Is there an "official" former members inquiry topic?

[Jason X-Mas]

What about Christian who I think created the Trekbbs? Granted I don't think he ever posted stuff though I think might have talked to him, once. Also didn't Jammer from Jammer's Reviews also use to post here?

Jason

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Did you know that Obama posted here 3 times?

 

[Crisp Conditions]

Did you know that Obama posted here 3 times?

Seriously?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yep. But his user name was not revealed so I think the "three times" information may have been a guesstimate though I suppose there's probably thousands of people who have posted three times.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Including Big C , at least as far as this incarnation of the board is concerned
Jay, even though C is listed on Wikipedia as the founder, there was in fact another guy with him: Saleel.

Christian (Sunday April 18, 1999 11:15 am CST)
Saleel and I are very excited about this - as you may have read above, we just opened the Trek BBS, a new system of discussion forums for online Trek fans. Here you'll be able to chat with your fellow fans about anything at all related to Star Trek, in a way that was never possible before. I personally am really looking forward to hearing from you - over the past few months TrekToday has mostly just been me engaging in one-way communications. I've received mails from several people about the site, but now there's actually a unique oppportunity for me to talk to all of you frequent TrekToday visitors - I'd absolutely love to hear from you soon at the Trek BBS.

After a while they had a disagreement and C took over.
I joined after Saleel left but there were still a lot of posts left of him. Judging by those he was a rather nice guy.

 

[The Realist]

Some other notables... Dennis Bailey

Bailey is still around, under the moniker Serveaux. Hasn't gone anywhere. His inimitable lordly arrogance (I say with all due respect and affection) is unmistakable.

 

[Verteron]

After a while they had a disagreement and C took over.
I joined after Saleel left but there were still a lot of posts left of him. Judging by those he was a rather nice guy.

Christian was active(ish) when I was on the staff, particularly in the Briefing Room (private staff forum) and on our regular moderator/admin IRC chats. He's a nice guy as well. Unfortunately even nice people sometimes disagree.

I think the fact the board is still here nearly 20 years later is testament to whatever decisions Christian has had to make to keep this place running. Big websites were extraordinarily expensive to run in the late 90s / early 2000s - it's a bit easier on the purse these days, but my understanding is that TrekBBS was scraping the bottom of the barrel for a fair amount of its early life. Yet it stayed up, and fast (most days ) without requiring Premium Membership from us all. Wonder if we'll still be here in another 20? Hope so.

 

[T'Grinch]

Re the last sentence - probably not.

 

[Verteron]

Re the last sentence - probably not.

Pfft. But realistically, you're probably right. The golden era of Internet forums is over, we're through the peak and in decline. But we'll see. Stranger things have happened.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

20 years from now, there will be Unimatrix TBBS.

 

[T'Grinch]

Pfft. But realistically, you're probably right. The golden era of Internet forums is over, we're through the peak and in decline. But we'll see. Stranger things have happened.

This is true. I'm rather surprised we lasted so long. I took over running the place in 2004. Thirteen years!

Wait...so that's why I'm graying. :P

 

[Jason X-Mas]

What will we all do if the Trekbbs ever ends? I don't want to go to twitter. I sure as hell don't want to be a random Youtube poster. Facebook is something i'm not fond off because of the Russia stuff. Maybe T'Bonz can create a Youtube show and we all subscribe.

Jason

 

[Verteron]

This is true. I'm rather surprised we lasted so long. I took over running the place in 2004. Thirteen years!

Wait...so that's why I'm graying. :P

Given my experience attempting to play King over at one erstwhile spin-off board that had about 1/10th of the active users at its peak, and ended after about two years in a complete and total shitstorm, the fact that big blue is still here and a relatively sane place to be these days is a testament to the hours you've put in over the years.

 

[Verteron]

What will we all do if the Trekbbs ever ends? I don't want to go to twitter. I sure as hell don't want to be a random Youtube poster. Facebook is something i'm not fond off because of the Russia stuff. Maybe T'Bonz can create a Youtube show and we all subscribe.

Jason

Forums go out in one of two ways. Either with a bang or a whimper.

Sometimes, active user counts and posts per day just gradually circle the drain until the board feels like a ghost town, and then when it finally goes, no-one notices. A few people think back to that board they used to post on that one time, but can't quite remember the address.

Then there are the ones that go with a bang. The owner runs out of money, or walks away, and decides not to pass on the torch. The database crashes and the techies discover the backups don't work. Someone forgets to renew the domain name. One day you just try and go to your favourite board.. and it's gone. There's nothing. You can't figure out how to contact the owners or anyone who was on the board because that's the only way you talk to them...

Anyway, not that I want to take people away from the boards, but some of the Trek Subreddits are very very high quality. Particularly /r/DaystromInstitute/. The main /r/startrek board isn't bad either. Not as active as here though, in terms of posts per day.

 

[T'Grinch]

It has its ups and downs. More ups than downs or else I'd have said, "fuck it" ages ago. I'm met some really great people here. And yes, some assholes but you can't avoid that.

My husband retires in 2021. Not sure if I'd be here beyond that. Maybe. If the BBS is still here. It very well may not be.

Not a fan of the Subreddits. Not keen on their format.

 

[Jason X-Mas]

I don't even think I know what a subreddit is.


Jason

 

[DonIago]

Then there are the ones that go with a bang. The owner runs out of money, or walks away, and decides not to pass on the torch. The database crashes and the techies discover the backups don't work. Someone forgets to renew the domain name. One day you just try and go to your favourite board.. and it's gone. There's nothing. You can't figure out how to contact the owners or anyone who was on the board because that's the only way you talk to them...

I was an admin on a board for MP3 player discussion, and just like you said, one day I went to the URL and it just didn't exist anymore. No warning, nothing. It had changed ownership not -that- long before, and all of the contact information I had was for people no longer officially affiliated with it. It hadn't been especially active, but it hadn't been a ghost town either. I still try to get to it every once in awhile, but it's been over a year now, so I think it's just dead. Rather sad, and I have to admit I'm a little miffed that even I, as an admin, had no warning that anything was going to happen.

 

[Kronos]

Not a fan of the Subreddits. Not keen on their format.

Reddit is like someone took a BBS from 1998 and said "lets devote a website to this horrible format"

 

[Leviathan]

Reddit is like someone took a BBS from 1998 and said "lets devote a website to this horrible format"

You dare mock RemoteAccess?!? It shall rise from the grave to smite you...as soon as the modem gets a clear connection. Hmmm....busy signal. Hang on, redialing. Still busy....but soon! SOOOOON!

 

[John Clark]

Forums go out in one of two ways. Either with a bang or a whimper.

Sometimes, active user counts and posts per day just gradually circle the drain until the board feels like a ghost town, and then when it finally goes, no-one notices. A few people think back to that board they used to post on that one time, but can't quite remember the address.

Then there are the ones that go with a bang. The owner runs out of money, or walks away, and decides not to pass on the torch. The database crashes and the techies discover the backups don't work. Someone forgets to renew the domain name. One day you just try and go to your favourite board.. and it's gone. There's nothing. You can't figure out how to contact the owners or anyone who was on the board because that's the only way you talk to them...

Or in the case of one board I used to do some work on, a bit of both. It had been circling the drain for a few months. (Though one of the mods was kept busy playing whack a mole with spambots) and you'd see maybe a few non-spam posts per day.
It finally died when the owner forgot to renew the domain. In that case, most of the mods/admin etc did have ways of contacting each other (either on-line or not) but given the decline, it didn't seem worth renewing it. (I do remember it was a vbulletin system though)

There were some minor attempts to keep it going on facebook, but those didn't really work.