The Acorn Cafe
Contents
About
What is the Acorn Cafe?
The Acorn Cafe is presently the largest focal point of the Rescue Ranger Fan Community. Though it serves as a place where many of the members of the community can display their art and stories the point can also be made that the primary function of the Acorn Cafe is to serve as an assembly or meeting hall for the fans to come together to joke and communicate.
What is it like there?
Inside the fandom the Acorn Cafe has taken on the collective mental image of being a proverbial café, complete with drinks, tables, booths, and a comfy couch in front of a 46-inch LCD television. Further revisions have included such additions as the stairwell from the RMS Titanic and an archival library. However, every patron has got another picture of the Cafe and its facilities in their imagination, so answers to this question tend to differ.
See also The Cafe itself.
What does it look like?
Though it has had several guises over the decade or so it has been around, the Acorn Cafe exists today as a phpBB styled board, complete with all of the features that style of construction allows.
The board itself is divided into several sections.
The RRt (art) Board is a place where community members can post their latest pieces for comment and display and also in the hope of getting assistance with final revisions.
The Off-Topic section is a place where members of the fandom can converse about everyday topics not specifically related to the Rescue Rangers. The conversations tend to be polite, witty, or... enlightening.
The Story Board is for those members of the community with a talent for writing to display their works. Some of the most noted pieces of Rescue Ranger fan-fiction have been first posted for everyone to enjoy on the Acorn Cafe, a tradition that continues in this section.
The Acorn Cafe board is the namesake for which the entire site is named. Here members of the Cafe discuss issues raised by the canon, inform each other about Rescue Ranger news, and share humor based on the series.
The Cafe Foyer is the most recent addition to the Cafe, and is used to welcome new members to the board. The welcome threads allow members to introduce themselves. Oftentimes, they feature "welcoming salutes," featuring both paintballs and liberal amounts of confetti (and even battleships).
Once every year since 2002, the Cafe hosts the Golden Acorn Awards.
Who runs this place?
Since moving to phpBB, the Acorn Cafe is run by the admins Stephen C (aka Chairman Kaga) and Dr. Indy.
Who can join the Acorn Cafe?
The Acorn Cafe is open to all who share an interest in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, though even this requirement is not written in stone. Several members had no true knowledge of the series before joining but today are just as dedicated to the series and fandom as any other.
What are the rules?
See below.
History
1998
February 8: A message board called "Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers", later to be known as The Acorn Cafe, is launched at Inside The Web, led by Natasha Kashefipour, then 14 years old. Before this date, the Usenet was the only online meeting-point for Rangerphiles.
February 14: The young Acorn Cafe becomes a battle location when the St. Valentine's Day Massacre goes off.
Late august: Tad Stones replies on a thread about the color of Gadget's hair. [1]
November: Loss of Darren "Sabrewolf" Perlongo.
December 5: Chris "Dale" Birkett, Indy and Chipette launch the Chat Pack after they had severely misused the Off-Topic Board for chatting.
1999
July 5: To honor the Rangers' 10th anniversary, the Plato Awards ceremonies are held.
2000
February: Deborah Walley herself appears at the Acorn Cafe and posts. [2] [3] Later, Dev Ross shows up at the Cafe, too. [4]
June: Framwinkle and Chipette's wedding. They've found each other at the Acorn Cafe.
Fall: Natasha Kashefipour is forced to leave the Cafe due to private issues. Indy takes over.
December 24: A severe crash reduces the Acorn Cafe to the letters "gjk". A new Acorn Cafe is set up at Inside The Web after deciding this step on the Off-Topic Board, and Julie Bihn turned her R.O.A.R. Board at Inside The Web into an Acorn Cafe—all at once. For about five days, there are two Acorn Cafes. Illustration by Jeff Parkes
December 29: The new Acorn Cafe, having to deal with problems, is shut down again, and the former R.O.A.R. Board stays the one and only Acorn Cafe.
2001
February 18: Marty Holton, Deborah Walley's agent, informs the Rangerphiles about her illness. [5]
February 28: The Great Migration. After Inside The Web has announced its complete shutdown[6], Stephen Clouse relaunches Acorn Cafe, Story Board and Off-Topic Board on RPGBoard. The Chat Pack moves to voy.com.
March 9: Inside The Web shuts down, and with it the old Acorn Cafe.
May 10: Deborah Walley passes away and leaves the Rangerphiles to mourn.
October 14: Paltiel Goldstein and Candy Courtnier's wedding, the second one of Acorn Cafe patrons. [7]
2002
December 29: The first annual Golden Acorn Awards ceremonies are held.
2003
January 12: The link to Of Mice and Mayhem appears at the Cafe.
August 13: The Rangerphile community loses Andy aka MOnty.
December 29: The second annual Golden Acorn Awards ceremonies are held.
2004
January 30: The Acorn Cafe's URL changes to what it still is today: www.theacorncafe.org
December 29: The third annual Golden Acorn Awards ceremonies are held.
2005
June 23: The brand-new phpBB Acorn Cafe opens its doors.
2006
January 5: The fourth annual Golden Acorn Awards ceremonies are held.
February 24: Fan art gets its own section: the RRt Board.
May 7,8: The Acorn Cafe gets its own unique color theme.
August 1: The Acorn Cafe Foyer is inaugurated.
September 15: Custom graphics (such as acorn buttons) are added to the Cafe and the color scheme is slightly changed again.
2007
February 28: The Cafe suffers from a severe breakdown when the 2006 Golden Acorn Awards ceremonies are to be held.
May 24: The First Annual Poetry Night special event is held on the Cafe Chat, beginning at 2100GMT (9:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time).
August 21: The Cafe is switched to phpBB 3.0, with lots of problems and bugs resulting that have to be fixed in the following days.
August 31: Many of the bugs are fixed, and the color scheme and buttons are changed yet again to feature the Rangers themselves.
2008
February 29: The sixth annual Golden Acorn Awards ceremonies are held.
The Cafe itself
Staff
The Acorn Cafe's regular barkeeper is named Max. Little is known about him other than his name as of yet. Since the Cafe is open 24/7 and Max can't work there all the time, patrons often take over tap duty, sometimes also the occasional Ranger, usually Monterey Jack who can also be seen working in the kitchen at times. The kitchen is open for regular patrons as well. There are other staff members who tend to remain unnamed.
Menu/Food and beverages
The Cafe's menu is quite big, and still it isn't uncommon to get something that isn't on the menu. Some patrons even store their own supplies at the Cafe. The list of hot beverages is especially impressive. Other than many flavors of tea and hot chocolate, there is a large choice of coffee variations.
Some beverages can be acquired in unusually large vessels. Venti, the regular size of a coffee at the Cafe, has been topped by Midnight when he acquired a set of 20-gallon coffee mugs, now known as the Superventi. Also, the Cafe has Coke glasses which can hold 2 liters at once. Hardly anyone else than AndY orders caffeinated soda at such sizes, though.
Coffee
This is an incomplete list of coffee and coffee-related beverages available at the Cafe.
- Acorn Roast: Chai Eggnog Nutmeg Mocha (created by Live2dream)(named by Campisi)
- Blackberry Latte
- Chipper's Choice: A caramel mocha with a shot of acorn syrup, whipped cream and grated acorn sprinkled on top. ([http://www.theacorncafe.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=103831#103831 created by Live2dream named by Campisi)
- Cinnamon Mocha (explained here; a Venti Cinnamon Mocha cost $3.77 in 2005 according to Campisi)
- Nutmeg Mocha
- Six-Shooter (only available as a Venti and stronger than regular coffees of that size)
- RangerReady23 and Gadget's preferred coffee is Maxwell House 1892.
- For the case that everything else is too weak, Neal_Wolf introduced DSF ("Drink the Stuff Fast") which is five times as strong as regular coffee in The Case of the Abducted Arabica.
Iconography
Awards
The Acorn Cafe hasn't only spawned and hosted the Golden Acorn Awards, but it has received some of them itself.
2004 Golden Acorn Awards: Best All-Time Website
2005 Golden Acorn Awards: Most Informative Website, Best All-Time Website
2006 Golden Acorn Awards: Best Website Maintainer (the admins and moderators), Best Website, Best All-Time Website
2007 Golden Acorn Awards: Most Informative Website (tie with the Ranger Wiki), Best Website Maintainer (the admins and moderators), Best Website, Outstanding Website Achievement (phpbb3 upgrade), Best All-Time Website
2008 Golden Acorn Awards: Best Website Layout, Best Website Content, Best Website Maintainer (the admins and moderators), Best Website, Outstanding Website Achievement (the Cafe's 10th anniversary)
2009 Golden Acorn Awards: Best Website Layout, Best Website Content, Best Website Maintainer (the admins and moderators), Best Website, Outstanding Website Achievement (tie with the growth of the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers page on TV Tropes)
2010 Golden Acorn Awards: Outstanding Website Achievement, Best Website Maintainer (the admins and moderators), Best Website
Rules
Like almost any internet forum, the Acorn Cafe has a set of rules which you must adhere to. The following is taken from the official rule thread [8], as it stood at the 28th of March, 2008:
1. No Personal Attacks. You will not post anything that is defamatory, libelous, unnecessarily antagonistic, or an invasion of privacy or violation of the rights of another user, person, or party.
2. No Inappropriate Posts. You will not post anything that is obscene, abusive, harassing, threatening, unintelligible, or otherwise inappropriate, as determined by the moderators.
3. No Sexually Related Discussion. You will not request, link to, or post information about or references to RR pornography or erotica. You will not post anything relating to homosexuality, homosexual relationships, trans-gender relationships, alternative sexual lifestyles, or any other topic deemed sexually inappropriate by the moderators.
4. No Profanity. This board is intended for all ages. You will not make use of profane language. Mild terms like "(bleep)", "heck", "darn/dammit", "ticked off", and "sucks" are considered in violation of this policy. The moderators reserve the right to delete or edit any posts that violate this policy.
5. No Mature/Adult Material On Rangerphile Sites. You will not post direct links from these forums to any mature/adult material or any site containing such material. The decision of what is "mature/adult" is the at the moderators' discretion.
6. No Inappropriate Depictions Of Characters. You will not post fanart, stories, or other works that depict RR characters involved in drug or alcohol use, sexual situations, or graphic violence. Such posts may be removed by the moderators if deemed to be in extremely poor taste.
7. No Abuse of Round Robin Stories. Round Robin Stories are defined as stories posted on the Acorn Cafe boards by two or more persons with the idea of creating a cumulative storyline. These stories must remain within Cafe limits of content at all times, or they will be subject to termination or removal with or without warning. Those participating in the stories must adhere to Cafe rules of behavior (no personal attacks, etc). Participants, who, in the determination of the moderators are purposefully derailing, undermining or curtailing round robins for their own ends will be warned or removed at the moderators' discretion.
8. User Liability For Posts. You agree that you are fully responsible and legally liable for any content that is posted through the use of your username and password. Do not share your username or password with any other person.
9. Avatar and Signature Restrictions. Avatars are not to exceed either 150 pixels wide by 200 pixels high, or 50Kb. Signature dimensions must be no more than 550 pixels in width, 15 lines of normal sized text in length, and are not to exceed 150Kb. Limits for signatures are also cumulative, meaning that even if you have more than one item in your signature, the cumulative dimensions for everything are not to exceed either 550 pixels, 15 lines, or a filesize of 150Kb.
10. Trivial Conversations/Hijacking Threads. Moderators reserve the right to delete or modify any trivial discussion that takes on the nature of a chat session. The definition of such a chat will be determined by the moderators, but could include any lengthy discussion between only two or three people, or a discussion that begins on-topic but is "hijacked" and then becomes a chat. Such practices clutter the forums, making it difficult for others to enjoy the boards.
11. Ranger Video Links. Posting of links to sites exhibiting online video of the Rangers (such as BitTorrent and other file-sharing sites) is discouraged. Such posts will be deleted, as they represent a serious copyright violation and could be used to penalize the owner of the Cafe's server as well as the person(s) who posted. Posting YouTube material (or such material from similar sites) is okay as long as it's a true derivative work (fan-made), done in good taste and isn't the actual reproduction of an episode. Video viewers be aware that the Related Videos on YouTube sites aren't under the control of the person posting, so there may be content issues there. Video posters are encouraged to seek out content-friendly video hosting sites.
12. Use of Cookies and Private Information. Your IP address is recorded for any action you initiate on these forums. This forum system uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you have entered for your profile; they serve only to improve your viewing pleasure. Your e-mail address is used only for confirming your registration details and password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current one). You agree to any information you enter in your profile being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, the webmaster, administrator and moderators cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.
13. All Rights Reserved. You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at their discretion.
THESE RULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
Last updated: 9-11-2006
External Links
Acorn Cafe entry and rules page from 1999, part of Natasha Kashefipour's website Rescue Ranger Zone
