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How Old Is The Forum & Who Were The Earliest Members?

MissViolet said:
Heh! Well, seeing as you've also been here since forever, my initials were DH, and still are, just with different names attached now.
Evilsprout is one that I often wonder about. Anyone recall the time that we got trolled apocalyptically (it seemed) and they set up a website with all our names on and personalised insults?
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Were Adam Rang and Ricky the guilty parties?
 
That seems familiar. My loss of internet innocence, as I suddenly realised why no-one uses their real name! I vaguely recall that there was a lot of sock-puppetry and a very small number of people pretending to be many people in order to have vicious arguments with themselves.

I have so much nostalgia for those days! Coming home from a job that drove me mad (not all the nostalgia is positive, alas) to sit staring at a CRT monitor and refreshing a dial-up connection repeatedly. Funnily enough, I dreamed about that very room and the view from that PC desk last night, having not thought about it in years. It's fascinating to think about the amount of water under the bridge for everyone; it's also a strange feeling to have been in at the start of something like this!
 
We are the veterans of a thousand psychic wars.... that green mist dog thread is a classic!

The mystery of Emperor, the Amelia Earheart of FTMB, is a big one...but I now wonder if he completely deleted all electronic existence of his original internet presense but is still on here as a new person, unwilling to ever say who they are out of worry that the jerk who messed up so much of his work would seek him out again.
 
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MrRING said:
We are the veterans of a thousand psychic wars....
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Yeah, I SEEN things, man. Things they wouldn't believe. Like that time that REDACTED said he was mothman, or when REDACTED and REDACTED went full on legal-nuclear. You know what I'm on about.

I find it fascinating that the very forum set up to discuss Forteana generates micro-forteana in itself, as people vanish, change, conduct bizarre battles, and demonstrate that this world is a deeply odd place. There's always mysteries on ever scale in life, huge or tiny.

I've been here for 19 years on and off, and I noticed the other day that I still unconsciously regard Chat as being a new addition! It'll never catch on.
 
I wonder if we can ever bring up REDACTED again, or if it will be forever verboten? Has sock puppet activity reduced in the modern board?
 
MissViolet said:
Like that time that REDACTED said he was mothman, or when REDACTED and REDACTED went full on legal-nuclear. You know what I'm on about.
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Beckjord's immortal contributions to the Mothman thread survive, albeit as "Anonymous." He signed them, anyway, often with MBA and MENSA underlined! The Highgate affair has been unlocked for some time, though a thread about the Bishop and his Church may be AWOL.
:)
 
I had an account right at the start - attached to an e-mail address that no longer exists - think it might have had a hyphen in the middle of my user name. I was even then mainly a lurker and it's only really Covid that seems to have poked me into posting these days.
There is something quite Fortean in the huge numbers of folk who are regular readers of forums but who never post, or even have accounts - I'm like that on tons of sites - and you sort of feel you"know" the posters who are regulars. It's a bit like when you "know" a fictitous character from fiction - say Sherlock Holmes - it can be quite jarring if they make a movie or TV show or film and the actor doesn't match your perception of the character. I suspect it's a bit like that if you happen to meet in "real life" someone you know only by name on a forum and they don't match the mental preconception.
I also recall the various newsgroups that preceeded forums such as this - working the night shift in an empty building (in which there had recently been a murder) on my own (Internet helpdesk) in a very dodgy area (ie the murder wasn't "out of character" for those parts shall we say) - and at 2am when it got quieter catching up on the news of Ghosts, Mothmen and Bigfoot and the like - did I mention it was the red light district outside? - one in which a serial killer of prostitutes was operating at the time.
All very er.... atmospheric - also the lift through the doors from where I was sat that kept going up and down on it's own... oh yes quite the "experience".
 
MissViolet said:
I find it fascinating that the very forum set up to discuss Forteana generates micro-forteana in itself, as people vanish, change, conduct bizarre battles, and demonstrate that this world is a deeply odd place.
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There's also, or has been, a lot of inter-poster shagging. Even proper relationships and marriages!
 
I've been a member for 11 years and yet I've only posted fewer than 250 times. Hmmm... perhaps I should be hypnotized and regressed for possible "missing time" episodes.
 
escargot said:
There's also, or has been, a lot of inter-poster shagging. Even proper relationships and marriages!
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Details... photos and MP3's, if you please! You can't drop that bon-mot in there and not expect a question!

BTW - I wonder if such acts between posters count as worthy of the "Weird Sex" thread...
Fortean Friends Frolic Frenzy!
Paranormal Paramours Parade of Pulchritude!
Saucy Saucerpeople Seduce Sexy Septuagenarians!
Bigfoot Fetishist Meets Nessie Enthusiast!
Don't Come Knocking When Borley Rectory's Rockin'!

(ps not really expecting details... but way to go Team Forteana!)
 
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MrRING said:
Details... photos and MP3's, if you please! You can't drop that bon-mot in there and not expect a question!

BTW - I wonder if such acts between posters count as worthy of the "Weird Sex" thread...
Fortean Friends Frolic Frenzy!
Paranormal Paramours Parade of Pulchritude!
Saucy Saucerpeople Seduce Sexy Septuagenarians!
Bigfoot Fetishist Meets Nessie Enthusiast!
Don't Come Knocking When Borley Rectory's Rockin'!

(ps not really expecting details... but way to go Team Forteana!)
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My lips are sealed. ;)
 
Min Bannister said:
I slept with a whole bunch of posters once. Including Escargot. :)

Well I say slept. Only one of us slept. The loud snorer. :D
This was at a youth hostel one year for an Uncon. Why, what else were you thinking?
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Why, I slept like a top! :evillaugh:

That was the day I tipped my rucksack out on the bed and a condom dropped out.
 
Crickey, just checked, been posting since March 2002. Bought issue 58 in 1991, got every copy since and all the FT's in book form from before that, how much life has FT sucked out of me one way or another ?. Some posters and readers probably wer'nt born then !.
 
Spookdaddy said:
Thinking about it - I have a vague memory of some sort of major upheaval during which I had to change my name, from the original Spook.

I think it was something to do with several unrelated forums coming under some sort of administrative umbrella, and duplicated names being wiped, even if on entirely unconnected sites...if that rings a bell. I wonder if it was to do with this event.
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gordonrutter said:
Having said that I know there was one upheaval which didn’t require people to reregister but forced a large number of people to change their name, hence those with a 2 after their name for example.
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Correct, c2006. We shifted platform and it caused no end of hassle, people having to re-register, users arbitrarily renamed, etc, and merges in many cases just didn't work. Spook was one of those (I remember as for some reason it just wouldn't let me do it.)
gordonrutter said:
For some reason I came through that with my name intact.
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Some did. No idea why. All it did with mine was remove the space between my names.
 
stu neville said:
They were. The latter for some reason had a devoted following, but all you had to do was visit his own site to see what kind of person he was. Knew his stuff about Cryptozoology, but not a nice chap.
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I have very clear memories of the dawning realisation around a few incidents on the board like this; that just because someone was very well read on a subject I found interesting, they weren't necessarily the sort of person I'd want in my life. I was in my late twenties at the time, but I was a very late developer. I still remember that shock to see someone using my name on a site with odd slurs attached. Odd times. All of them!
 
Hmm...I looked at my own profile and it says I joined in 2002...but I don't recall that time frame well. I know I posted for a little while then wandered off....only to come back about 4 years ago. I know I had to register under a different name because I forgot the old one and password.
:thought:
 
dr wu said:
Hmm...I looked at my own profile and it says I joined in 2002...but I don't recall that time frame well. I know I posted for a little while then wandered off....only to come back about 4 years ago. I know I had to register under a different name because I forgot the old one and password.
:thought:
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New account was likely merged into the older one.
 
Yithian said:
New account was likely merged into the older one.
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Probably...but I used to post under Dr Wu, drwu23, and dr wu....and I often would forget which I used on a given forum.
 
dr wu said:
I don't recall using dr_wu12483......but it's possible.
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If you look at the posts associated with the account, you'll see a number of references to specific media that the member has read/seen.

It's quite specific and I'm sure you'll be able to 'see yourself' or not.
 
The link you posted above doesn't let me access anything.
 
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