The 'Shroom:Issue 100/Ten Things

Ten Things by

    First issue: 2006 Beginnings, July 24, 2006 - August 11, 2006 Latest issue: Issue C, July 18th, 2015 Founder: Current director: HI, everyone! I'm your caring guest writer, Tucayo, here with a very special section named ''Ten Things You Didn't Know About The 'Shroom. (Or Maybe You Did, Who Knows)'' for the very special 100th Issue of The 'Shroom! Some of our older writers may already know some of these facts, but I'll try to keep them interesting nonetheless. Without any further ado, let's-a-go!


 * 1) There have been around 3400 sections and 200 writers in all our history (by my best calculations, picking up where the very useful writer history left). This means an average issue of The 'Shroom has 33.66 sections and presents 2 new writers.
 * 2) Roman numerals can be tricky, and until recently, Issue 19 was incorrectly labeled as XVIX, instead of the "more correct" XIX. After the error was noticed, the staff thought it shouldn't be corrected, as that would be an alteration of the archives. Years after that, the infamous numbering error was fixed.
 * 3) This one might be a bit anticlimactic, but the world needs THE TRUTH. There have actually been 102 'Shroom issues. This is the hundredth numbered issue, but a couple of editions have jumped altogether the numbering system. Which ones you may ask? Our very first issue, which is now known as "2006 Beginnings", and the first holiday special issue, which was aptly named "Holiday Special". I will give you more information on the former later on, but the latter was a Core Staff-only edition. It was meant to be seen as a gift from the core staff to the readers, and it was released between the December 2009 and January 2010 issues. It featured sixteen sections sections from then-Core Staff members, filling in for many of their team's positions. This was the only issue since Issue II not to have Fun Stuff.
 * 4) The 'Shroom was launched along with the Pipe Plaza, and it originally was meant to talk only about the wiki itself. As you can see, a lot of things changed from our 2006 Beginnings to our proper Issue I. First of all, '06 Beginnings is labeled as "Volume 1, Issue 1" on its Single page, and articles were uploaded as "2006-07-25/New Users", instead of the now-used "Issue C/Ten Things". And actually, the name 2006 Beginnings was given by Plumber in 2008, when the archives were first created. '06's three sections were all written by HK and released in a span of two weeks. The date for the issue is thus shown as "July 24, 2006 - August 11, 2006". Our next issue would be released five months later, with a different purpose in mind.
 * 5) Talking about purposes, in 2009, The 'Shroom went through a major re-purposing. Quality controls and section limits were first implemented, and several sections were changed as The 'Shroom was to become mostly focused on the Wiki again.
 * 6) You have seen our backgrounds, they sure are nice, but did you know The 'Shroom has had 30 different backgrounds? Here they are:
 * 7) Our first background.
 * 8) The so called "Normal" theme we use currently in pages such as the About page and the Archives.
 * 9) Our Autumn theme".
 * 10) Winter.
 * 11) Spring.
 * 12) And Summer.
 * 13) Our former Pipe Plaza background.
 * 14) Our "Silver" theme, used most notably in Issue XXX.
 * 15) Our Issue 50 theme.
 * 16) There's also the Holiday theme, used for Holiday Issues.
 * 17) Super Mario 64 theme, for Issue 64.
 * 18) Mario Kart 64, for Issue 64.
 * 19) Mario Party, for Issue 64.
 * 20)  Paper Mario, for Issue 64.
 * 21) Yoshi's Story, for Issue 64.
 * 22) Super Smash Bros, for Issue 64.
 * 23) Our spooky Halloween theme.
 * 24) WALUIGI TIME! Used in issue 75.
 * 25) Kirby theme. Used in issue 75.
 * 26) MOTHER/Earthbound. Used in issue 75.
 * 27) The Legend of Zelda. Used in issue 75.
 * 28) Pikmin. Used in issue 75.
 * 29) Pokémon. Used in issue 75.
 * 30) Mario Kart 8 theme, for Issue 88.
 * 31) "Shroom Midnight" theme, for user in Fun Stuff warnings.
 * 32) And a Fakewarning background I don't quite recall.
 * 33) There are also older versions of our "Seasons" themes, but they were discontinued because they were... well, they were just a bit hard on the eyes. Add four to our count so far, and we get to 30 backgrounds for all occasions.
 * 34) Former directors are usually in good terms with the paper, and even banned users like WarioLoaf had a guest appearance after he had been banned for the first time. But there is one former director, Wayoshi, who went the distance and outright proposed The 'Shroom's cancellation. Needless to say, the Proposal failed.
 * 35) Our first Special Issue was hosted on the 30th Issue because when we thought about commemorating a specific milestone, Issue 25 had already passed and 30 was the closest round number. Contrary to some's belief, it had nothing to do with wanting to draw attention away from the issue's Roman numbering. Several guests were confirmed for the issue, but in the end only Knife and McCloud submitted sections.
 * 36) Most of you are probably familiar with our End-of-the-Year Awards, whose aim is to acknowledge our contributors at the end of each year. They started out in December 2011, but the idea for the EoY Awards had actually been around since January 2010, originally proposed by Stoob. However, these initial "Awards" were significantly different from their final from. Originally, there were five awards to be earned: Semi-Veteran, for writing for us for six months; Veteran, for doing the same for a whole year; Grammar Nut, for having great writing skills; Shroom Admin, for being a member of the Core Staff; and Punctual Author, for sending sections in time three months in a row. These awards would have been given out in every issue to the users who accomplished the feat; but, in May 2010, the Section of the Month system was released and it was seen as an appropriate way to acknowledge our users. Still, it's good to see both mechanics in place now.
 * Now, to close this list, I'm gonna show you a list of Nine Sections You Didn't Know Were Featured in The 'Shroom (Or Maybe You Did, Again). List-ception (sorry, couldn't help it).
 * 1) Beta Elements, a section which looked at some beta elements (you guessed it) from a specific game and then gave the writer's take on how these would have changed the final game.
 * 2) A section similar to this one, and even originally seen as the same section (since it was uploaded as Beta Elements), is Should Have Been. In this section, the writer gave his opinion on which elements should have appeared in the game, even if not all of them were Beta Elements.
 * 3) Good Game, Bad Game pitted two games from the same series, with one being labeled as the "Good Game" in the series and the other one as the "Bad Game".
 * 4) Maybe a bit similarly, Mario, non-Mario compared two characters who fulfilled similar roles, one from the Marioverse and the other from a different series. After a detailed comparison, one character was named the winner.
 * 5) In Monthly Mulligan, a game was reviewed and then the writer said how it could be improved.
 * 6) One section that was particularly popular was User Brawl, which may or may not have been inspired by SMB's Character Battle. Regardless, User Brawl was a very popular section, with users signing up to participate in future battles; however, the section was removed as it was deemed to be not very related to the Wiki or the Marioverse.
 * 7) A feature on issues VII and VIII, called Funnies, was meant as a place for users to upload their comics for others to see. In the end, all comics ended up moving to Userpedia.
 * 8) Two of the very first sections in the Fun Section (now Fun Stuff) were Riddles and Jokes, both focusing on Mario-related content.
 * 9) Music Supplier was the only previously-existing section to inaugurate the Art & Music team (now Palette Swap). This section originally featured five songs from Mario games and gave some background into them. A posterior version of the section provided facts about the music in the Mario games.

And that's a wrap! I hope you learned something new about our newsletter from reading this section, or that if you didn't you at least enjoyed it! Now go and read the rest of the issue, which I'm sure is going to absolutely great. BYE!!