Interview with Vocaloid, a supermod and the supervisor of WriTE

Interviewer: Mocha, Krill wants me to interview you.

Vocaloid: Hmm? Okay. Write up some questions or something.

Interviewer: Okay.

What inspired you to write “Just a Rock”?

Vocaloid: Why that? “Just A Rock” is dropped. Well, it did sorta inspire a wave of parody and troll fics…

To be honest, at the time, I hadn't written anything for awhile, and I was frustrated with college stuff. I decided to amuse myself with a short troll fiction.

I was like, "Let's find something extremely ordinary... and then state it as such and deny anything special about it to bait people in." The chapter was short because that's all it needed. I just needed to state that the rock was ordinary. I added in a bit of a setting to make it seem somewhat like an actual story with [some] substance in it.

The response I got was above and beyond what I expected. I expected people to get annoyed, [but I] underestimated the amount of trolls and people who liked quirky things like that.

Interviewer: Why did you drop it?

Vocaloid: Well, the big reaction to it is also probably the reason for its downfall. Originally, it was good because I didn't care about the reaction. I wanted to annoy the reader. And then people started commenting about how the rock was somehow special, and I got caught up in that. I made the rock special in the later chapters, and that ruined it.

I kept rethinking stuff and rewriting stuff to the point that 250-500 word chapters were taking hours upon hours to write, and I stopped enjoying the process of writing them.

Interviewer: Have you ever abused your mod powers on the WriTE Discord Server in anyway, even say changing the nickname of a poor little chess player in a discord chat?

Vocaloid: No.

*The interviewer’s name was changed after the question was answered.*

Interviewer: Why did you become a mod? You seem more focused on writing and being a general troll, so why the jump to become an official mod?

Vocaloid: Well, at the time, I wasn't very focused on writing.

I had just dropped my first fiction after realizing that my writing was shit, so I decided to scour the forums for writing advice. Meanwhile, I started helping others out with their questions and overall being active on the forums. I was even reporting rule-breaking posts and such.

Interviewer: I heard the rrl forums is a terrible place for writing advice, though?

Vocaloid: Not in its early days. There was all sorts of writing guides being posted around. As for why I became a mod, I felt like I was already doing the job of a mod, so I filed a support ticket asking how to become a mod. Kanadaj responded to me telling me to just ask, and they'll approve if I'm suitable.

I felt like he was indirectly telling me, "ask and ye shall receive," so I asked and became a mod. I was [then] told that I was already in consideration for being recruited as a mod.

Interviewer: What was the stupidest thing you've had to ban or report? Or, alternatively, the funniest?

Vocaloid: Well, there was that one time a user [had] swearing in his signature, so I replaced all the swearing with and told the user about it. The response surprised me: the user actually liked how the signature looked with the and decided to keep it that way instead of changing it to something else.

Interviewer: Right. You said you realized that your writing was shit. Do you feel like your writing has improved?

Vocaloid: I most definitely have improved. I'm in the process of reading through and editing one of my old stories. I know for sure that my old writing left something to be desired. Weird dialogue choices, bad character development, awkward wording, infodumps, etc. All stuff that I still do, but not as much as before.

Interviewer: How do you find the experience of being the supervisor of a group?

Vocaloid: It's interesting. Sometimes I feel like a normal member and other times I feel like I'm leading the group. At the same time, I feel somewhat isolated, especially when I'm away for a day or two. It sorta depends on how active I am in the group since when I'm around a lot I do try to push things into motion.

I'm most active in WriTE out of the three groups I supervise; in the other two groups I feel like I'm just filling in the supervisor position. I'm sorta leaving Draft to its own devices to see how it develops, and too much direct involvement in the Order has lead to some negative things.

Interviewer: Have you ever thought of pushing the role of WriTE supervisor on J0nn0, considering that he is a member and a mod too?

Vocaloid: Nope, because j0nn0 isn't active enough in WriTE. Besides, if I'm active in WriTE, why would I push the position onto others?

Interviewer: On the subject of groups, do you think that groups on RRL help or divide the community as a whole?

Vocaloid: I believe it has helped the community more than [it has] hurt it. It may have made the forum less active, but the forum is good for information, not so much for discussion. People can respond to another person and never get a response.

Chats separate from the main chat were going to happen sooner or later.

As for splitting the community into factions, it gives rise to the potential of competitions between the groups. Not that [the groups are] segregated, far from it. People from other groups constantly visit. The rule that you can't be in more than one group has prevented the groups from sorta merging into some hodgepodge mess, but people still come and go in different chats.

Interviewer: Did you choose WriTE to supervise, or were you assigned it?

Vocaloid: I chose WriTE.

Interviewer: Are there any [mod] responsibilities? Also, if you left RRL for some reason for a month, would you still be a supermod?

Vocaloid: There are responsibilities for supermods. As for leaving for a month, I'd probably still be a supermod. Depends on why I left.

Interviewer: What if you just left without warning? Do you have to check up with the admins every once in a while?

Vocaloid: I’m not totally sure, to be honest. We’ve had a supermod who is very tardy, and he’s still a supermod. He happens to just show up when needed. He’s had a number of computer troubles so we don’t blame his tardiness.

Supermods were sorta selected during a time where some controversial things were happening, and the most trustworthy and active mods were chosen. Ironically, I went inactive for a full week before I was made a supermod. It’s hard for supermods to be removed even if we’re inactive. If I went inactive for a month, I believe I’d be kept, even if there was no warning.

Interviewer: Well, on that note. There was a discussion with Kana yesterday about how RRL is understaffed. Due to how much the site is growing, do you think there will be a need for more mods, or that this current amount is good enough?

Vocaloid: We are slightly understaffed. The reports system has allowed us to work out things with less people. However, the issue with our understaffing is that it deals with more important areas like fiction submissions and programming. Places where we need trustworthy people and/or people we have to pay. So it’s a bit of a tough issue to solve as we need more supermods, not normal mods.

We used to be able to pick people out from forum activity, but the forums just aren’t that active anymore. We’re now starting to look at groups a little bit, which might be a step in the right direction. However, the suggestion to make group leaders mods will most likely be rejected. Admins and group leaders have both expressed that they do not like that plan.

There are more and more submissions every day, and only a few people taking care of submissions, leading to longer wait times. Nowhere near other sites with manual approval, [which can] take up to weeks, but our policy originally said twenty-four hours or less, and we try to keep to that.

Interviewer: What responsibilities do you have regarding WriTE?

Vocaloid: Responsibilities? Don't have any. I sorta do whatever. The supervisor role was created on a whim, and at its core it's supposed to be helping with the formation of the group, and overseeing it so it doesn't go in the wrong direction. I sorta just help out when needed, and sometimes I barge in and do whatever I want like creating the Discord channel for tabletop RPGs, and the group competition.

Interviewer: Can you clarify what you mean by wrong direction?

Vocaloid: Preventing things from devolving into disorder, making sure there's mods and group leaders overseeing stuff, making sure the group is actually active and not a dead group, and well, making sure the group doesn't stray too far from its original goals. We make them change their description if they do.

Interviewer: You mentioned that you were a troll before you were a mod? Could you describe your trolling career?

Vocaloid: I would change my name a lot. I encouraged other users to break rules. I broke rules myself. I would often post videos in chat given some context, and they’d sometimes be nsfw. I'd often chat with users about their story, or how they were shamelessly putting the name of their story in their chat username (despite doing the exact same thing.)

I also would sidetrack conversations a lot; I liked pushing things in weird directions. It would sometimes result in mods stepping in and telling people to stop. I also teased the moderators a lot.

There was one mod at the time named “ImitationKatana” who I often dubbed “FakeSword” or “Plastic.” He would often RP about kicking users and we’d question how a sword could kick things.

I got banned maybe 3-4 times, mainly for minor things. I wasn’t very malicious, more of an annoyance. Though, I was a bit of an arse at times, I admit. I was also one of the roleplayers.

Interviewer: After all that, how did you manage to become a mod? I know we went through it, but…

Vocaloid: You see, they didn't take into account my chat history. I also asked to just be a forum mod. I told them expressly that I didn't want to be a chat mod and got banned a few times there, and the admins were fine with that. They made me a chat mod anyways.

I did misbehave once or twice and actually got demoted for a short period of time from my chat antics after becoming a mod.

Interviewer: Do you still troll occasionally, or roleplay?

Vocaloid: As for trolling and roleplaying, I avoid roleplaying. I was more of an "action" roleplayer and was never too fond of the "hugging" roleplaying. I was the type to type "stab User01" as a greeting. Not really anyone to roleplay with like that since most of the roleplayers are doing the hugging stuff.

I definitely still troll people.

Interviewer: Okay, last question before we wrap this up: how did you get your various nicknames?

Vocaloid: Well, it started with my username, Vocaloid. I was kinda into Vocaloid at the time, and I typed it into the username field while registering without expecting to actually get the name. I thought I'd need to try 3-4 times to get a name.

Later on, I got the nickname Cannibaloid. I got that one from writing a fiction with a cannibal protagonist. I think Curvinho gave me the nickname. He was there during the time I was dubbed as such in chat.

Back then, the original chat that RRL used, "ChatWING,” made it very easy to change usernames; like within 5 seconds, you could change your name 5 times. I got all sorts of different "oid" nicknames from various users.

There was also one user who dubbed me as "Lloyd" due to that… Rainte did so. Rainte the scrublord. It just became a norm for me to get nicknames and for me to change my name to the nicknames I received.

Interviewer: As the name that we WriTErs see the most, how did you come by Mocha?

Vocaloid: Krill gave me that nickname. And I like mocha coffee. I don't remember the circumstances too much.

Interviewer: Alright, thank you for your time. Do you have any comments or subjects that we didn’t touch upon?

Vocaloid: Pingas.

Bonus - Interview with WhoCares, editor of this magazine

Interviewer: Earlier, we interviewed the supermod and supervisor of WriTE - Vocaloid. He mentioned that you were the one to nickname him “Mocha.” Can you tell us why?

WhoCares: Vocaloid became Voca, which became Mocha on a whim. And because I like drinking mocha. I think I might have been drinking some at the time?

Interviewer: Thank you for your input.