Hello,

This is the eleventh Faces of Apolyton interview, this time it's a conversation with Apolyton's List Manager, DarkCloud, who is known for compiling many, many lists about civ games and the Apolytoners themselves.

DarkCloud asks many of the questions himself, so it's partially a monologue on his behalf :).

As for the next FoA interview, stay tuned for something very special, and let the speculation begin.

Enjoy,

ACS Interview Chief - Solver.

DarkCloud: You are well-known for your staggering collections of lists and statistics regarding Apolyton. What would you say you have learned or gained from this?

DarkCloud: I have gained closeness to some posters through the list. Example, I first became known to the OT crowd, and became somewhat accepted through my lists.
Through my lists I have learned several sociological details about the make up of society. First, I confirmed my suspicions that for someone to become well-known they need only do one thing and do it well. For a while as my list-making career grew, I watched posters such as The Brain and Dracon with their humor, posters such as Ecthelion and Eli with their OT spam (of course they did other things as well in Civ II sections, etc, but that's what they are known for ;) even if, as they may say, it's an unright title, they cannot deny that's what people remember about them ;))
I have also, I hope, learned something about each Apolytoner, and through my lists been able to learn more things about more Apolytoners. I would like to think that I know every Apolytoner... Of course I don't but I would like to think that each Apolytoner lives on through my lists.
When I search old data and read threads, I can sometimes learn how the poster was feeling when they posted, or, if I research further, why they were feeling that way. This has garnered in me a deep respect for many posters, especially those who contribuited to the original Civ III list, yin26, korn456, Snowfire, etc.
The more I learn about each poster, the more surprises I have, and the more I learn to enjoy Apolyton and interact with other people.

DarkCloud: How did you get started in compiling massive lists of information?

DarkCloud: My interest in lists began around September 2000. First, I noticed that over the years, I had compiled hundreds of lists of ideas for civilization III. Then I discovered that I had fallen short of the submissions for "The List 2.0" for Civ III and was a bit disappointed. Second, I noticed that, after about a month at Apolyton, few posters knew who I was. At the time, I wasn't too worried about that, but I wanted to be known in the future, since I had already spent a great amount of time at Apolyton and thought I may as well do something useful since I was spending all my time there.
At the time, I decided that the best route to becoming known somewhere would be to focus on one thing, something different, and do it well. I had many ideas at first, I thought I would be a large poster in the Civ III section. So, I did that, and remained virtually unknown in the Off-Topic or elsewhere on Apolyton. Then I decided I would focus in the Alpha Centauri sections, likewise that did not work. However, during that time, I had started compiling lists of information. I already had two lists in the Civ III section, both of which were doing well and eliciting many favorable comments.
Thus, I made my decision. I would become well known by compiling lists. Now, I had always been interested in lists, for several years I had compiled massive lists of data. For example, I once simulated an entire Airport with airplane schedules. I also simulated two race tracks and about fifty or so racehorses and nearly one hundred jockey's and owners, among other simulations, such as over fifty pages of two simulated Baseball leagues. Thus, these early interests also contributed to my decision. Since I already enjoyed lists of information which others considered quite useless, I knew that I would not become bored by my chosen profession. And so I chose, and began a career of creating lists.
The first list I created after my decision was the massively successful Apolyton Army, based on posts per day by Off-Topic posters. This list, by myself, a relatively unknown, minor, new Apolytoner, allowed me to become known in the off topic and started my reputation.

DarkCloud: Which of your lists is your favorite and why?

DarkCloud: My favorite list was The Apolyton Army, it was my first Off-Topic list.  It helped me learn many posters usernames and personalities. (For those of you who don't know exactly what the list was, it was a list of posts per day for the OT posters... I think our first generals were Ming and Provost Harrison.  Mao and Imran were the Colonels.  I think that round one was in September 2000. It went on for about fifteen days, possibly a whole month.
It was either inspired by Provost's Guild of Emperors or inspired PH, I can't remember which one went first, but I remember that after the Guild's closure (Due to the clone threads: The Concert of Chieftans, Cacaphony of Kings, Palace of Princes, Settlers Bar, and some others) I was quite worried that Ming might delete the thread and give me a PCR, thinking that the Apolyton Army was created to encourage post count increases. However, he didn't. I'd like to think my letters to Ming helped alleviate some of the tensions.
A few months later, Feb 2001, I think, I tried to bring the Guild back, but I had less time to work on it and could only update once per day. Thus, Version II lost some of its glamour.
But, The Apolyton Army is still my favorite list.