I think you should include me winning the biggest SEN raffle in there somewhere, because apparently everyone knows that except me. But on a more serious note, you don't think map making clans were a big part of SEN? And how is firing LW key?

OSMAP was a major part in SEN v4.
And IIRC OSMAP is what created Maplantis.

I still have the screenshot

And devilesk didn't hack SEN, DEAD did.

I think Clans are for gays, so, no, not key.

If anyone wants me to do some searches on the old SEN DB, just ask me.

I can also search PMs and member info.

Obviously the overwhelming power of HoN must be noted in the "Downfall of SEN" section.

I won the first lottery.
I also was a moderator along with Aster sometime ago..

OMGOMGOMG WTF IT'S CAMO, HE'S MR.CAMO OMGOMGOMG WARN HIM WTF!1!!!randomtwo21!!1

Haha, the Mr. Camo thread along with this shall complete the history project!



j/k, I'll get things in gear in just a bit.

Going to mention me?

I have a fair bit of general information but my chronology is very shaky. I think I attempted a history a long time back and created a topic, but there wasn't much interest. Unfortunately we have lost a lot of information in the drama over the years - we no longer have the monthly activity stats I was incorporating into my own history, for example.

Here's some major community drama events which I feel need coverage:
- Synd][cate hack
- Icy Hell forum invasion
- (Other events from that era... memory failing me)
- PROEdit/unPROEdit
- OSMAP/Maplantis

Did Blizzforums purge their membership? I can't find myself on there.

Thanks for the input CW. I have a fair bit of knowledge surrounding the hacks by Synd][cate and DEAD, as well as the OSMAP/Maplantis episode. I don't know much about the Icy Hell Forums or the PROEdit stuff. If you could flesh those out, it would be much appreciated.

Very soon (I've had family obligations slowing me down) I will write up a history of SEN from my perspective. I'm sure it will need lots of improvement, and once it's finished, I'll try and get Yoshi, Moose, IP, and some other older members (you're welcome to CW, as well as anyone else who thinks they'd do it justice) to write from their perspectives. Here's how I think the basic time-line will go down (and feel free to offer suggestions):

- Founding of the site (Summer 2003)
- Expansion and server downtime (Mid-2004)
- Synd][cate's hacking of the site, Yoshi steping down, and IP/Moose assuming command (Late 2004)
- Yoshi comes back briefly, EUDs, first generation starts leaving the site (2005)
- OSMAP controversy, hacking by DEAD, Maplantis emerges (2006)
- SEN's major downtime between v4 and v5 (2007)
- Maplantis' decline and eventual merger with SEN (2008)
- Recent history (2009-2010)

EDIT: Added EUDs to the time-line.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 3 2010, 4:18 am by Doodan.

After a brief nap, I felt like typing this. I know there are some inaccuracies, especially when it comes to the site’s history before I joined as well as other things I didn’t witness. Just remember that this is only the first step, so please correct me where I’m wrong so this thing will one day be the best it can be. Another thing that we need to be in agreement on is what kind of reader are we trying to accommodate. I was tempted to explain StarCraft and the various terminology associated with it, map-making, and websites. How much should we assume the reader knows about StarCraft, the internet, and various map-making niches?

This is drawn mostly from memory and a little research into older posts here, and at static maplantis & SEN.

HISTORY OF SEN (Doodan’s Take)


PART 1: Beginnings & Expansions


Staredit.net (SEN) was founded on July 10, 2003. The website’s creator, Yoshi_da_Sniper (initially known as Technical_Death), intended it to be a resource for anyone interested in making maps with StarCraft’s campaign editor. The site would serve as a setting for more educated and experienced mappers to share their knowledge with others. The site also had a database at which mappers could upload their creations for others to play and review. In addition to features related to mapping, the website also included an extensive forum with a variety of discussion subjects so that the site’s members could discuss things other than mapping.

The original member base of SEN came from other StarCraft-related websites. Yoshi_da_Sniper, along with other original members such as Mini Moose 2707, Tazzy, ShadowPaladin, and Chu, hailed from Blizzforums. While websites devoted to hosting maps and tutorials about mapping were nothing new at the time, Yoshi and some others founded SEN so that it could focus primarily on the “Use Map Settings” (UMS) style of map. A number of the older members helped Yoshi moderate the discussion forums while he handled the administrative work.

Yoshi worked extensively on the website. His trials with various website software programs caused SEN to go through four separate and very different versions in the course of about a year. In order to accommodate mappers with interests beyond UMS map making, he created sections devoted to things such as Melee mapping and decorative terrain designs. He also reached out to map-making clans on battle.net and offered them a base of operations at SEN. Those that accepted were allowed their own section of the forum as well as the power to moderate it as they saw necessary. Clans such as (U)nknown, Mp), and Oo, soon established their own branches at SEN, and it brought in a new wave of map-making talent and maps for SEN’s members to play. Yoshi also promoted SEN to several other existing StarCraft-related websites (such as BlizzForums, starcraft.org, etc.).

The site was not without its problems, however. In addition to the aforementioned trials with different website software, SEN attracted its fair share of trolling internet users. Yoshi and his staff had to combat the influx of obnoxious and unfamiliar members by upping the strictness with which they enforced the rules. ShadowPaladin became disgruntled [I'd like more info on this] and was fired. The server that hosted SEN went down, and the website along with it, for about two months in mid-2004. Despite these setbacks, the core group’s estimations about the site’s popularity were surpassed by a flood of new faces and SEN had over 3,000 members as 2004 drew to a close.


PART 2: Peaks & Valleys


The stresses of running a community that rapidly grows and changes took their toll on Yoshi and the rest of the staff. With the smaller, trusted group of users being engulfed by a tidal wave of new and unfamiliar members, the staff sought to insulate themselves from the general populous by creating their own forum that only they could see. Some of the staff, such as Tazzy, and Chu, resigned their posts. However, those that remained soon adapted to the pressures and SEN released its fourth version to new acclimation.

Feeling secure in his ability to patch security issues having to do with InvisionFree software (off of which SEN v4 was based), Yoshi’s boasting about his coding ability tempted the limits of a member named Synd][cate’s restraint. Synd][cate proceeded to hack the website and prove to Yoshi that he still had much to learn about website management. With the mounting frustration of running SEN, problems in his personal life, and now a hacking, Yoshi decided to step away from SEN.

Shortly before this occurred, a member named IsolatedPurity (IP) joined SEN for mapmaking assistance. He soon befriended Yoshi and they discovered a mutual interest and adeptness at coding websites. This bond was enough for Yoshi to entrust the running of SEN to IP when he took his break. IsolatedPurity was launched from obscurity and into SEN’s limelight when he became chief administrator. Due to his lack of familiarity with the community, he soon promoted Mini Moose 2707 to be his co-admin and help keep the community in check.

As for Synd][cate, he was hesitant to reveal his true motives. In fact, most members didn’t even know he was responsible for the hacking for a good while. However, no degree of explanation could appease most of the members and he was looked upon with hatred and distrust for years. Synd][cate was not banned from SEN, but his deeds understandably left a permanent taint upon his reputation.

After Yoshi’s departure, IP and Moose were forced to wrangle a wave of fellow staff members resigning and the community’s unrest with the sudden changes. Some formerly retired staff stepped back into their positions to help hold down the fort, and it wasn’t until early 2005 that some stability was reached.

In summer 2005, a member named Deathknight made a ground-breaking discovery in the realm of UMS mapmaking. By delving into far more advanced aspects of Extended Unit Deaths [Note: I will definitely need help explaining this one], he pushed the boundaries of StarCraft mapmaking beyond what was ever thought possible and even attracted the attention of Blizzard Entertainment. The progress of mapmaking attracted Yoshi back to SEN and he again resumed his administrator role for a few months. He petitioned Blizzard in an effort to get them to allow research into the inner workings of StarCraft’s programming that the company never intended. Blizzard opted to patch the game and put a stop to EUD triggering in the end, though. [Note: It was around this time that I joined the site.]

For the few months that he was back, Yoshi returned to rapidly expanding the website. Before the hacking, he had begun to outline ideas for SEN v5. His ultimate goal was to program a website from scratch, rather than modifying existing software as he had done for the other versions of SEN. He shared his ideas with IP and the two of them began coding v5 together. Over time, IP and Yoshi began suffering from differences in programming styles and vision for the site. SEN now had around 6,000 members and the community was, in Yoshi’s opinion, even worse than he had left it. He ultimately decided that he needed to part ways with SEN for good and fully resigned as an administrator and left the job to IP and Moose. However, Yoshi retained ownership of the website’s domain, but for the time being, opted not to interfere with the site.

Again, a large flux of community unrest lie in the wake of Yoshi’s second departure. In an attempt to gain some normalcy in discussions, the senior staff created the High Templar forum and hand-picked members of the community that they felt were mature enough to hold discussions in the secret forum. This move proved unpopular, and the backlash was so severe that the forum was eventually deleted. In another infamous episode, a member named nuclearrabbit faked his own death (and gender) and created an outpouring of community support and grieving (indeed, several people joined the site just to express their condolences). However, nuclearrabbit soon revealed to a handful of members that it was all a hoax and that he was planning to heavily troll SEN in early spring 2006. His plot was revealed [by me, I admit it] and canceled. He was banned, along with a few other notorious troublemakers, and the site returned to a state of normalcy and growth during the middle part of 2006.


PART 3: Turbulence & Transitions


In August 2006, a mysterious hacker struck SEN. He found a way to access Moose’s account and set about deleting pages’ worth of topics and reprimanding and banning members that the hacker disliked. He posted a news topic and claimed to be devilesk, a well known and controversial member that had already been banned more than once (and was banned at the time) for various offenses. IP eventually logged on and discovered the mess and went about patching the security holes that enabled the hack.

SEN had a number of policies in effect in order to stay on the good sides of Blizzard Entertainment and the expert mapmakers that the site had attracted. No hacking or CD-Key swapping was allowed. The right of a mapmaker, if he/she wished, to protect their maps from future editing (and potential theft) by other people was respected and enforced by the website’s policies. It would be this particular section of the policy that would start SEN and its community into its most divisive conflict.

With map protection enforced, the average honest mapmaker was only able to learn what the more experienced mapmakers were willing to teach. One of SEN’s oldest and most respected staff members, LegacyWeapon, saw a degree of knowledge-hoarding that outraged him and he sought to reverse it. He created a program called OSMAP, which was powerful enough to circumvent any efforts to protect a map from editing and allow anyone who used the program to see a map’s inner workings. At first, LW posted his creation anonymously, and some of the more troublemaking members would occasionally post about it and get punished. In early September, LW decided to publicly own up to his creation. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Immediately, the community was virtually split between those who favored map-protection and those who did not. There was no way to reverse the existence of OSMAP, so a decision had to be made about whether or not SEN would support the program. The administration of SEN opted to stick by its old policies and refused to allow OSMAP on the website. LegacyWeapon was fired. Yoshi returned and sided with the OSMAP supporters. It was revealed that LegacyWeapon and a few others were building a new site that would be SEN’s ideological opposite.

Dissatisfied that Yoshi still owned the domain name to a site that he’d grown so upset with, IP issued him a public ultimatum demanding that Yoshi relinquish ownership of the domain to him. Yoshi was furious and instead threatened to take the site offline. IP quickly created a backup of the site and hosted it at a different domain. Moose resigned and Yoshi took SEN offline for a couple of days. Soon though, Yoshi decided to give IP the domain name, expressing that he had been unfair to those who still received a positive benefit from SEN’s existence. He also expressed his well wishes to the new rival mapmaking site that was using Yoshi’s own Latova software, which he himself had designed. With SEN firmly in IP’s hands, Moose retook his position and a longtime global moderator named DT_Battlekruser was promoted to an admin position, as well as a number of other staff changes [such as me jumping from member to moderator to global moderator in only about 2 months] in order to keep the backlash in check.

In December 2006, the rival site, named maplantis.org, was unveiled by LegacyWeapon, MindArchon, and a mysterious third gunner named Tau. A number of SEN members that had left during the OSMAP controversy reappeared at maplantis, as well as other members that switched over due to ideological or social reasons. A few never returned to SEN. Despite some outcry from both sites, SEN and maplantis maintained an uneasy peace for a couple of months.

In early February, maplantis found itself on the receiving end of a dDOS attack and was forced to shut down and lost all of its forum posts up to that point. The identity of the attacker was never discovered, but maplantis rebounded easily. Tau soon revealed himself to be Yoshi_da_Sniper. The consensus among most users of both websites was that the smaller community of maplantis was the better managed and more mature of the two sites and trouble began brewing at SEN once more. Formerly influential members began viciously attacking the current administration at SEN and changes were made in response. The clans that had long been at SEN buckled and some left the website altogether. DT_Battlekruser and several other staff members were fired. Despite the controversy, things began to show signs of stabilization again until SEN suddenly and unexpectedly went offline in late-April 2007.


PART 4: Reboot & Reconciliation


As it would turn out, IsolatedPurity had gotten a bit behind on the payments for SEN and had trouble getting the server to bring the site back up. In the meantime, most of the active members of SEN spent their time at maplantis. Some SEN staff members were given staff positions at their new home. The most vocal critics of maplantis did not come over (and indeed started a short-lived site named star2edit.net), and the more moderate ones began shifting their views on the issue of map protection. The leadership of both communities eventually reached a mutual understanding and relations finally thawed.

In September 2007, IP launched SEN v5. It wasn't fully finished, but it was functional enough to support the community. All of the content from the prior versions of SEN was gone (Although IP later turned over a static copy of much of SEN’s content from its creation up until early Feb. 2007 to a member named Doodle77. Also noteworthy is that SEN v4 had around 10,000 registered accounts when it went down.). Many members of the UMS mapmaking community retained accounts on both websites and only a few stuck strictly to one or the other. Most of SEN’s staff was rehired. Yoshi briefly did some admin work to help get SEN back on its feet. Both sites agreed to show tolerance towards both protection and unprotection and things began a rather peaceful course for the next few months.

In the spring of 2008, Yoshi decided to close maplantis.org due to a busy personal life and a lack of assistance from the members who egged him into creating and running the site in the first place. As with SEN’s old content, a static copy of maplantis was created for the members to have access to. Most of what remained of maplantis’ community (which peaked at around 1,000 members) migrated to SEN and despite a couple of hiccups, the transition was mostly peaceful.

Yoshi stepped down from a leadership position in the mapmaking world and left things mainly to Moose and IP. Despite the peace that had been earned between the opposing factions in the protection debate, the community is not what it once was in size and activity. A member, that had been known as DEAD (but is currently named Gigins) for most of his existence at SEN, eventually confessed to being responsible for the hacking in August 2006, citing personal reasons coupled with morbid curiosity. The community was mostly forgiving towards him.

In late 2009, IP considered leaving the site and controversially promoted a member named Excalibur to the position of admin. The backlash was pretty strong, and Excalibur was eventually demoted to global moderator. Yoshi gave Excalibur the domain for maplantis.org and he created a short-lived attempt at a community to try and repeat the success of the first maplantis, but it was unsuccessful. There has since been the occasional squabble, but things have remained mostly peaceful with the occasional map production, contest, tournament, or forum game. Those still active at SEN as of January 2010 (the site currently has nearly 5,000 registered accounts) await the coming upsurge in mapmaking interest with the arrival of StarCraft 2.

Post has been edited 12 time(s), last time on Jan 3 2010, 1:13 pm by Doodan.

Do you mean it wasn't? Besides that, it was pretty good and informative. I liked it!

Yes I did. Thanks for spotting that, lol.

I also corrected a few other typos and added a couple of bits of info that I thought I should include.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 3 2010, 1:09 pm by Doodan.

Even I didn't know some of this stuff. Very nicely written, very informative, and we need to stick this somewhere official.

Ah, the Great Pilgrimage to Maplantis led by Legacy... I shall miss those days.

Several people know the identity of the February hacker. Not sure if I should reveal it though ;o

Man, you made the discovery of EUDs sound so epic, like a bunch of alchemists discovering how to actually turn lead into gold while fighting dragons that breathe lasers. You should make a movie about it.