts of the PPT members. Even now, his legacy remains. After much deliberation, Bob handed his reigns over to big Jim, another British co-incidentally. Handling the day-to-day affairs of the forum alongside the now longest running admin at PPT, Janie ala model, the new dynamic duo have paved over and strengthened the dirt road Bob and Janie together dug with the help out the global moderators, moderators and members. As of April 4th 2003, the forum line up is as follows. Forum administrators Janie and Jim, Global Moderators CoolKau, Fiddelysquat, Kagome, Michelle_Belly and V3n0m0us, and moderators Airglo, atamand, Bno, Charisma, CheezieHottie, ChromeFox, Count Von Roo, CragHack, CSK, Cyanna, FaerieGirl, Hunter Lupe, Infernobanjo, Lina Blade, MarcoBMG, Magax, Marching Duck, Mina, Neko, Nshade, Platypus, Raiden, Sam, Shy Divine Dragy, Stephy, Stodder, Werepup, White_Wolf and Winnerliu.
This year also began a string of Forum competitions, and fads such as the "lets-all-post-wav-files-of-our-voices" to "let's-make-silly-movies-of-each-other". The first ever large-scale forum competition began late 2002 and was dubbed the "PPTBIES". Modeled after the logies, the forum saw a frenzied and enthused approach by all members with well known members and often, less known members stepping up into the lime light to take out well sought awards. The winners were as follows. Most Valuable Person - Shoyru_Lover, Outstanding Contribution - JanieJanie, Most Influential - JanieJanie, Best Moderator - Chromefox, Best Female Member - Fiddleysquat, Best Male Member - CoolKau and Bob, Click That Topic - MichelleTheGoth, Best Newcomer - Hunter Lupe, Most Helpful - Cyanna, Funniest Member - FiddelySquat, Happiest Member - Sonchynne, Most Generous - V3n0m0us, Best Artist - Stephy, Best Avatar - Stephy, Good Grammar - Knitting Knut, Bad Grammar - Yuvs, President - Chromefox and JailBird - MichelleTheGoth. Now considered an annual event, it led to other creations such as "PPT Survivor" which unfortunately still hasn't finished, Mina's MMAC (Mina's Monthly Art Contest) and Hunter Lupe's PPT Staff Sacrificers, which unfortunately saw all the PPT guys voted out first (bah!).
Early 2003 saw Hunter Lupe heading the new department at PPT called the In-Depth NeoQuest Guide. Growing very quickly, it is now one of the largest detailed sites out there, which contain complete walkthroughs, and maps of the entire game. This department was created in anticipation of NeoQuest 2, which many people believe will take a long time before the actual game is released.
March 2003 saw the Work Shop department open at PPT. Encompassing tutorials on how to make models of various Neopets aspects; the idea quickly took on and received overwhelming support and good responses from the Neopets community. It is still currently being established and built.
During March 2003, the visitors of PPT one day saw a dramatic look on PPT. Opting to forgo the generic "blue" look that all other sites seemed to now possess, PPT had it's layout redesigned into an eye catching red, this time with the logo of the PPT Crew, drawn by Mina, as it's welcoming image. Once again designed by www.hologramdesigns.com, the new layout expressed a more cleaner, professional and slick version of PPT. During this time, the first ever member to reach 10,000 posts was ChromeFox! A huge accomplishment considering the next biggest poster was behind by a few thousand posts!
Alongside all these new changes, came new staff. Magenta, Alex, Mermaid Hil and Swedevil joined the News Crew while PPT adopted the incredible talents of Mina Kim and Lina Blade as the artists! Stephy soon joined as the graphics artist at PPT designing banners and buttons for various purposes. What PPT didn't anticipate this time however was the range of talents it was now adopting. It seemed each staff member at PPT had more than one single talent. Magenta, while posting excellent news also was very well versed in graphic design, while Stephy, who was originally founded as a forum moderator was soon found to also be an incredible graphics artist. Hunter Lupe, who was also modding the forums was soon discovered to be a phenomenal scripter and after critically looking at the staff again, PPT soon found that each staff member was directly contributing to more than one aspect at PPT! As a result, the PPT forums started taking on a more otaku-ish path, everyone lapping up the design atmosphere fueled by stephy's creations and Mina's art contests.
While these new developments were taking place, more somber issues were occurring outside of PPT. Late 2002 to early 2003 saw what would take place in what is commonly known as the "Fan Site Wars". Many new neopets related fan sites quickly sprang up and due to more than one website's immature attitude towards the entire game and taking the game way too seriously, a series of attacks on other websites, accusations, hackings, slander and libel quickly took place. PPT attempted to stay away from this as much as possible, only standing up for itself when the other website in question made a direct false statement against PPT. After the incident was finally resolved and a tentative 'peace agreement' was made between the other websites, PPT once again distanced itself from those websites for it did not wish to be a party to such events if they should occur again. PPT was created for the fans, and that's the way it will always be. It decided never to take part in any petty politics, which should never take place between fan sites. Just when everyone starting breathing again, another round of rumors began circulating. Many of them unfounded. However this time, the threat came from Neopets itself. Many fan sites found themselves under threat of having their websites removed unless they were in line with the Terms and Conditions set forth under Neopets. PPT went offline for a period of four days coincidently during this time, which started a fresh batch of rumors that PPT was removed which was untrue. However PPT once again opened up after its short down time and put a definite stop to the rumors.
In April 2003, forum moderator 'werepup', fresh from a trip to Spain, joined the main PPT site as the newest webmistress of PPT. Dubbed Elle by the crew, Elle has given PPT the much needed female touch, as PPT was beginning to become too male orientated due to the over abundance of testosterone which was flying around everywhere.
Well there you have it. The third year so far has had many triumphs and tribulations while also its fair share of small problems, which were easily taken care of. I, Yukio, could not have taken PPT this without with the dedication and support of so many people. The forum mods, and GMs, the admins, the separate help of individual people, to list them all here would take forever. However some do stand out in my mind and I would like to take this opportunity to thank certain people. Janie and Bob for always being my "second parents" even though they didn't mean to. Elle for always being there to help out whenever she could. Jim, for spending countless hours talking about nothing with me. Sam, Hunter and Mike, the programming wiz kids with a "all-for-one-and-one-for-all" attitude. The news crew Magenta and Alexa, for being the anchor of the team, and CSK, V3n0m0us, Stephy, MichelleTheGoth, Mina, Lina, Pheny, Charisma, Cheezie and Michelle for just those random fun and crazy talks which seems prevalent among the PPT members. Lastly, Cyanna. While we hardly ever talk, you've always struck me as a very sensible, kind and fair person :). THANK YOU ALL
Year 2004
This is known as the year known amongst the PPT populace as The Great Reset. The forum databases crashed and everything was lost on April of 2004. Since then, the community has rebuilt itself, and nearly all 10,000 members who were part of the forums before the crash joined again, many under different names.
Year 2005
September 2005 saw the overhaul of PPT. Now with over 1,400 pages of content, the site re-organized itself into self contained categories (in contrast to a billion links on the front page) to make the site friendlier for the site visitors. PPT additionally made a vow to itself to serve the visitors, by getting rid of all the pop up advertising and download prompts that once plagued the site. This was eventually realized in 2005, when PPT moved off the wh000t networks which was run by his friend over at [World of Britney]. Although it still contains banner advertisements, the days of intrusive advertising were officially over.
With a brand-new redesign by Ben Williams over at www.hologramdesigns.com, PPT now exuded a confidence in its bright colors. The forums grew to new heights, breaking its record of most online users at once (since the forum reset) of 149 on 12 Sep 2005 during the early days of the new Neopets plot, the Lost Desert. This online record has since again, been broken, but it became apparant the Neopets users were using PPT as a source of information before it became publicly available, which was totally fine by the PPTers.
PPT also saw Neopets staff members posting on the forums from Donna Williams to Adam Powell. Some of the programmers have been known to drop in from time to time to interact with Neopets players. This would eventuate to Neopets changing the description of the Pink Poogle Toy on Neopets to "This lovely pink poogle moans about banner ads and frozen accounts when you squeeze it! :P". In fact, Adam Powell once made an image of the PPT Forums on the discovered NeoSchools area on Neopets when members of the PPT Forum discovered it and announced it before it was suppose to be announced.
2005 also saw PPT open its doors to other Neopets fan sites. With the advent of all the new Neopets fan sites, PPT welcomed them by creating a large link database for everyone to join. The neolinks page on PPT now lists some of the more prominent websites out there, but is always open to accept links to and from sites that clearly have shown a lot of effort in them.
In 2005, the PPT top sites, which opened and then closed due to hosting problems, re-opened. It's now the largest Neopets-related topsites in the world and is listed as one of the largest hosted topsites on www.itopsites.com
The PPT Oekaki also flourished to new heights during 2005. While it has always been one of the largest oekakis available online, it was closed down in previous years due to hosting issues (i.e. it grew too big). Now on its own dedicated server, the population has once again flourished, and to date, has had over 20,000 individual pieces of artwork created on it.
Also in 2005, PPT expanded its Neopets Help Program by posting neopets news, and by adding the NeoDex, Neopets-Layouts Graphics Department and the avatar catlog.
Year 2006
On March 2, 2006, a new website layout was revealed. It was created by Ben of HologramFX. The previous layout started to become cluttered due to the amount of content now existing on the site, thus everything was categorized into easily distinguishable areas.
It was during this time that the "Write An Article Contest" had begun to take full effect. It had been running for the previous 2 months but now people were sending in entires left, right and center and Yukio became innundated with the entries. At the time of writing, he has over 800 emails in his inbox waiting to be replied to in addition to over 60 contest entires to look at, add to PPT and judge.
With the re-design of PPT finished (which ran over about 2 days), Yukio now wishes to focus on clearing his inbox, working up a great news team for the unreleased Neopets news on PPT, creating a comprehensive pre-template layouts section on PPT, promoting the Avatar Catalog as a one-stop-shop for all your Neopets avatar needs (it's currently being redeveloped although it still remainds up-to-date) and definitely promoting this WIKI and turning it into the most comprehensive place online for all your Neopets information. Eventually, he wants the WIKI to also be used by Neopets staff members for reference purposes for their work in addition to anyone who wants to learn a little bit more about Neopets.
With PPT now redesigned, Yukio saw the potential to turn the entire site into an entertainment network. We'll see how that goes, but Yukio eventually wants to leverage the site traffic into other areas of his work.
Milestones
- February 1, 2001: PPT is created.
- May 30, 2004: The day known as "The Great Reset" - which was the day everything on PPT was lost - mainly involving the forum.
- Thursday, June 01, 2006: PPT Breaks the 300 subscribers barrier to its feed including email subscriptions.
- Friday, June 02, 2006: PPT Forum breaks its most online users record - 178 on 02 Jun 2006 03:43 am.
Departments
Avatar Catalog
The Avatar Catalog is a premier source for all the Neopets avatars! Allowing users to register unique accounts, users an kept abreast of which avatars they have and which they do not by saving checklists that will remember what has been marked as "achieved" and has not.
In-depth Battlepedia
The IDB is the world's most renouned source for Neopets Battledome information.
In-depth NeoQuest
THe IDNQ the first complete NeoQuest information site and remains the most comprehensive on the Internet.
NeoDex
The NeoDex is the online Neopets encyclopedia and is the largest of its kind online.
NeoPool
Added May 19, 2006, the Neopool was created to offer Neopians a more rounded visitor experience. Created to fill a void left upon the Closure of Neocolours, the Neopool is the first in its kind to allow users to vote and rank neopet species/colour combinations.
Trophy Catalog
Added May 31, 2006, the Trophy Catalog provides visitors with a checklist for all of Neopets' trophies, again a fansite first.
Other Features
Pink Ink
PinkPT's newspaper, containing articles, stories and art pertaining to Neopets and other topics. Began in October 31, 2004.
PPT Podcast
PPT's very own talk show features hosts from the PPT Forums discussing the latest and most relevant topics to date. Incorporating humor and a little bit of sillyness, the PPT Podcast is widely distributed online via iTunes and all relevant podcatchers.
Custom Shields
PPT's Custom Shields are created by Mike, a vetern Neopian who ran with Ad0 back in the days of the great Neopian hackers. Proving immensely popular, custom shields are able to be requested by PPT visitors for creation.
Sub Sites
Kym's Music
Kym's Music is a homage to one of PPT's very own artists Kym Huynh (whose website can be accessed at http://www.kymhuynh.com/). Supported by the PPT community at large both in terms of promotion and kudos, Kym Huynh is currently writing a PPT theme song for the community.
DancePhD
Begun in June 15, 2005, DancePhD is all about dancing, an enjoyable hobby of the webmaster. It aims to be the central hub of all things dance, DancePhD connects the international hiphop/break dance community.
Planet Subeta
A fansite for a Neopets substitute game called Subeta.
Avada Kedavra
A fansite for the widely popular Harry Potter novels.
Sailor Moon
Begun in June 15, 2005, Sailor Moon is a fansite for the popular anime cartoon series Sailor Moon.
Oekaki School
Oekaki tutorials for one of the largest oekakis on the Internet, the PPT Oekaki.
The Laughing Nekos
A site created by PPT's designer Ben Williams.
The Forum Community
One of the more popular areas of PinkPT is the large community hosted on the phpBB forum. Within its walls, PinkPTers (a person who often visit PinkPT) converse about all things Neopets and many other topics. PinkPTers have been described as hard-working, fun-loving insane people, much as PinkPT is meant to be. With the help of the forum, a lot of content, and a great community, PinkPT has developed their own little slice of online culture.
Currently under the eye of the three administrators. Jim, the weird guy, handles the disciplinary side of things. Hunter Lupe handles the technical side of it. Runevalkyrie is more a watchful eye over the staff, as many things have gone wrong in its past.
The "One Black Meowclops Pen" Experiment
The OBMP experiment was started by PinkPT user jrtman who was inspired by Kyle MacDonald's very successful One Red Paperclip experiment in which Mr. MacDonald started with a single red paperclip and hoped to trade up until he received a house.
Jrtman created the OBMP experiment to see if he could recreate ORP in the world of Neopets. A small webpage for the experiment was put up on his pet PrinceGrizzly's petpage explaining the experiment and listing the usernames of every person who contributed to it.
The mission was to start with a single Black Meowclops Pen (worth around 2k Neopoints) and continue to trade for slightly better things until the goal of a complete Secret Laboratory Map set (9 pieces) was reached successfully.
OBMP is still an on-going experiment and as such jrtman has not yet reached the goal point.
Memoirs From PPTers
I remember when Hunter was in the chatbox, and he changed the little title about every five minutes. Once, he spelt bizarre wrong, too. Once in the chatbox, somebody was "mysteriously" kicking random people and nobody could figure out which mod was doing it. - Caesara
- The April Fool's Day joke, where some posts were converted into 1337, and where the moderators were clones. There were also spammish ranks (Beyond Spammy) and the filters ("According to the prophecy...") - Dragonfire and Runevalkyrie
Back when the community first started, members had to vote mods in. Bob asked for people to UN-vote him. A week or so later, he was an admin. - Atamand
- Back in December, when my uncle had a heart attack, I had to sit in the hospital every day waiting for news on him, try and comfort my cousin, but as soon as I got back to my grandmother's house every night, I could get on PPT, and everyone there was friendly, and those that knew about my uncle cared enough to say something in my thread about him. Thanks to PPT, Christmas 2003 turned out to be better than the circumstances would have ever allowed. - Tested
The day when Steph and Jenn met each other. They were the first PPTers to meet in real life. - Jill
- Outkast Fight a long time ago (back when Ven ran the board). It was fourty beautiful pages of spammy battling. - Sunnie
The Great Time Warp August 2003. Not only were our post counts destroyed (Sunnie's was cut in half), but all the threads were gone, too! That especially affected the RPers. Poor guys. - Sunnie
- The creation of Pink Ink was such a lot of hype. - Lillie
Oh heck, I remember. There was this one time I was completely and utterly miserable for two weeks or so. I had a minor emotional weeping period, don't know if it was break down or not. I will definitely remember the support of all those who posted to cheer me up and just to tell me that they were there. It was important to me to know that people were just there for me and so I've tried since to be there for other people. I got a surprise webpage from CSK and Charisma who had collected what nice things people had to say about me and put them all in. I'll always be grateful to everyone who was there for me. I have a copy of everything saved onto my hard drive for those down days, because I never want to be so miserable onto other people again. Many people are down and PPT has always proved to be a supportive place for them. - Lillie
- Being made a moderator was fun. I climbed out of bed one day and was attacked by congratulations on AIM. Ooo, now that was a sight, a bleary eyed, tossle haired kid with jaw dropped open when I found out. - Lillie
The PPT Gods Dictionary being a mini success at the start of it. That was great simply because it was the first original idea I had ever had on PPT and it was a good one. I've only got the first copy saved, not the new one. *sigh* - Lillie
- PPT Survivor! I loved how it was all girls at the end and the conversations that took place about who was winning and who was losing. The discussion of who to vote for. I clearly recall Chrome saying she would flip a coin for if the last two girls both had a "C" as the beginning letter of their name. - Lillie
Way back during Summer 2002 we were constantly changing servers. After my original registering in mid June, I had to reregister about 5 times. First time was because I forgot my password on my original account because I changed my email and it didn't let me log in once it sent me a new password. But the other 4 times were server changes. Final time was when we settled onto the almost permenant server, which just recently went down. - Lass
- Also, the time warp of last summer. If my memory serves me correctly, it happened in early to mid August. All posts were deleted that were made after July 13th. Post counts were also set back to what they had been on July 13th. It was mass chaos, since no one had any idea what was going on. Looking back on it, I laugh at how all the members were acting. Seeing all these topics spread across the forums stating "Whats going on?!?! My post count was lowered!!" makes me laugh now. - Lass
And when Jim made me an admin for 30 seconds when the forums were running incredibly slow. - Lass
- There was also the Dark Angel/Chrome fad. If you supported the Dark Angels you would change your username to "Dark Angel [insert username here]" and if you supported the Chromes you would become "Chrome[insert name here]". - Lass
PI basically started when somebody who I believe is no longer a member suggested starting a paper of sorts for PPT. I offered to help with it, and started a thread in Misc Disc, asking if anybody would be willing to help. It got loads of responses, and millions of suggestions. (I won't go into all the little details of who did what and all that, because the list IS rather long) The first PI staff was created, and all we needed was somewhere to start. At first PI was going to be set up on angelfire, by Lilac, who had offered to do the job, provided she had everything. Then Hunter stepped in and offered to do it for us. (Thank you, Hunter!) So the CP was created, along with the front page, and all that stuff. The original thread in Misc Disc, by then, had been split numerous times and had about 50 pages in total. When the first issue came out, it didn't have much in it and had a few mistakes (on our part), but everybody was happy. (If I haven't mentioned it yet, PI was started mid-August of '03.) By December the staff had changed numerous times, and we were doing quite a bit better. We had our ups and downs (mostly me forgetting to release the issue or being lazy or something else wrong on my part *ahem*). Then we appealed to Jim for a usergroup. After a while of bugging him about it, it was created, and Pudding was set in charge as the mod. After a while Yoshi was added as the co-mod, and then PPT went down. - Caesara
- I remember kicking SL's butt in Yahoo Pool 6-0 does that count? - Pyro Parrot
I remember halloween back a few years ago on the YaBB forums. It was really cool, and Hunter had some sort of music in his sig that freaked people out. The Dark Angel fad happend around there with another halloween fad. It was really fun. - Koku
- I remember Ven/Optimistic Consideration. He was really nice, and deserved to become a Global/Super mod. - Koku
I remember when Chrome first released the RM2K game. I played it over and over..no matter how small it was. ^_^ - Koku
- I remember Fidd's non-blinking blinkie. "I don't blink like all those CONFORMIST BLINKIES!" - Sapphire Faerie
If someone asked me to name my favorite PPT memory, I'd laugh in their face. PPT has created so many memories for me that it's impossible to pick a favorite. But some of my special ones include becoming Capo in the PPT Mafia. Being Capo means that you've caught one thousand scammers and reported them. Becoming Capo was such a huge accomplishment for me. It made me feel special to be only the second Capo in all of PPT history. The Mafia has always been one of my favorite usergroups because it gave me a reason to work towards something in PPT. I really, really loved being able to leave PPT in the evenings and feel like I had, in a way, made Neopets a little bit of a better place because of the scammers I had caught. Another huge memory I have is starting PPTAAC in February of 2004. PPTAAC stands for 'PPTers Against Animal Cruelty'. It all started as just a 'Boycott Petco' thread, but soon developed to be one of the few clubs on PPT with a good purpose. At first, it surprised me at how many people were interested in our cause. We suddenly had a huge amount of people volunteering to make graphics and work at their local animal shelters. I remember that after mentioning volunteering at the local Humane Society, tons of PPTAAC members posted that they'd checked out their Humane Society and local shelters and a few of them volunteered. It made me kind of proud that I belonged to a forum with such good and caring people. Speaking of good and caring people, I remember numerous times where PPT members cared about me. There was one time recently when I had an ear infection, and just overnight, over 20 people replied and told me to get well soon, and many also suggested things to make the infection go away. I especially remember Twinkle messaging me personally to ask if I was okay. She told me that she had read my thread on the infection and cared enough to personally message and ask if I was okay- and that meant so, so much to me. Another huge memory I got from PPT was becoming a PPT God. For those of you who don't know, a PPT God is a user who achieves one thousand posts. After becoming a PPT God, I quickly joined ASP, one of PPT's random and crazy groups. I loved ASP because it gave me a chance to be as crazy and loud as I wanted to be, and my opinion was always heard when I wanted it to be. ASP's initials stand for 'Avs, Soda, Pudding'. Avs is to stand for Lady Night, who makes avatars and was a founder. Soda stands for the user Soda, another founder. And Pudding stands for Pudding, another founder. ASP was completely secret, which was just another aspect I loved about it. Another memory was the restart of the PPT Gnome Legion. I was, and still am, the Great Gnome Mistress. The Gnomes were supposed to welcome new members, hold giveaways, and just do nice stuff. And now comes one of my fondest memories- being accepted into the Pink Ink. The Pink Ink is PPT's official newspaper, and I was always in awe of the writers. One day, Cae- the newspaper founder- opened up applications. I applied first for Forum Writer, didn't make it, then applied for Entertainment- and got in! I felt so happy for weeks afterward. The Pink Ink board was the best... everyone was so welcoming and encouraging. Even though I only got a chance to write 2 articles before the forums went down, I still loved every minute of being a PI writer. All in all, PPT is a wonderful community that I'm glad to be a part of. Everyone is so nice and encouraging, and always there for you. The only thing I don't like about it is that I didn't join sooner. - Bagel
- Theres a lot of memories in PPT, regaurdless of when you joined. They were made everyday and they seem to keep on popping up. From what I've read, we need to write about the memories which we hold dear to ourselves that have happend over the past years. One which stands out is Fe and that elbow licking. I thought it was totally gross when that came up but it turned out to be some awesome fun. Both PPTbies were really awesome to see. The whole "Chrome for Pres" thing still cracks me up. I suppose one of the memories which actually include me that I have is when I found out that someone who I knew online, and someone who I also knew offline were the same person. I had met a fellow PPTer and known him for nearly a year. That PPTers is Ammer and I think I can say that I've made an awesome friend off such an event. I remember being Ill last November and posting a "Cookie" thread cause I wanted to bake. That was the day I got the most awesome cookie recipe ever. Welsh Cookies. Another one would be my birthday. I wont be forgetting coming online and seeing a "Happy Birthday Xil" Thread. That was awesome. Jasujo's birthday was right around then too!! Heck, Anyones birthday should really count as a memory. It's a great feeling coming online and seeing all your friends posting "Happy Birthday" or something to that effect. - Xil
It was a normal day as any other and I was on PPT reading the current topic which I had just posted. One post caught my attention which asked if I was in a specific english class second period. It happened to be correct and I was very freaked out. I began to search through my head on who in my English class played Neopets. I thought of one person and than decided to go with my gut. After PMing this PPTer and being tortured with this PPTer's mind game I realised it was my friend who I knew in real life named Xil. We weren't really close friends but now we have become closer and I actually can talk to someone about Neopets (In secret). It makes me proud to meet a PPTer and I hope to meet many of you in the near future. If you're anything like Xil, than we'll be great friends. - Ammer
- Hmm, one thing that comes to mind was Mr. Adam Face (is hot!)'s journey to TNT Headquarters. It was right before the Time Warp, I think. I don't know exactly how long the thread got, but it was over 20 pages I think. The first time he was turned back (because he had Asparagus, I think...?), but he went out again. I'm pretty sure that he came back around the Time Warp but no one knew what happened to him since he hadn't posted, so we were speculating... did TNT hold him hostage? He wrote up a big article, it was in the PPT news, but I don't know if it would still be there. Somewhere in the thread, someone (Magenta?) had a picture of Neopets with "Go Mr. Adam Face!" signs. - Sunshine Jenny
I remember the PPT Secret Santa thing that Ecliptic and Yoshi organized last December in the Av/Sig Board. Oh, that was bundles of fun. You said what kind of things you wanted in your set, and someone made one for you, but you didn't know who it was. Near Christmas, everyone got their set and had to guess who their Secret Santa was. I remember being Knives' Secret Santa. I was awful at making graphics back then, and I remember him trying to be nice and saying that he liked the set I made him. And Denae/Joelz Butterfly made me this wonderful set that said "X's and O's: Who's side are you on?" It was the cutest thing. I still have that saved somewhere, in fact. - Apricus
- I owe PPT more NP then Im worth. Everyday the first thing I would do was log onto neopets, and open PPT to do my treasure Map quest.(This was years ago). Then, when y'all started puting up the Cliffhanger anwsers, I started doing those too! It hit a point where I was on PPT far more than Neopets and I hadn't even signed up for the Forums at that time. :-P It was at the end of Grade 8 which I got caught on PPT at school, I was sent to my vice principal and had to explain what it was I was doing here. Consquently, PPT became the first School-decided banned website at my elementary school. Smile (That means the School Board didn't make the decision) - Xil
Before I joined, I "lived" at IDNQ. Strangefire420 mentioned these forums, and one time when I was banned from IDNQ...I think it was the second time (I got banned 4 times I think. Such a naïve friends555 I was.)...I came here. I posted my first message. It was about me being banned from IDNQ and coming here to fill my time. I got a bunch of replies, but I only remember one: "Jump on the banned wagon!" I remember also I said in my post "oh no, hunter's modding". The admins at the time were SL, Jim, and Janie. Bob was "Back to Modding". Hunter was a moddy and Rune was just a member...y. Icey joined and we had a post-count race...he was winning until he stopped at 160...I went on to a post count of around 2k (if you count the posts I made on this new forum.) After a while, I stopped looking for my old IDNQ friends and made some new friends. I don't really remember who my first few friends were, but now I'm pretty comfortable around everyone here, so it doesn't really matter who I am or was closer with. I remember a bunch of old mods that I never really knew. I also remember Venny...and my short obsession with him after I joined Divas...and how I kept threatening to get Faye a tongue-ectomy because he liked her. I remember the Outkasts, and when Venny left, and when Lillie aka Ten Snow took over. I remember trying to get into as many groups as possible...including the not-a-usergroup CCC. I kept hoping Cheese would notice my little "tour guide" newbie-scaring post. It turns out he did remember (after the CCC was disbanded and re-made in Gods months later, I asked him) but he never asked me to join...I was too shy to request it for myself. I remember the time warp. I was typing up a post for the one RP I have ever been in (I knew absolutely nothing about the topic or how to RP...silly little Tymaporer), and suddenly I got this weird error message that I'd never seen before. I clicked the back button and saved my post (it's gone now) and after about a minute, the forums came back. I never noticed the date it said (July 14...it was actually August 5.) I simply went back to post my thing on the RP, and upon noticing that it wasn't there, I posted a topic in SDIS (or Q&A, I can't remember) titled "HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Hehehe...I was so young. I remember creating a second account under the name Venalina (that was when Venny was done being a girl) and Janie caught me after 10 posts...I did it because I was trying to remember what it was like to be a newbie. Seriously, that’s why. I remember around the holidays, everyone changed their names (I was .frostie555 O_o) and Jim was The Jimch. I wrote a song based off Jim’s new name called “You’re a Green One, Mr. Jimch”, and sent it to him. I think he liked it. I remember the second PPTbies. I really wanted to win something, and Bob had just left, so I made a fake screenshot of the admin-only board...it had three topics visible in that part of the “screenshot”. One was by SL, asking why the admin board needed a moderator. One was by Jim, saying that anyone who didn’t vote for me would have their account deleted. And the last one was by Bob, saying that he didn’t vote for me. (I almost got a strike for it.) Needless to say, I wasn’t even a top nominee in any category... I remember that April Fool’s Day stuff. Wibble. XD And there were the mod clones, and I started a line of “member clones”, and then there was...what else? It was so long ago. I remember my first anniversary, and how I posted an essay that I wrote for English class about PPT, and then how my birthday thread got almost no posts because my birthday was three days after my anniversary and everyone was wishing me happy early birthday on my anniversary thread. XP - Tymaporer
- I remember back in the days, the Outkasts group was a little more hyper then usual... Then All of a sudden Ven posted a board something to the affect of "I've died.." or maybe something else, my mind is a bit fuzzy... anyway he changed his name to Venemous the Zombie, and eventually it caght on and everyone in the outkasts had changed their name to be something dead... I was Rontu back then, I became Spirit Rontu. This lasted for a month or so until it died out... such good times... - Nunaamr'e
OMG! Does anybody remember when Cyanna made the image of the Chia shooting a slorg out of a cannon? Or when Chrome made an April fools post saying she was a boy? - Fiddelysquat
- I remember during the PPTBies one year, when Fiddelysquat and ChromeFox were both in the running for "Best Moderator," Fidds made an artificial report about all of the bad stuff Chrome had ever done, complete with a picture from UglyPeople.com of some woman who didn't have a chin. In response, someone completely uninvolved made a paint drawing of Fidds eating cat food. I completely forgot who won the race. -theonlysaneone
- I remember looking at a thread when I first joined in the end of January 2003 and seeing a post by someone with a picture of a fridge full of beer with a message that said "Hey look, I found a picture of Wataguy's fridge!" And Wataguy's reply of "Hey, if you want a beer just ask, don't go snooping." or something like that, probably funnier then what I put but it was two and a half years ago! I remember Jim's mutant kacheek avatar too. I remember a thread about body mods and coming across a post by Fidds saying she had peircings from head to toes, my eyes were wide and mouth hanging open until I got to the part where she said "just kidding, you gullible little sap." Which of course now we know she really wasn't kidding. Cheeky Tongue She just veeeeery carefully edits them out of all her photos, how else do you explain the stark-raving gorgeousness? Foul play of course! Evil or Very Mad. I remember when Ven and Stephy where *the* PPT couple. All the guys had 'I stalk Stephy' in their sigs and all the girls swooned over Ven's hair. I remember when Fe signed up, she posted and posted and posted and posted. She had every other post in the 'person above you' game for a while. I remember thinking that Igg was a 20something, possibly in college. - Nessa
I remember when we were all Mod clones at April Fools-that was funny. And Rage's "Story with McDonalds toys" and my rip-off that I still have...I think... ~Robin
I remember when Staribbon posed as a girl and joined the Divas and talked in the Divas Chat before coming out that she was a he. We were all pretty fooled! S/he left shortly after that and was never heard from again. He posed as a girl due to "personality issues" or something of the sorts. This was in 2002. - Jill
I remember when Fiddly made paradoy raps from Eminem and 50 Cent's songs and became know as "Fiddy Cent". Truely a hilarious experience. - Jill
Enemies
Despite the fact that PinkPT has such a wide fan base, it has also ranked up a number of enemies. As the largest Neopets fan site, many runners of other sites claimed that PinkPT is a site that encourages a multitude of problems, including spyware, viruses and hardcore pornography. Of course, this is not true. Though the websites sports a number of advertisements, the management makes sure that no illegal content makes its way onto the computer. Not only other site runners have grudges, as many older members of the community come back to antagonize the forums. Still, with over 4,000 members, it could be considered the largest fan site for Neopets.
Mascot
The most noted celebrity on PinkPT is the chicken, Arrow. In the beginning, it started out as an Emoticon, but this chicken has been officially raised to the 'mascot' of PPT. At the top of the forum, one can see the banner. There is a picture of Arrow, painted by the resident artist, the wonderful Yoshi. In various forms, during the holiday seasons, one can see Arrow in such forms as the roast chicken during Thanksgiving, and a Cupid arrow, during St. Valentine's Day Influences
The Pink Poogle Toy item on Neopets has had its description changed to "This lovely pink poogle moans about banner ads and frozen accounts when you squeeze it! :P", a playful reference to the members of PPT forums, many of whom frequently complain about various aspects of Neopets.
PinkPT's Lost Layout
PinkPT had a fourth layout, a pink one that briefly appeared for a few days before being taken down. It make a brief re-appearance during a template switching system Hunter installed but after a the unfortunate server reset where a lot of data was lost including all the forum files and databases, this template never re-appeared.
Trivia
- A former department, Neopets-Layouts, offering graphics and templates for Neopians started in (need date) was merged into PPT's main site on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 due to quality control issues. It was also used to complement the recently added custom shields section headed by Mike, a friend of Ad0, who is famous in Neopian folklore for hacking Neopets.
