Project 001: An Introduction

Posted on February 1, 2021 by

Thanks to our 2ic Cubster for making this beautiful post header!

Introduction

Over the past several months, you’ve probably seen me mention something called Project 001 briefly, along with the occasional ‘archive drop’ in the ACP Discord server. More recently, I discussed it in some detail in the final episode of season 1 of our Shamrock Bulletin’s wonderful Clover Chats Podcast, hosted by Zelly(bear) and myself.

However, since this project is so large in scale and incredibly multifaceted, I wanted to finally explain it using the art of the written word, for your convenience (and reference!).

What is Mondo up to this time?

Read on to find out! (Mondo beard reveal at the end ???)

So, what is “Project 001” exactly?

Since early July of 2020, “Project 001” solely referred to a still ongoing effort to update, revamp, revitalize, and (ultimately) ‘complete’ the ACP: A History (bulleted historical account) & The ACP Saga (narrative account) historical pages, spearheaded by me. More recently, however, the endeavor has evolved into something even greater in scale.

I decided to propose this organized effort in February of 2020, and two months later on April 27th, the project was launched with the initial assistance of Max and Zelly. Subsequently, the Project 001 effort has become quite a tremendous undertaking but is certainly not without its rewards.

Okay, you’ve explained what it is. But… why?

ACP is incredibly important and meaningful to a great many of us, especially to those that have been around for several years. In the past, many have emphasized and expressed the need and desire for substantially improved (and eventually ‘completed’) ACP historical pages.

After witnessing this and even expressing the same sentiment, I decided (almost one year ago now) that something needed to finally be done. So, after much thought, I took it upon myself to launch the organized effort now known as Project 001.

If you take a look at the original ACP site, you’ll find that the ACP: A History page and the (old) ACP Saga are incomplete. For each page, there are several aspects to consider in the context of this project.

In the case of the former, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed:

Entries on the ACP: A History page stop entirely in March of 2014.
Entries begin from February 2007… even though ACP was created on September 29th of 2006.
Important contextual information (e.g. acronym definitions, critical background on conflicts, diplomatic efforts and political events, etc.) is absent in many instances.
Several sizeable gaps are present in the existing entries.
There are typos and grammatical errors.
It has been observed that some dates may not be entirely accurate, prompting additional research efforts.
The other sections of the page (e.g. “Longest Leaders”) are outdated and improvements can be made to formatting and presentation.

Regarding the ACP Saga, only events from the time of Oagalthorp, (and shortly thereafter) are included—only up to about mid-2008 or so. With this page, there are also several items to address:

The ACP Saga is very incomplete, only including about 2 years of information (out of 14+ in total).
There are several typos, grammatical errors, and other technical issues.
Contextual detail about some time periods is lacking, leaving critical questions unanswered.
The organization & structure of narrative entries needs to be revamped for utmost clarity.
The formatting needs to be improved, and the presentation refined to improve readability.
Existing material may need vetting to evaluate its accuracy, as sections have been written from the perspective of single individuals.
Little to no visuals are provided for context and insight!

Project 001 is an ongoing effort and continues to evolve with more ideas and other adjunct projects. An example of this is reflected in the (now) second central component of this undertaking: the “ACP archives.”

So, what else is involved in this? What else has Mondo been up to?!?

As mentioned above under the first heading, Project 001 initially only referred to improving the historical pages. Some months after the launch, however, the name “Project 001” was expanded to include even more.

Beginning in July of 2020, I have been locating and backing up any ACP related media (I’ve extracted a couple thousand images myself so far), sometimes integrating redundancies into the process to make sure those records are secure. Why do I use the particular word “secure?” The short answer is that places (such as hosting sites) where ACP and Club Penguin Army related media may be found are not reliable.

An example of this is clear in the case of Tinypic, another one of the many image hosting websites. In the past, ACP often used Tinypic and there was likely a tremendous amount of media hosted there. Unfortunately, it was not too long ago that Tinypic completely shut down and took all of its data with it. Whatever may have been on there is now gone. Erased. Wiped out.

To avoid a similarly catastrophic loss of data, I decided to start building a massive archive of ACP historical records. As it stands, there are currently about 7GB of primarily ACP archives, and that number continues to grow.

What exactly are the “ACP Archives” composed of?

There are currently several thousand images and dozens upon dozens of videos that I’ve backed up.

The Project 001 ACP Archives include the following:

Extracted images (primarily from Photobucket)
- Screenshots
  - Xat chat moments (our mode of communication before Discord)
  - Club Penguin events/battles
  - Past website posts/comments
- Graphics
  - Website graphics (headers, banners, etc.)
  - Custom penguins
  - Xat chat inner & outer backgrounds
- Fan art (yes, we had it back then too!)
- Several other artistic creations
Veteran archive dumps *
Videos (primarily from YouTube)
- Xat moments
- Club Penguin events/battles
- Old podcasts and interviews
- Other creative army-related productions
Websites
- Original Miniclip forums (via Wayback Machine)
- WordPress web pages
  - Old ACP related websites (there’s several) **
    - ACP division (i.e. AUSIA, UK, US)/branch (i.e. Alpha, Echo, Delta, etc.) sites
    - ACP veteran/legend personal sites
    - Special adjunct websites (related ACP organizations)
    - Other ACP affiliated projects
  - Other CP Army related sites (especially related to ACP) ***
Adjunct projects
- [NEW] Written first-person accounts of particular veteran experiences
  - Historical context, reflections, thoughts, insight, etc. ****
- [NEW] Brief chronology (with related archives) of particular time periods (for future exhibition)
- Past special event ACP Discord server channel archives
- Memes, graphics, and fan art archives from the past year or so

Some additional notes:

[*] Another component of compiling the Archives is reaching out to veterans for any files they may have. In order to keep track of this (among other sub-projects), I have a list (yes another one Zelly—no laugh me) to keep track of who I follow up with and the status of incoming archives.

Once received, as with the files I extracted myself, the archives then go under review and examination. It is very likely that much of what is compiled will eventually be released to the public in some form. This particular component of Project 001 is still under consideration and in development.

This is an ongoing effort, and the veterans that I have been able to contact thus far have been a great help. Special shoutouts to Flipmoo, Shaboomboom, Aeropos, and Sidie9 for collectively contributing thousands of files to the archive.

[**] It amazes me that so many ACP and army-related websites exist, and I’ve already found several dozen, upwards of 60! I’m in the process of securing both ACP-related and other important sites. One thing I’m doing is saving websites I discover to the Internet Archive, which has been an incredible tool thus far.

Sometimes when accessing a page via the Internet Archive though, the formatting can break, thus obscuring or even compromising the view of that content. That’s why the most critical pages are saved as MHTML files (normal website view) and sometimes PDFs (if deemed necessary, for example, if MHTMLs won’t capture all of the page content). This is a necessary redundancy.

[***] In the process of discovering these websites, I certainly come across ones that are more relevant to our greater community’s history. Due to their importance to the CP Army Community, I also make an effort to secure those archives as well. Of course, the ACP-related archives are the primary focus, but I think it’s important to note that work is also being done for the posterity of the greater Army Community.

[****] A new, more recent component of the Project 001 ACP Archives is the written veteran experiences, in which former ACP officers elucidate events of their past and share their experiences, thoughts, and reflections of their time in ACP. The primary functions of these contributions will be to guide and somewhat inform our research when improving the historical pages AND perhaps serve as future publications from the Project 001 Taskforce.

With that said, I would like to give some much-deserved recognition to the few that have taken their time to help me with this immense effort so far. A special thanks to:

Zelly(bear) – Hoiii Zellybear!!! Right off the bat, you were one of the very first people to take an interest in my efforts and support me, and you even gave this thing its name (which I’m not changing btw ahahaha). In fact, I still remember the drafted post that you took the initiative to make, which ended up being a launchpad for the project and its branding. Since then, you’ve helped with part of the writing and the handling and management of the ACP archives, and we’ve ended up talking for hours and hours just about our amazing ACP projects alone—and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I guess this is just another reason why you’re the best bear a Mondobear could ask for.

Koloway – I’m not even sure when exactly you first contributed, but it was a while ago now, and I know you’ve managed to add a lot of entries since then. Thank you for your diligence and inspiring passion for ACP history, and for making the effort to contribute amidst everything you’ve got going on these days.
Fatchicken88 – WHAT’S UP CHOCKEN?!?! Thanks for all that you’ve done so far for Project 001 and for your awesome attitude and willingness to continue actively collaborating on this. Your efforts are deeply appreciated, and I’m glad to know that you’re as excited about all of this, just as I am!
Keynikki – Few people that I’ve met are as driven as you are, and it’s amazing to see. Although I know you’ve been dealing with some personal situations that continue to put your resilience and determination to the test, please remember that whatever happens, you’ve got tremendous potential to do great things (as this entry exemplifies). Keep on keepin’ on and never let adversity knock you down.
Dan/Shab – Hey Dan! Thanks for taking time out of your busy days to give some advice on the archive extraction process and for collaborating with me to get those archives of yours sorted and backed up (I’m sure we’ll get there eventually!).

Working with you all of you has been amazing, and I look forward to what lies ahead for Project 001 and our future collaborative efforts. Although this is indeed a small group, the contributions thus far have been phenomenal and even managed to inspire me a great deal. Thank you so much for all that you’ve done!

Concluding thoughts

When first pondering how to approach this massive project, and even after launching Project 001 in April of 2020, I never would have thought that this would turn into something so wonderfully exciting and multifaceted.

This endeavor has proven to be quite the undertaking, and as surprising as it may seem to some of you, this work has certainly tested my own skills and endurance on many levels. Even so, this has to be done, and that’s been my attitude about Project 001 since the start.

While I know this is a very lengthy and demanding endeavor, I’m extremely excited for the future of Project 001—and I hope you are too!

Stay tuned for updates from me on this process, and keep an eye out for the occasional surprise archive drop in #main-en in the ACP Discord server!

Also here’s your Mondo beard reveal: