EPTI was mostly prompted into writing this upon reflection of my own 2000th post, and similar milestone posts by other forum users. Some of you might remember hazelynut's 1000th, of which I contributed greatly to by filming and editing the footage into the hilarious video it is now:
To be accurate, I was actually approaching my milestone months before she did, and still I had a hell of a time coming up with a decent post topic. I'd done some science before during BW:
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/vdraconis/zerglings5.jpg)
Remember this? You probably don't, actually, but here's the thread in case you missed it the first time
And I'm pretty sure I wanted to do one of those again, but I was still sort of at a loss for a topic. During this time I had a number of ideas and inspirations for topics - a followup to Lalush's thread on Macro, a study of JulyZerg's 55-drone style in the GSL, or even a themed Mafia game in the TL subforums - all of which didn't really pan out for one reason or another.
To be fair, the more I tried to work on it, the more I was concerned about the kind of reception and impact it would have. At first I wanted to write something profound, or insightful, or even just damned funny, but in the end my most pressing concern was "how much will this contribute to the community?"
As Teamliquid continues to grow due to interest in SC2, one of my biggest concerns is - what will happen to the community? I only caught onto the tail end of Brood War, lurking from late 2008 and registering in mid-2009, but even then there was a different feel to the site.
Yes, a larger player/fanbase will inevitably drive up the idiot quotient no matter where you are on the internet, and with a new game some (!) balance complaints can be considered legitimate opinions, and so we have our share of complainers and whiners and trolls. Yes, with increased sponsorship there are more opportunities to put you in the spotlight for efame and youtube money, or for career opportunities in ESPORTS, so the stakes have been raised for players and the amount of drama has increased for everyone else.
But in the end, it's not the ratio of idiots to good posters that determines what the Teamliquid community is, nor however many people are trying to "go pro" or cash in on being an internet celebrity, nor is it just a set of numbers of streamviews through one particular site being tracked by corporations.
Perhaps this isn't the case for everyone that was here before me, but I certainly felt that there was an unwritten rule here after a few months of lurking - a distinction that made the difference between being a just a forum poster and a community member. To be a part of the community, you must contribute to the community - that was the way I felt. It didn't have to be a large contribution, nor did it have to happen on a regular basis (after all, it's no fun being serious all the time), but in the end it meant actually spending some time and effort in trying to make TL a better place.
It's kind of strange how this turned out, because now plenty of people will contribute to the development of SC2 with their wallets, or with streamviews and internet outrage, but all of these things are important for the fledgling industry of ESPORTS... yet contributing to ESPORTS isn't contributing to Teamliquid, though contributing to Teamliquid is contributing to ESPORTS. It's a strange thing, this sense of community, and as SC2 continues to grow the more concerns I have about TL devolving into just another forum where people bitch at each other over stupid shit... but so long as we have people trying to make TL a better place for everyone, whether you're staff or not (especially if you're not), then I think we'll be alright.
So, back to drone numbers and my 2k - I picked this because it was a relatively simple topic that would satisfy my math/sciencey urges, and that my previous searches yielded nothing on this specific topic. I did want to do something grandiose and potentially paradigm-shifting and all of that, but more importantly I wanted to help in whatever way I could, because that's what community members do.
In the end, despite whatever misgivings I had about some of the knowledge being obvious or not being significant or earth-shaking enough, I posted it - because no matter how small of a contribution it was, it was still indeed a contribution.
And, with all of the experiences I've had in the past 2 years in meeting other TL members and going to LANs and DC dinners and meeting people at MLGs and (recently) working at IPL, and especially whatever I've done to making this site a better place in spending my time on the internet... I'm proud to be a part of the TL community.
Here's to another 2001 awesome posts, and many more years to come.
