Community Member Spotlight: Claymorez

Claymorez originally contacted me about helping out with the site – the forums in particular. He had already written up a few ideas and drafts of some documentation that could help, but it turned out to be unlikely to take off, so that idea was scrapped.

Usually, most people would quit right there and stop coming up with new ideas. However, Claymorez did not quit; he continued to think of ways to improve the forums and contacted me again with the idea of keeping a “community map” of The Escapist and its offerings, services, and features. Unfortunately, we already had one, but it was a quite out of date. He volunteered to keep his version up to date all by himself. He dug around, found out all the information (with the assistance of some very kind users while he was building it), and it is now up and running for everyone to see.

If he hadn’t already earned the “Thanks!” badge, he would have definitely earned it for this work of art. Here are his answers to the interview questions:

What first brought you to The Escapist?

[I]Unforgotten Realms[/i] was moved to The Escapist and with it my attention and love. I quickly developed a love for Unskippable, Zero Punctuation and The Escapist’s articles, which in turn meant I had increased exposure to The Escapist’s forums. Never having been on a forum before I watched for a brief time, but soon it sucked me in with all its wonder and brilliance.

What is your favorite thing about The Escapist?

Tough question. Tough question …

Well I suppose I have to say the community in general, both on and off the forums. There is something here for everyone, and you can always find people with similar interests and personalities to yourself, which in turn leads to the development of friendships with people I would never otherwise have the chance to meet.

But then again I also think the best thing is probably the attitude of the people on The Escapist who generally are really kind and respectful of each other and supportive of each other like an extended family!

If The Escapist suddenly disappeared, what is the first thing you would do?

Well I would track down everyone who runs The Escapist, all the moderators and the company that supplies the hamsters to run the treadmills that keep the servers up, and send them large amounts of cookies, alongside a very suggestive letter convincing them to bring it back!

Or, alternatively and more likely, I would go to Google, find out if the URL address is up for sale, if so buy it, then re-create The Escapist in the same way and try and rebuild the community as fast as possible! Within a day or so things would be back to normal, with my obsessive nature driving the project. 😛

My plan is only funny because its true …

A zombie is attacking you and you were caught off-guard. You are startled, start running and notice a bag of marshmallows. What do you do?

I would run and snatch up the marshmallows. Then without looking I would rip open the bag and throw a handful of marshmallows down my throat – a man always needs to eat well, just in case it’s his last meal!

Then I would turn on the zombie and go “Mano-a-mano,” delivering a round house kick, playing dirty and using every tool at my disposal to win. Whilst chanting my war chant, “NO PITY, NO REMORSE, NO FEAR!”

What is your favorite movie and why?

Tough question … I sense a pattern emerging:P

I want to say Lord of the Rings, but the truth is V for Vendetta takes the gold by the skin of its metaphorical chin!

The film is just brilliantly choreographed and presented. There is a dark sense of suspense in parts and at other sections, delightful sprinkles of comedy that don’t ruin the film, but set a nice mood and provide a spectrum of themes for viewers. I still get excited watching all the awesome scenes in it and fights.

Not to mention it has so many brilliant quotes! 😛

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.” – V

Watch it and you’ll known what I am talking about. xD

What is your favorite type of music, band, and how did you first discover it/them?

My favorite type of music cannot really be pinned down and I like a very wide range of music – mostly Rock, Alternative, Pop … However for my favorite band…Linkin Park still holds that high honor 😛

How did I discover them?
I went on an expedition into the Amazon jungle and found them by a river, I won a Noble Peace prize for the discovery and the benefit to humanity

Honestly, I play Warcraft III on and off, on it is a community/custom made game called Run Kitty Run, a maze and dodging like game. Someone had sped the song “Numb” by them up, so the lyrics and everything were squeaky and programmed it as the song for the custom game. I played the game lots and eventually found out from another player what song was used and I heard it normally and fell in love with them. Thou I do go and listen to the sped up version on occasion, for old times sakes 😛

What do you do for a living? Do you find it interesting?

I am currently a student, looking to study medicine. This means huge amounts of commitment to my work and although I won’t say it’s necessarily “fun,” being a work-aholic means I always keep my interest in what I am working on 😛

If you could change one thing about The Escapist, what would it be?

Well I don’t think anything needs changing per say. Though I think that people should have the ability to lock their own threads in case things get out of hand, as it would cut down on people messaging moderators asking them to lock their own threads, freeing them up to deal with other things.

Do you like bacon?

… Do … I … like …bacon? …

OK … Everyone get on the floor, put your hands on your head, nice and slow, and hand over all the bacon you have on you, no one has to get hurt here. 😛

… So, yes. 🙂

If someone gave you a million US Dollars, tax free, and you were required to spend it instead of investing, what would you spend it on?

I could cheat and say I want to buy a Lamborghini Reventon, as it is nearly $1000000 then resell it to get the money back to invest it at a later stage 😛 But I won’t.

Well first off as I live in the UK I would have to go the the bank and have it converted to £674490, then I would spend it on an iPhone 4, an Alien-ware maxed out computer, the 5,000 other books I want from Amazon (I read a lot), an apartment for my time in Uni to come, then give £100000 to charity. 😛 The rest gets spent on cookies to be given away for free!

I’ll expect everyone that reads this article will get a free cookie from Claymorez if he ever gets that cash.

Many thanks to Claymorez for letting me shine the spotlight on him!

If you would like to nominate someone for an upcoming Community Member Spotlight, feel free to let me (that is, Kuliani) know through a PM! When nominating, please tell us why this user deserves to be in the next Community Member Spotlight and provide links if possible.