Helper Application from SpongeyStar

Member Name SpongeyStar

Additional In Game Names: ScaredyPants, SenpaiSpongai

How old are you? 19

Location: New Zealand

Do you have Discord? Yes

How many hours per day do you play MeepCraft? (weekdays) 5-7+

How many hours per day do you play MeepCraft? (weekends) 7+

Have you ever been staff on this or any other server? Yes

References: Please give IGN's qazini, Achrow, Cluelessklutz, groovygrevous

When did you join Meepcraft? September 2014

Introduction: Hi! I’m Spongey, a 19 year old from New Zealand. I am currently in my second year of uni studying Software Engineering (funny because reading through one of my old helper apps I said I wanted to do software engineering..there we have it!).

In my free time I love watching Brooklyn Nine Nine (the most), The Good Doctor, The Office, The Good Place, , Black Mirror, any other binge-watchable show and of course, Spongebob! Although the newer episodes don’t tickle my fancy - I just wish they’d bring back the old graphics.

I also like to do some coding in my spare time. I’ve worked with Python and Java primarily, developing some android apps, learning C++ now and I’m interested in getting into some minecraft dev (if you have any tips let me know where to start)

Why should you be Helper? · Experience
I’ve been playing since September 2014. I have learnt so much through my journey on Meep. I’ve also been staff twice now, but it’s been about 5 years since my last run so obviously I wouldn’t remember every staff command still but I’m a relatively quick learner to pick things up again.


· Dedication
I’ve been playing for almost 7 years now. I didn’t think I’d be staying here for this long because most of the people I’ve met along the way have already dropped out of Meep. But here I am, typing up a helper application 7 years on. Whenever people talk about their early teenage years, what springs to my mind is, Meep. I may have become addicted, I may have not. Meep is like my second home, my second group of friends. I really admire the friendships I’ve made on Meep and wonder if, I’d clicked on another server other than Meep, if I didn’t see Meep on the server list, would I have made those same friendships? What I’m saying is that I am dedicated. Once I stick to something I usually don’t let go. Like Meep. And dicing.

As many of you know, I’ve submitted a million billion apps (not as many as Gummi though haha) where most of them have been denied. Every time I was denied, I looked at it as an opportunity to improve and become a better person of who I am. Which is to say I am a very dedicated member of the Meep community. But I’m older now, I’ve learnt from my mistakes and I’ve grown as a person.


· Involvement

I try to balance my in-game, forums and discord activity well. I’m almost always on discord whether it’s early in the morning or late at night (discord is literally the first thing I check whenever I wake up). Forums is the same. It’s one of those things I check up on without even thinking. I even just type in forum.meepcraft.com into my web browser even if I just looked at forums a few seconds ago. As for my in game activity I do my best to get on as much as I can.

I live in New Zealand, so when I’m on at night time here I mostly see Australians or Europe people on. With the server becoming more active than it used to be, and with revamp on the way, it would be better to have staff across all timezones to cater for all the different players across the world.

· General

What makes me different to other applicants/staff? I’ve always had a sense of positivity inside me. Maybe you’ve seen be ranting off and being negative nancy sometime somewhere in the yonder years, but I try my best to stay positive. I think that positivity is an important role in being a staff member because throughout your time you’re going to have some of the community be negative nancys or disrespect other staff or something etc.(which I have seen happen) .with positivity I think I can help the team stay on track and not let negativity strike back and attack! (hey that rhymed).

What are your weaknesses? Immaturity: Immaturity to me basically defines my personality back in 2014. I would spam, talk nonsense, and spam and talk nonsense more. I’ve always put down immaturity as my weakness on my applications but after a lot of thinking and from other people’s statements, I’ve come to a conclusion that I am not as immature as I used to be, I just enjoy having fun, especially with my friends.

Discord vc: It may not seem like it in game but I am a super shy person. I’ve only talked on discord a few times but even then I haven’t said much. I'm trying to talk more!

Please give any other information you might think is useful for us to know: If you do decide to decline this app, that’s okay. I’ll still be that loyal player who's been playing Meep since 2014, and I’ll contribute as much as I can as a player. I won’t give up hope on Meep. Thanks tom hanks

 

+1 you are spongey star you are number 1 helper. upset that i am not reference : (

 

+1 sponge very helpful and fun : )

 

+1 i love you

 

+0. Only you, Spongeystar.

Spongey, I've very rarely been wrong when I guess ages online. It's a skill I've picked up - I base it on how people type, how they conduct themselves, and how they interact with others. And you, Spongeystar, only you, have singlehandedly destroyed my age-guessing system.

Did you know I had an existential crisis because of you? When my friend told me you were nineteen, I was absolutely dumbfounded because I thought you were five years younger. I was then, and still now, absolutely unable to understand how you could possibly be the same age as me. You've been on this server for such a long time, and even been a staff member before. I'm aware of my assessment of fourteen makes no sense because you couldn't possibly be at such a young age when you were a staff member, but I still feel this way. I am still absolutely unable to believe that, from my experiences with you, that you could ever be nineteen.

Ultimately, whether you're nineteen or not is neither here nor there. I want to explain to you why I thought you were a good five years younger than what your age is, and I want to outline one specific encounter I feel served as a giant red flag.

Message from a Concerned Meepcrafter
Spongeystar, my thread was very obviously a joke, I'm infamous for posting stupid crap on the forums. I even explained more than once in the thread that I knew I had no real point here. But the way you responded and saw my thread as a personal attack played a huge role in my prediction of your age.

Is this seriously how you responded to my thread? This response is absolutely visceral, you're coming for my throat here. The bold text for emphasis. The personal judgment. The passive-aggressive smiley at the end. I never spoke badly you, I never even mentioned you, this thing had absolutely nothing to do about you, and you took my, repeating it again here, so obviously satirical thread like I pissed on your dog's grave. Ultimately, you chose to get offended by my condemnation of "count to xxx" threads because you were unable to separate criticism from action from criticism of self, which is possibly the most telltale sign of immaturity. You even transformed my thread into another counting thread, as if you felt like you were personally proving something to me, or something to the world. This negative feeling ran deep, too. Even when I spoke to you in-game a week later it was clear you still seemed mad about my comment, even when I tried getting out of my way to be friendly. Being a staff member is a job that requires you being receptive to criticism, and if you respond to obviously satirical noncriticism like this, I wonder how you will respond to criticism that is actually critical about you.

Spongey, I can go on and on about the ways I find you immature, like how you respond to every half-controversial statement sent your way with an "ok" to completely shut down difficult conversation, but this is getting far too long. You can show me your driver's license, your birth certificate, your bank statements, literally any formal document and I still would be absolutely unable to believe you're nineteen because of how you conduct yourself online.

You'd be an okay staff member, but a lack of confidence from a lack of maturity will prevent you from ever becoming more than that. At your current state, you'd never be the next Deinen, Rosenow, Skaros, or Clueless. You just, in my opinion, wouldn't be worthwhile.

 

You're not wrong, not wrong at all, I actually agree with you. I was silly enough to actually take you seriously and now I'm laughing about that now. I can see it was a humorous thread, like most of your other threads. I guess that is one of my weaknesses. Sometimes I don't know how to differentiate a satirical thread to a serious thread.

Yes I've heard multiple times from people being shocked they heard I was 19 not 14 (even in real life people look at me and think I'm 14 or 15 because I look too young for my age) or something. I can see why they'd think that. Honestly, like I've said in my app, I'm still immature but probably not as much as 2014 (because I acted like 10 or 12 then). I've tried changing this over the past 7 years but I don't know if I'm getting anywhere.

I know I got riled up by that thread, but you wonder how I will respond to criticism that is critical about me? In life outside of meep if anyone throws anything offensive towards me or makes bad remarks towards me, I don't actually think much about it. Sure I'm like 'wow did you just say that' or something but I don't let it keep me tied down.

I never said I wanted to be the next Deinen, Rosenow, Skaros, or Clueless. I just want to give back to my favourite server and share my hands in to help out the server where needed, as it's expanding.

Trust me I'm not being sarcastic again here haha when I say thanks for your reply!

 

Big fat plus one from me, one of the most dedicated players meepcraft has seen and as I clearly remember from when you were lastly Mod, absolutely mature when needed.
Get on discord more though stuuupid

You will never be the next groovygrevous

 

Spongey is a silly person and I completely get how you might see her as a bit younger than she is. But I really don't think it goes to the extent that you're talking about. Let's say Spongey really was 14. So what? I was a mod at 14 and know of a dozen more that were staff at an even younger age. Also, it's a Minecraft server, and we're all compelled to act a little younger than we actually would. Anyways,

Spongey, you are a god of a person and I love you. That's all that matters. +1







But if you boring people need valid reasons, here you go. Midnight_Galaxy shouldn't have to hold up the Australia/New Zealand timezone all by herself and Spongey would be the perfect person to help out in that timezone region. As a staff member, Spongey was always mature and helpful when it came to moderating. Her heart is in the right place and I know she geniunely wants to help. A lot of applications I see spell out "I WANT AUTHORITY" and I am 100% sure that Spongey's app is genuine. I think that having her on the team will make it a lot easier for the moderation team, and she is definitely ready to jump onto as many tasks as she can. I can't really read what I'm writing anymore. +1

 

I understand my response was long, but you could’ve read it before responding to it!

Right after I said I thought she was fourteen, I said:

I spent the rest of the thread explaining that encounter.

Trust me Megastuff, I know this, I act incredibly stupid online. My point wasn’t that she was acting childish, my point was that she was being childish, she was unable to, as I said in my response, separate “criticism of action vs criticism of self”

I think your point about her being Australia/New Zealand time zone is really valid, and especially with someone who plays as much as Spongey, it could be beneficial.

 

Hey. I did read your response and you definitely have valid points in there. Staff members need to handle criticism better than most, so I get your concern there. It's not such a great idea to attack someone like that either. So yeah, I did read everything you said and I agree that Spongey made a mistake. However, I've known Spongey for quite some time now so I speak for her as a person when I say that this does not define who she is. How she acted was a mistake. I make them and you make them, and so does everyone on this planet. I just don't feel like that one comment represents how she acts as a person. I can't really speak for what you're talking about when she says "ok" during controversial conversations, but I don't see how that really affects how she would handle a staff position. I say we at least give her a shot, especially in a time when there's no more than 3 active moderating staff. So I do appreciate your perspective and just wanted to shine a bit of light on mine. Agree to disagree.

 

You're right. I think, in retrospect, a bit unfair of me to judge someone on one experience. I've changed to a +0 because Im unable to make a fair assessment. Thanks for your insight!

 

counting starts now

1

just kidding lets not start counting

+1 i want spongey to ban me when she becomes a mod again

gonna add an edit here: at the end of the day it doesn't really matter how mature spongey is or isn't since it's a minecraft server and she's a tried and true staff member anyways

also i had a feeling this application was gonna happen... i feel like i've always been able to smell a staff app miles before it comes for some reason.

 

Heaven forbid someone on an mc server be childish

You make troll threads with entirely too much effort purely to piss people off, go annoy someone else
+1

 

Muunkee, was this bait? You literally quoted my answer to your response. There is a difference between acting childish and being childish, and my original post (which you should read) highlights how one specific event I had with her showed me actual, non-pretend childishness.

Of course it’s okay to be childish on a Minecraft server, the difference is when this person is given a position of power. All I’m saying is that a specific event I had with her left me with an impression that she was unable to take even the most trivial form of criticism, and as I read throughout the thread, I realized I could be wrong basing an entire opinion on a single event.

 

+1
Was a good mod in the past

 

Accepted for interview.