Attention Forum Members,
With Linkin Park's new album coming out in a little over a month, and forum traffic dramatically increasing as a result, we here at The Linkin Park Association have felt it necessary to put our collective foots down, and address a growing issue on our forums... which is the existence of trolls.
What is a troll you ask?
Courtesy of Urban Dictionary, a troll is:
"One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers. He will spark of such an argument via the use of ad hominem attacks (i.e. 'you're nothing but a fanboy' is a popular phrase) with no substance or relevance to back them up as well as straw man arguments, which he uses to simply avoid addressing the essence of the issue."
With every new album release, the existence of trolls posting in threads increases ten fold, and unfortunately the hype surrounding A Thousand Suns has been no exception. Since the announcement of "A Thousand Suns" over a month ago, we have had many new members sign up solely for the purpose of causing arguments in threads or with the intention of spreading malicious behavior and negativity in every thread they come across.
These trolls not only represent everything that is inherently wrong with the internet, but also cast a negative cloud of the forums they inhabit, driving old members away, while creating the appearance of an unwelcoming forum to those who have yet to join and contribute to the boards.
Therefore, due to the recent rise in trolls, we have been left with no choice but to implement a new policy. For now on, any member deemed to be a "troll" by a majority of the forum's staff and it's members, will be put on a two strike policy...and will be given only two chances to quit their antagonizing/trolling behavior before they are banned from the forums indefinitely. While this may seem a bit strong, we refuse to let our peaceful and positive forum community be derailed by attention seeking trolls, and will do whatever we can to protect the integrity and community aspect of The Linkin Park Association for our existing members and new members alike.
It should be noted that this policy does not apply to all members, and those who break a rule (but are not a troll/antagonizing member) will still adhere to the normal three infraction policy currently implemented on these boards. The LPA will also only deem a member a troll if the majority of the boards have remarked or complained that the member in question serves no contributing purpose and is only here to cause a problem on these boards.
We hope these new changes, while sudden...will help the LPA continue to grow, and will help to maintain the community aspect that has made it such a welcoming forum over the past nine years. Thank you for your understanding, and we appreciate your continued support.
Also one more thing in closing: we here at The Linkin Park Association do not tolerate members bringing feuds over from other fan sites onto our boards. This happens far too often, and we do not need the forums to be littered with such mindless garbage. Therefore, if you have previously gotten into an argument with a member of our boards on another fan site, please leave your arguments on that site as they have no business being on here. We are not the site you just came from. This is The Linkin Park Association, not [insert site name]. Thank you.
Thanks,
LPA Staff
Are you excited for the A Thousand suns tour? Well to hype it up even more we have just posted exclusive scans from "Tour Guide Journal - Issue 5 / 2008", which gives a really detailed behind the scenes analysis of what actually goes on at a Linkin Park show. It highlights all the unsung heroes of the live experience and is a pretty interesting read. Go check out all 8 pages, starting here.
Special thanks to ana.
With the anticipation building in the wait for Linkin Park's fourth studio album, we felt the need to celebrate the soon to be released "A Thousand Suns" by once again, giving our forums a make-over. Along with our default LPA4 and 8-Bit Rebellion Theme, we have now added the option to select a third skin; A Thousand Suns.
With a fresh new look and creative influence from the current promotional artwork for "A Thousand Suns", we bring to you this uniquely designed interpretation that will give you a little more variety whilst browsing the message boards. We hope you enjoy this additional new look to the LPA and we thank you for your continued support!
To select "A Thousand Suns" simply head down to the lower left corner of the page and select the respective option from the Quick Style Chooser drop-down menu.
Today we added a new Contributor to the site, joining the ranks of JJ & Mr. Long will be Napalm Terror! Napalm has been a long time supporter of the site and continues to regularly contribute to the boards and provide Linkin Park related news to the site. We're sure he'll be great in his new position and we look forward to seeing his posts on the front page! Join us in congratulating Napalm Terror in his new role, amongst the LPA family!
Attention LPAssociation.com Veterans And Newcomers,
Something big went down earlier this afternoon.
Earlier today, thanks in part to Linkin Park's on-going "message" campaign, as well as links back to our website through other fan communities, the LPA has officially shattered any previous records set on our forums for "active users" online.
As of 1:28pm today, the LPA forums accomplished a new record of 4,561 active users viewing the forums at the same time. This completely surpasses our original record of 825 set back on September 8th of 2009, and has left all of us here on staff deeply humbled and in awe by the level of support the LP community has shown us over the past few days.
This month alone we have achieved over 10.5 million hits, and are averaging 400,000 hits a day to the site. At this rate, we are projecting to finish the month with an astonishing 12.5-13 million hits, which will make this the biggest month in traffic we've had since 2008. Just...wow.
Words cannot begin to express our gratitude, and we can't say thank you enough for your support, as it has left us truly humbled. It's because of the awesome LP community and it's amazing fan base, that we stay in existence and continue to work to keep you all as updated as possible at all times. You guys are totally incredible and we thank you all so very much!
We look forward to talking to all of you on the forums, and for those of you who are only viewing the site and have yet to register...we hope you take this letter as an open invitation to join our growing community. Hope to see you there!
Deepest Thanks,
LPA Staff - Derek, Andrea, Joe, Keaton, Mark, Todd, Luke and Omar
After years of demand, we here at the LPA have decided to acknowledge the request of our awesome community. We are constantly looking for ways to improve the forum and enhance the experience of our members on these boards, and after taking into account member feedback, we are ready to unveil the first of a string of updates we will be making in the future. We are now pleased to bring to you, newly created User Groups.
Joining the ranks of SuperMember are three new groups, which will be attained at their respective post counts: UberMember - 10,000 Posts, LPA Addict - 15,000 Posts & Custom User Group - 40,000 Posts (Yes, at this level you will be able to give yourself your very own title and unique User Group!). Check them out below!
Also, we are making some changes to our VIP members. You have no idea how much it means to us that you donate to help the site and with this new VIP system, we want to show the love for those who donate to our community as well! If you're a VIP with a post count of 3,000 / 10,000 / 15,000 posts you will now attain the respective title as well as your VIP status.
Again, we thank our members for their support and dedication over the years and hope you enjoy working your way to your deserved status with your time here on the LPA! ...and if you are already beyond the necessary post count; Congratulations on your new User Group!
Again, thank you for your continued loyalty of the LPA and we hope you enjoy this minor addition to our expanding community.
In honor of Linkin Park's brand new iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch video game "8-Bit Rebellion!", the LPA Forums have installed a brand new skin titled "LPA 8-Bit". Themed after the graphic style of 8-Bit Rebellion (while featuring sprites from some old NES classics), this new design is not only a nice new look for the LPA Forums, but also a tribute to the video games that we grew up with, and also of which got us into gaming in the first place.
Since we do realize that many of you may be partial to our original light colored LPA4 design, we are keeping that available as a choice at the bottom of our forums that you can revert to through the use of the simple drop down menu (select "LPAFourskin"). Since this design is intended to promote the video game, it will only be the default skin temporarily, and after a month or two we will officially be reverting back to the original design. However, much like with the original LPA4 skin, it'll forever be selectable as a skin after the promotional period is over.
So while you are posting on these boards enjoying the new skin, why not buy Linkin Park's new video game "8-Bit Rebellion" through the iTunes store, or listen to "8-Bit Theory" made by our very own Keaton Hashimoto here? 
Enjoy!
Notes:
- Some smilies may appear with white halos around them. This is due to those smilies being made for white backgrounds. There is unfortunately nothing we can do about this.
- If you encounter any bugs (i.e. parts of the forums that have not been recolored) please let us know so we can fix the problem.
- In addition to re-designing our boards, we have also re-written the band bios to keep them up to date for 2010.
- This is only the beginning...more cool updates are planned for the next few months...
As a thank you to our valued members, and as a celebration of our 8 years of service to the LP fan community, we here at the LPA have added some new forum smilies to our boards for our forum members to enjoy. The new smilies are listed below:
:drunk::ymca::shhh::mrt::clap::worship::rick::miag i::chrishansen::wallbash::redcard::lgh::buddies::u h::puke::jawdrop::bow::trololo::popcorn::hitself:: squint::pedobear::help::badmood::sparta_smiley::pb thh::hammer::annoyed::shudder::pacman::FUUUUUU::sh rug::nono::fart::rofl::shoopdawhoop::neiner::faint ::zoom::shit::music:
Also included in this collection (as shown above) are some LPA original emoticons: Rick Astley, Pedobear, Chris Hansen, The Trololo Guy, FUUUU- and Shoop Da Whoop. We hope you enjoy these new additions, and stay tuned as we have more planned for the forums in the next few weeks!
As part of our efforts to stay as up to date as possible with Linkin Park news, The Linkin Park Association has promoted two of our dedicated forum members to 'contributor' status in anticipation of the mass influx of Linkin Park news expected to come after 8-Bit Rebellion and throughout the summer months.
The two members promoted are as follows:
JJ: Since joining the LPA back in 2003, JJ has accumulated well over 8,000 posts on our message board, becoming one of our longest standing and highest posting members on the message board. With JJ's frequent contributors to the "Got News?" thread, it was only logical to give him the chance to post the news himself, and we look forward to what contributors JJ can bring to the site.
Make It Cool (now known as Mr. Long): Although his post count may not seem as high as some members, do not let the join date or the amount of posts fool you. Make It Cool (Derek Long) has been coming to the LPA since we were just a splash page back in 2002, and finally after years of dedicated support decided to join our site in May of 2009. Since his creation of an account on our forums, Make It Cool has made his support of the site very clear, by continuously posting news in our Got News thread and going out of his way to make new members feel welcome. We appreciate his support and know he'll be very useful in the contributor position.
----
Please congratulate both Make It Cool and JJ on their new usergroups!
As for the others we considered but ultimately did not choose, there may still a need for you in the future so please keep suggesting news to post, and we'll certainly think of you when the time comes!
Are you a big fan of this site? Do you come here daily to chat on our forums or to read our website for the latest in Linkin Park news and information? Then please promote us on the LPMB/LPUMB and whatever other LP/Music site you frequent with one of these banners:
- Custom User Titles Now Available To ALL Members
- Site Updates - February 18th, 2010
- Attention Internet Explorer 7 and 8 Users
- Purple Haze
- ATTENTION: LPA Downtime Friday
- Promote Us on Twitter/FB/Myspace etc
- ATTENTION: LPA Downtime For Server Move
- With A New Usergroup, The LPA Makes Some Big Changes...
- We Need Your Help!
- Just Out Of Curiousity (Please Read)...
