DuckFest
From Compsci.ca Wiki
Duckfest is the annual festival of compsci.ca, when during the month of november, members are encouraged to use their own unique duck avatar. (See also Avatar of the Month Award)
History
Duckfest was sparked during a spirited conversation in compsci's very own IRC chatroom. According to DuckFest Fanatic/co-ordinator/expert Cervantes:
"Duckfest was created in this very IRC chatroom, if you pay close enough attention, you can still sense its lingering essence!"
Duckfest 2005 found its first tangible incarnation in the CompSci.ca forums when Cornflake created a thread in Off Topic: Attack of The Ducks!
As Cervantes explains it: "It was a pleasent day on the #compsci.ca channel. The sun was shining, the birds were chriping, and wtd was perverting our young, moldable minds with his newest coding discoveries. There was some talk of wtd's handel (which is really "What The Duck", not "Welcome To Darwin", no matter what wtd will tell you.) Coutsos, in his creative genius, hit upon the idea of me using a pirate duck avatar. wtd did some quick ninja googling, and within seconds showed us the way: iloveduckies.com. I added the eyepatch to the "Buccaneer" duck, and uploaded it. I created a signature to go with it. By the next day, Coutsos had finished his ninja duck, which was modified from the buccaneer. It was fantastic. Still is. Within a day, Cornflake adopted his duck avatar and made a post in Off Topic about the take-over. I suggested that I would delete all posts in that thread by non-ducklings, but that turned out not to be necessary: within a few days, we had a good portion of active CompSci.ca members with duck avatars, including Tony, who had previously held his devil avatar for all eternity. Hacker Dan also joined the revolution, and enthusiastically too. He traded in his old avatar for a robotic duck, and later created a rotating quotes system for the benefit of all humanity."
To the great horror of all duck lovers, for his avatar, Pwned elected to use an image of a man going duck hunting. This actual image will not be displayed here, to prevent more hurt. Good thing Pwned doesn't post much.
Accompanying Signatures
A sort of tradition started by Cervantes with his "Buccaneer" duck, was to include a phrase in his signature following the format of: [avatar subject] Duck says: visit compsci.ca's IRC channel Which was later picked up by Coutsos ("Ninja Duck say: "Mune mochi taihenko ikkajo osae, ni!" (ninja duck ask you please visit "IRC" channel)) in an attempt to spread word about the IRC channel. Soon several of the duck-avatar users had similarly styled signatures in their posts. IRC channel population remains pretty much the same.
