whagi.com ...the Xbox 360 evolution

DeaconBlade 360 US Moderator

Ok, please can we have a warm welcome for whagi.com's third official Moderating Team interviews. Lets see what he has to say:

Please tell us a little about yourself, and do not hold back with the nitty gritty details?

Well may name is Daylon or as most might know me, Deacon. I’m from Dallas, Tx and I’m just your average gamer really. Most people don’t know but I spent 5 years in the US Marine Corps in its finance division. I spent 6 months (twice) on a ship, the USS Bonhomme Richard that travelled all over the world…Iraq, Kuwait, Thailand, Bahrain, Singapore, UAE, Hawaii, Japan…a few other places. So I supposed I’m a well-seasoned gamer in terms of seeing the world.

Currently though I host a show called Unscripted 360 which focuses on the 360 community and what goes on in it day to day. I enjoy doing it as I love community involvement. I think it stems back to my days in the Marine Corps because we had to be such a well-formed group or platoon. We had to watch each other and pretty much bond with hundreds of others to make things work in the military. I do the same in the community really. I try to group everyone together so that we’re all having some fun.

Interview by Whagi - Added on 19th March 2007

Please explain your choice of Gamertag, and do you still think it is a good tag to have?

Well before my current one I used to be Racivius Dawn. I kept getting hit on over Xbox Live so a few years back, I decided to change it. My favourite movie is Blade, starring Wesley Snipes. I combined two of my favourite characters from the movie (Deacon Frost and Blade) and threw a 360 on the end to top it off right.

I think it fits me well…so much so that my real name is second to my Xbox Live Gamertag now. Everyone calls me Deacon. So I think it’s still a good tag to have. I don’t see a change anytime soon.

   Can you explain a bit about your day to day role and what it
   involves within the Xbox 360 forums and being a Moderator?
   Please include both the ups and downs if you can, and how has it    affected you as part of the forum community and in your
   everyday life.

Well when I was selected to be an Xbox MVP, I wasn’t quite prepared for what that meant as far as moderation goes on the Xbox 360 community boards. As an MVP, you’re not required to moderate the boards but you do have the privileges set to do so. Being that I’ve always been active in the community dating back to when there were no message boards, I felt like I knew enough about the moderation to where I could be effective, fair and consistent with it.

Now with that said, my role as an MVP moderating the boards is pretty simple and easy. Nearly everyone knows me around there so I haven’t yet had any negative remarks about the closing or banning that I’ve had to do. Everyday there’s always a new challenge with a spammer or someone who trolls so the moderation team always tries to deal with those things first.

I suppose if there were a bad thing it would be that. Sometimes I wonder why a person would make an account just to create some drama or stir up an argument on a message board. It makes no sense to me especially the ones who apparently don’t like the Xbox 360. Why come and post if you don’t like the console?

I don’t know if I can accurately judge the effect it’s had on me being an MVP and someone who moderates the boards because I was always involved in the community. I haven’t changed that about me. I still post and interact the same as I always have if not moreso now.

Your job must be quite difficult at times. How do you manage to maintain a healthy equilibrium within the forums, to what is ok and what is not?

That’s the difficult part about it really. You’re always stuck between the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ part of things on the forums. Most of the members there are really cool and when it’s time to moderate one of them, it’s always a challenge knowing that their history is good but that one day they seem to fall off and you have to do what you have to do regardless.

But so far, I’ve done a pretty good job I think of dealing with everyone from a moderation standpoint. I always try and offer up a bit of humour as well when I do have to moderate. It makes the situation easier to deal with on both sides I believe.

How do you keep a balance between reality and unreality? I.e. your everyday life and your time you spend on your 360 and the forums.

Wow! When I tell people it’s really not a challenge, they laugh and don’t believe me. But it’s really not a challenge. I’ve only known multi-tasking as long as I can remember. Going through five years in the Marine Corps pretty much sealed the deal and made multi-tasking a part of my life.

So I deal with my everyday normal life 24/7 and fit everything else in between that. It’s worked out good so far. I’m not stressed and I don’t have any grey hair so it’s cool.

Within the Xbox360 and forum community, where do you see yourself? How do you think others perceive you within the community?

Well I don’t know how I fit in. I’m still very much just the same Deacon I was before becoming an MVP. I’d like to think that the same people who respected me before, still respect me now.

I do know that a lot of people look to me as a leader of the community and I understand that. So I try to always lead by example because you never know who’s following your every post or move.

And I also understand the ‘forum celebrity’ as I call it that comes with me also having the podcast show that I do. I’ve received hundreds of emails from gamers/members saying that what I’ve done has helped them enjoy the 360 or that they respect me or that they’ve started their own thing based on what I’ve done. And that really puts a smile on my face knowing that I’ve been able to create a role in the community that people look to.

It was the community who voted me the Community Member of the Year so I take what I do to heart by accepting the leadership role and doing my best with it.

Without getting into personal details, what was the worst thing you have experienced within the Xbox 360 community, and could there have been a way to stop such an event, or to prevent such an event happening again in the future?

Well the worst thing for me was a toss up between having someone try to smear my name across the forums and having someone stalk me. I don’t know if there was a way to prevent either as in each case the person seemed pretty adamant about doing what they were going to do.

One person felt it necessary to post things about me in order to lead some sort of anti-Deacon campaign in which people would ‘hate Deacon’ because he/she did. I guess that’s how it goes sometimes when jealousy rears its ugly head.

The stalker situation actually happened 3 or 4 times but the last time was when someone actually went out to post some personal information of mine across my site at Unscripted 360. It was a result of someone mistaking me as the person who banned them from the Xbox.com forums. He thought I was the one, which I wasn’t, and began to harass me.

So as I mentioned earlier, some of these people take these things way too seriously but I understand I have to expect that given my position in the community.

Again, without getting into personal details, what was the best thing you have experienced within the Xbox360 community? And could this event be used in the future to help the community in the future?

The best thing is always hearing someone say ‘hey Deacon, you did a good job’ or ‘hey Deacon, I appreciate what you do for us’. That’s always the best thing about the 360 community for me. Knowing that people respect you and appreciate you doing what you love to do is great. I use that as fuel to do even more and be an even better member of the community.

Looking at the current Xbox 360 forums, what do you think could be added or changed to make them a much more pleasant and helpful place to visit? Please compare both the UK and US forums if you wish.

I’d like to see a condensing of the forums. There are quite a lot of individual forums and sometimes things go unnoticed because the place is so huge. Comparing the UK to US brings that same issue up. The UK isn’t as massive as the US side of things. There is just one general area in the UK but moreso on the US front.

And even more than that, the UK part is near the bottom of the forums. I think a better structure is needed so that people can at least see the bulk of the forums at one glance. Perhaps a navigation list on the left side to give a member a quick view of the forum listings.

Are there any people that stand out across the whole Xbox 360 community that you think deserves a mention and if so, why?

There are quite a few people who I notice make a good effort in helping the community stay fun and friendly. You’re one of them. Guys like IRISHprik, GreenLantern, DaKing, GHK, CroTech, Twylyght Myst….way too many to name actually.

The community as a whole needs a mention because it’s truly the best I’ve been a part of.

Outside of the Xbox360 and the forums, what kind of things do you do in your everyday life?

I love my daughter all day, everyday. She consumes my life outside of the Xbox 360 and the forums. She just turned 3 years old….she’s Daddy’s little butterfly.

Do you use your Xbox360 often and if so how often? Please include any usage, games, music or other.

I use it quite frequently. Here recently I’ve been playing a lot of Crackdown. I don’t use it for music at all or any of the Windows Media Connect features. I’m not sure why but it seems I never really have the time to do any of the other cool stuff about the 360 beyond just gaming. Oh and also watching some HD-DVDs with the HD-DVD player/drive.

   Please provide a photo of your current setup, and then
   include a description of what you would like to have if money was    not an option and what you are most looking forward to as far as
   hardware, accessories and future 360 add-ons go.

If money were no issue I’d like a 1080p projection setup in a separate theatre room in my house. I can see about 8 leather chairs with the 360 next to each of them (for any system-link parties) and a wall-to-wall library of games built inside the casing of the walls.

As far as new accessories/hardware goes, I’m not really looking forward to any. I suppose if a larger hard drive ever comes out, I’d be looking forward to that.

What is your favourite game on the Xbox 360? Please using Windows Paint, draw your favourite scene from that game and explain why you chose it

Right now my favourite game is Crackdown. I’ll do my best with the paint.

What is your favourite game of all time, across all platforms you have owned? Again please using Windows Paint, draw your favourite scene from that game and explain why you chose it.

The original Halo was and still is. I still play it to this day.

With Xbox LIVE doing so well and with so many online gamers,
Apart from LIVEanywhere, what could Microsoft possibly do to improve this service even further?

I think they could allow some sort of friend management system. There are so many friends that you come across and it would be nice to be able to separate them in categories somehow so you remember where you met them or any other criteria that makes it easier to organize your friends.

   What do you think of the new upcoming LIVEanywhere from    Microsoft and it’s combining of the Xbox 360, PC and mobile
   phones and where do you see gaming in general heading in the
   next few years?

I think it’s great. It’s not necessarily my cup of tea but for people who are into PC, it’ll be great for them. Microsoft is definitely trying to destroy the boundaries that separate console and PC gamers. Soon, in the next few years, you won’t have any separate system. It’ll just be gamers.

Please could you give us your own feelings on where you think gaming as a whole is heading and how it might look to us all in the distant future?

I think gaming is headed to a place that it will truly be the center of what we all do. There won’t be any particular device that won’t have some form of gaming entertainment on it. There are already television shows dedicated to it so it’s definitely becoming bigger.

Do you have anything else that you would like to add to this interview that could possibly be of interest to anyone reading this?

I don’t know. I’d like to thank everyone really for being so supportive of what I do.

Finally, please rate yourself out of ten for each of the following headings:

Thank you for taking part in the whagi.com interviews. I’m sure everyone will find this interview both informative and funny at the same time, many thanks.

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Xbox.com Interviews

Special guests
Iain Lee

Community editor
Trixie US

Moderating team
DeaconBlade 360 US
TR1GG3R MAN EU
Handlebars US

UK forum members
o RATMAN o
JC x360a

US forum members
Cain141

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Updated 9:51pm 14th July 2007