Poach

Poach
Ranks:	Citizen
Patron:	Katsumoto
House:	House of Caesars

Overview

Poach is a member of TWC with a lengthy history. Once a part of Hex overseeing the newest site department: Gaming Staff, his remit included the TWC Minecraft Servers, the Clan system, Hotseats and Forum Games such as the Community RPG section. Prior to being a Hex he was a Moderator, originally in the D&D sections before his time as a Global Mod.

Today he is a Citizen of TWC having no active role in Staff following his removal from Hex in January 2015. He served as a Site Staff member for a grand total of 3 years and 10 months: 1 year and 5 months as a Moderator and 2 years and 5 months as a Hex Admin.

Poach: A History

The Early Days

Poach joined the forums in May of 2008 after stumbling across them. A fan of Rome: Total War he decided it would be nice to share his experiences and campaigns with others and read some interesting AARs he'd found. Before long he'd moved on from TW games, but not from TWC. Finding the D&D forums, he stayed on TWC fighting many wars of words across the various D&D fora: from the Mudpit to the VV he would argue back and forth about anything he had an opinion on. The many bumps and scrapes turned him from an opinionated teen to experienced debater.

He steadily drifted into the Gaming sections of the site during the down-time in the D&D as he waited for his opponents to reply. He got involved in a few gaming circles, like the TWC Community Minecraft server, then run by Arriona and later Stuntdawg5, then Elfdude. He also played in some EU3 and Supremacy 1914 games. He continues to play Paradox MP games on TWC to this day, as well as Minecraft on the now Official TWC Minecraft servers.

In December of 2010 his last infraction finally expired, and Citizenship was attempted. Originally approached by the venerable and hilarious Heinz Guderian, he was patronised by Katsumoto on Heinz's recommendation after Heinz had to depart the forum for a time. His application passed the CdeC, but after a short foray into the Citizen forums and Curia he swiftly returned to the D&D. It wasn't until late 2012 he even knew what House he belonged to (the House of Caesars).

Moderation

Many moons later, in March of 2011, he was approached by Jom with the offer of Moderating the D&D. He accepted wholeheartedly and dived right in, drawing on previous experience of Local Modding the Minecraft section of the Other Games area. He spent much of his time in the D&D and did work to improve and clarify the forum rules for the VV section of the D&D.

With passing time came a change of ownership: GrnEyedDvl became the owner of TWC and began making changes. One such change was starting up an Official TWC Minecraft server. Poach quickly volunteered to help, feeling that as both an avid Minecrafter and a site Moderator he would be useful in bringing TWC and Minecraft together. This effort started in mid 2011.

This progressed slowly at first but the servers launched in late 2011 to great success, with Poach playing as part of the Brotherhood, a faction he has been in since the earliest days of Unofficial TWC Minecraft, and which included various well-known TWCers such as Legio and Belisarius, as well as friends such as his patron, Katsumoto and many others. Soon GED was discussing setting up an entire Gaming Department, spearheaded by Minecraft, but expanding into other non-TW games as time progressed. Finding a Hex member willing to head up such a department proved troublesome, and Poach volunteered to run the Department in the mean time.

Appointed as Head Overseer for the Non-TW Gaming Clans, Poach set about laying down the rules and Code of Conduct for the Clans, reporting to GED who was acting as temporary Head of Department while he sought a Hex to do the job. This failed, and eventually Poach was offered the job, which he accepted.

Hexagon Council

He was formally appointed to Hex in August of 2012, 1 year and 5 months after he was appointed as a Moderator, robbing him forever of the Emerald Mace by 1 month. He was, however, later awarded the Mace anyway.

He ran the Gaming Department, which ran the Minecraft Servers, Clan system, Hotseats, and forum games such as RPGs. Minecraft was moved off site to Minecraft Center, which Poach was an Admin on for much of its active life.

In addition, two "TWC Olympics" were staged encompassing a number of different games, and numerous forum restructurings and sticky threads were created to better bind various communities together, such as bringing all Hotseat forums under one roof (where before they had all lived in their respective mod's subforum) and retaining their link to their parent mods with added redirects.

He would serve as a Hex for 2 years and 5 months. If Hex had a service medal, this would equate to Ruby (periods between 2 years and 2 years 11 months).

After Hexagon

Poach was removed from the Hexagon Council in January of 2015 for re-opening the Minecraft forums when TWC's sister site, Minecraft Center, crashed completely. GrnEyedDvl took deep exception to the Minecrafters returning to TWC, resulting in Poach's removal from office as punishment for enabling their return.

He was awarded a Novus for his contributions one month later.

He continues to play on Minecraft and in Paradox MP games such as EU4 and HoI3: indeed he has helped create a WW1 mod for HoI3 and played MP games on that as well.