Back in 2018 before my sophomore year of high school, I decided to try out amchecking to try and hone my writing skills. Admittedly, a good chunk of my reasoning was that my English Honors teacher was known to be quite the hardass, so I figured that dipping my toes into copyediting and proofreading on this website would be a nice exercise before dealing with her. She was, in fact, a hardass, considering that one of the things she insisted on was that you couldn't start a sentence with "However," but that's beside the point.
This obviously turned into something a bit bigger than some practice for school. I eventually joined the GP team in March of 2019 and was practically checking anything when I had free time. I would be grinding out checks even in school and in between Overwatch matches (lol). I don't know exactly why I enjoyed it so much, though. If I really had to guess, I think it's how much I loved helping people no matter what it is; all my life I've always found joy in that, and that's still the case today.
Eventually, from my hard work, I was promoted to GPTL in December of 2020. That was three years ago! This was particularly exciting for me, since being a co-leader for something I considered to be a hobby was really cool. A lot of good things were done in that time; many changes to GP standards and policies made the process more quick and efficient and less archaic, and the addition of the GP bot elevated those attributes even more. There were a great handful of new additions to the GP as well, and it was really fun and quite satisfying to accept them after watching them progress and improve. The fact that a good chunk of them went up the Smogon ladder too is really awesome as well!
As much as I loved being GPTL, I did eventually get to a point where I wasn't able to contribute the amount that I should've been contributing. My desire to help had always been there, but once college started for me it got really difficult to live up to what I was supposed to be doing. I did at the very least GP check a bit still, as well as look through applications any chance I could get, but it's gotten to a point where my activity was at all-time low. Establishing the new tutoring system was obviously amazing (definitely one of the best decisions for GP ever, in my opinion), but the fact that I couldn't keep up with all of the new amcheckers because of it really held its potential back. I'm truly sorry to anyone who was affected by my negligence, specifically the tutors who gratefully volunteer for this system.
As you may have guessed, I will be stepping down from my GPTL position and will let deetah have the honor to take my place. She has been active in GP for a great majority of my time here and is one of the most passionate and motivated users I've witnessed even outside of GP, so I have no doubt that she will be a great co-leader.
It definitely feels weird to do this after having this position for three years, and it feels even weirder to make such a formal post when others usually don't. I wouldn't blame you if you were weirded out by the formality as well, but given that I was a part of this for so long and helped to bring a lot of changes in that affect a lot of areas on this website, I felt the need to write this sendoff as so. As dumb as it may sound, my passion for GP and this leadership position was something I'll keep close to me. Stepping down knowing that I've helped hundreds of people and made tons of friends from doing this is bittersweet, but it was needed given the circumstances and I really wish I did this sooner for the sake of GP.
For me to make all the shoutouts I want to make would take way too long, so I'll keep it short. A huge thanks goes out to Lumari and Rabia for allowing me to co-lead with them; they have a lot of my respect for being able to co-lead well while also being leaders other parts of Smogon. Another huge thanks goes to autumn for allowing me to take her place when she stepped down, as well as initially being one of the GP checker that helped me a lot to get me ready to even join the GP team in the first place (and a special thank you to lotiasite for being the first one to help me out with the fundamentals!). Of course, I would finally like to give my thanks to everyone on the GP team. You were all a pleasure to work with and I hope you continue to contribute the way you have been during my time as leadership.
:0)
This obviously turned into something a bit bigger than some practice for school. I eventually joined the GP team in March of 2019 and was practically checking anything when I had free time. I would be grinding out checks even in school and in between Overwatch matches (lol). I don't know exactly why I enjoyed it so much, though. If I really had to guess, I think it's how much I loved helping people no matter what it is; all my life I've always found joy in that, and that's still the case today.
Eventually, from my hard work, I was promoted to GPTL in December of 2020. That was three years ago! This was particularly exciting for me, since being a co-leader for something I considered to be a hobby was really cool. A lot of good things were done in that time; many changes to GP standards and policies made the process more quick and efficient and less archaic, and the addition of the GP bot elevated those attributes even more. There were a great handful of new additions to the GP as well, and it was really fun and quite satisfying to accept them after watching them progress and improve. The fact that a good chunk of them went up the Smogon ladder too is really awesome as well!
As much as I loved being GPTL, I did eventually get to a point where I wasn't able to contribute the amount that I should've been contributing. My desire to help had always been there, but once college started for me it got really difficult to live up to what I was supposed to be doing. I did at the very least GP check a bit still, as well as look through applications any chance I could get, but it's gotten to a point where my activity was at all-time low. Establishing the new tutoring system was obviously amazing (definitely one of the best decisions for GP ever, in my opinion), but the fact that I couldn't keep up with all of the new amcheckers because of it really held its potential back. I'm truly sorry to anyone who was affected by my negligence, specifically the tutors who gratefully volunteer for this system.
As you may have guessed, I will be stepping down from my GPTL position and will let deetah have the honor to take my place. She has been active in GP for a great majority of my time here and is one of the most passionate and motivated users I've witnessed even outside of GP, so I have no doubt that she will be a great co-leader.
It definitely feels weird to do this after having this position for three years, and it feels even weirder to make such a formal post when others usually don't. I wouldn't blame you if you were weirded out by the formality as well, but given that I was a part of this for so long and helped to bring a lot of changes in that affect a lot of areas on this website, I felt the need to write this sendoff as so. As dumb as it may sound, my passion for GP and this leadership position was something I'll keep close to me. Stepping down knowing that I've helped hundreds of people and made tons of friends from doing this is bittersweet, but it was needed given the circumstances and I really wish I did this sooner for the sake of GP.
For me to make all the shoutouts I want to make would take way too long, so I'll keep it short. A huge thanks goes out to Lumari and Rabia for allowing me to co-lead with them; they have a lot of my respect for being able to co-lead well while also being leaders other parts of Smogon. Another huge thanks goes to autumn for allowing me to take her place when she stepped down, as well as initially being one of the GP checker that helped me a lot to get me ready to even join the GP team in the first place (and a special thank you to lotiasite for being the first one to help me out with the fundamentals!). Of course, I would finally like to give my thanks to everyone on the GP team. You were all a pleasure to work with and I hope you continue to contribute the way you have been during my time as leadership.
:0)
