Underread and Underrated

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Featured SCP!

SCP-5302: Sweet Bod

An orange neon sign above the front door of SCP-5302 reads "HONEY BODY KARAOKE - BAR - GRILL".

Featured SCP.

Featured Tale/Format!

Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?

I told him in various simple terms that he could either figure it out or I would shoot him in the balls. He nodded and told me that wasn't necessary, he could solve it.

Featured non-SCP.

Topic and Prompt of the month!

+ Open FAQ

Last Month's Pieces and Topic

Boxes

The best of the past.

Topic + pick of this month!

An Interview with A Notorious Interviewer

This month's piece.

To start things off, care to introduce the Interviewing Icons series?

Yeah, of course! So, Interviewing Icons is a series of interviews with various figures from around the site or related to the site that I began shortly after my Meet the Administrators series, which has a similar premise, started off on a good note. So far, I have interviewed the likes of djkaktus, Tanhony, Rounderhouse, Ihp, and Djoric. If you want to learn a bit more about these authors or some of the backstories for some of their most famous works, feel free to check out their interviews. I also have many more in the works which I plan to release in the near future, so watch out for those as well!

Tell us a little about the process.

Well, it starts out with someone reaching out, whether that is myself or someone who is interested in doing an interview with me. After we have come together and agreed to work on one together, I offer to have a preliminary interview with the interviewee. The purpose of this is so that I can learn more about the person. If I have knowledge of the person's personality and interests beforehand, I can often come up with questions which I believe they would enjoy answering, and, in turn, readers would hopefully enjoy reading.
After this, I will do some in-depth research into the person's history on and off the site, any Reddit AMA's they may have done, etc. I try to look into anything that can help me see what people like to know about my interviewee and what my interviewee likes to share. Once I have a good idea on the direction to take the interview, I go into the process of creating a collaborative sandbox for the interviewee, and I will draft my 20 questions for them.
I mentally separate my 20 questions into three different sections: Backstory, Personal, and Reflection. The Backstory section is the first several questions of each interview where I ask questions pertaining to how the person came across the wiki and their initial impressions on certain subjects. The Personal section is the meat of the interview and takes up the majority of my questions. These questions can vary greatly depending upon the person I am interviewing, but it does always include questions such as their most popular works and such. The last section of each interview is the Reflection section. Quite simply, I ask the interviewee to reflect on their experience with SCP as I close out the interview with a "Who is [interviewee's name]?" question where they can answer in any way they like.
I usually give the interviewee the draft for them to fill out as they like, but I have also done these interviews live where I record the person's answers and transcribe them onto the draft myself. After this is done, I proofread everything. Once my proofreading is finished, the interview is then ready for publishing and advertising!

What drove you to take up the position of (un)Official SCP Interviewer?

Haha so my decision to take up this project is heavily inspired by our recently retired administrator, Roget, who is a friend of mine. Roget released a written interview years ago with the person who moved the site over to Wikidot. They entitled the article An Interview With "The Administrator". Be sure to check it out! The Administrator was a fascinating person. As for myself, I originally found SCP back in 2014 and read a lot back then. When I returned to the site a year ago, I was saddened to see that many of the writers I remember from back then are no longer around. When I reread the interview that Roget had done, I attempted to search for other interviews on the site, and I was disappointed when I did not find any.
As a history buff and a person who has invested a lot of time into SCP already, I decided to do something about it. I now have two ongoing written interview series which have already been mentioned, and I am glad to say that they have been well-received this far. But more importantly to me, I am glad that I have been able to find a small way to preserve the history of the site and its content from some of the people who contributed to this massive collaboration project we call SCP.

What would you say constitutes an "Icon"?

Haha probably the most controversial aspect, which really hasn't been that controversial even, has been the name of the series. The dictionary defines an icon as "a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration." Going along these lines, an Icon for the site is simply someone who has contributed to SCP in someway which I consider unique enough and worthwhile enough to interview. There are two things I would like to clarify about the series. This isn't a Hall of Fame of the best and greatest authors on the site or anything like that. You don't have to be in the top 10 in rating or have written over 100 different pages to be considered for one. That isn't the intention for the series. The other thing I would like to mention is that the series will focus on various "figures" around SCP. Although I only have interviews posted with authors currently, I have plans and current interviews in the works with artists, content creators, and others around the SCP scene. So that is something to look forward to!

Ultimately, who is "WhiteGuard"?

I would like to think that WhiteGuard is someone who people think of as a friendly soul. I actively try to be a positive influence for those around me. It is my desire to help the community in whatever ways I can, with whatever time I have available to contribute. For now, I am attempting to help out by being a staff member, and by doing these interviews so that people have something to remember these figures by years down the line. I don't know what the future holds or how long I will be around, but I hope that if I am not around years down the line that if my name is brought up, someone will say "WhiteGuard? Oh yeah, I remember him. He was a good guy."

This month's challenge:

For writers: Now that you're more familiar with some of the figures around the site, how about a challenge?
For artists: Draw WhiteGuard's avatar interviewing the avatar(s) of one (or several!) of his guests.