Warning: this is gonna be a huge trip to memory-land, but PLEASE read it until the end. Maybe あなた 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 表示する (I still am, it’s my 秒 お気に入り 表示する ever) and I was searching for some episodes online on some ランダム site. That site (I have no idea which one is now, Lol) had a lot of リンク to episodes, and some of those リンク bought me to fanpop.

The first think I noticed about this site was those funny options things where あなた 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 あなた watch Heroes, あなた know how it works, in season 1, people were always dying there. LOL)
I got totally addicted and I joined the ヒーローズ spot, and I eventually made my own first link. That pick gave my first リスペクト ever, によって no other than Dave (YAY, thank あなた Dave <3), and I swear I jumped around the house when I saw the little リスペクト thing. xD
Then I made some もっと見る picks. =) It was the only thing I was doing on fanpop, lol. (It’s sill my お気に入り way of contributing, because I 愛 to choose the right 画像 to add, and I 愛 to read other people’s comments.)
So, after 15 picks on the ヒーローズ 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 または two.
Back then, the ヒーローズ spot was the spot with もっと見る ファン and the most 人気 (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 もっと見る than this. Yea, pretty crazy right? Considering how much ファン the Twilight spot has now. Lol

But this was then.
For some reason, I went un-active a few months. Season 2 of ヒーローズ was starting and I didn’t want to be spoiled によって 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 もっと見る spots, like One 木, ツリー 丘, ヒル and Supernatural.
OTH is my お気に入り 表示する ever, and my 秒 dedicated medal was for that spot, also with just picks.
Then I started to add 動画 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, あなた 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.
によって December, I was the 6th 上, ページのトップへ contributer of that spot.
And right now, I’m proudly the 3rd. =]

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

But situations like these are もっと見る rare and rare these days. And I guess that’s the point of this article.
あなた 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 動画 on the OTH spot. lol (I don’t regret it btw, I found some great 動画 there xD). Anyways, silly me for being slow, no wonder why people call me “looser” または “Joey”. =P

Some new ファン 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 フォーラ on the OTH spot, on the フレンズ spot and maybe on others spots too. All あなた had to do was posting リンク of your stuff and people would rate it. Those フォーラム no longer exist, they were deleted, because it wasn’t a fair way of getting medals. I honestly couldn’t have agreed もっと見る with this decision.
Now, those new ファン (new fans, not the ファン who were using those forums), are fully aware of this. So instead of having a forum, they do it によって 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, あなた don’t see it. But あなた know it’s there.

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

At this moment, I have 26 dedicated medals, 17 die-hard メダル and 7 fanatic medals.
I’m a member of ファンポップ もっと見る 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 もっと見る メダル than me または 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 あなた have to do is find some LiveJournals または some ファン sites. Also, あなた can add repeated ones. And it gets even easier when あなた 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 動画 and 120 画像 to a spot.
Let’s say I added 875 動画 and 1485 画像 to the same spot. Which means, I added もっと見る than 800 動画 and 1000 画像 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 ファン than the first one.
A user added 170 動画 and 130 images. That user has a Fanatic. She’s the 上, ページのトップへ contributor.
Other user added 20 動画 and 200 images. That user has a die-hard. She’s the 秒 上, ページのトップへ contributor.
I added 350 動画 and 1500 images. I have a die-hard. I’m the third 上, ページのトップへ 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 ロスト Myra, the 上, ページのトップへ contributor of all ファンポップ 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, あなた can’t honestly say that Myra didn’t work for her メダル 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 ベル to you?
I hope whoever who is 読書 this, understands what this 記事 is about. This is not me bragging and/or trying to get もっと見る medals. This is me trying to stop unfair situations.

The ファンポップ 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 フォーラム and I met the most amazing ファン 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 動画 should be considerate もっと見る important. あなた can add all the 画像 あなた want, all the times あなた want, but あなた can’t add repeated videos. And if あなた 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 動画 of one subject as there are images, so yea, it’s not right than the 動画 count もっと見る than images.. In the end, it’s better to leave this situation to the people who know the best, aka the ファンポップ 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 愛 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 メダル when あなた least expect it. Especially if one of those メダル is a fanatic. あなた get the accomplished feeling and when あなた told other users about, they also get REALLY happy (sometimes happier than あなた ;)), because they know how hard it is to get a medal. And they totally リスペクト 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 によって one “cheating” user. I think someone has that message screen caped somewhere. The content of the message was simple, it 発言しました 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 ファンポップ rules, but I’ve seen a LOT of them. I think it’s just mean, not only they are getting メダル not playing fair, but they are making it hard for other users to get them. Users than DON’T cheat.

This is not what ファンポップ is about.

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

This is just to 表示する how tired I am of all the situation. =/

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