For those who might be interested, I have been reading off and on for pretty much this whole summer a thick collection ofwhat I think are threads which have been preserved and came from this site before what I am told was a "black-out" which obliterated all previous posts before Nov 2001.
Very interesting stuff!!! Before I started my job here this summer, I had pretty much avoided everything Apple (or Mac) because I had a certain attitude about it.
Was even a mod on a little board that was only PC. But I never ran across a better example of the high art of community boardship than what can be read in those pages.
Truly amazing in certain ways.
No way I've read through all those stacks yet but, having amused myself at length many long nights this summer watching a very unique unfolding of characters and dialogue in this site's pre-blackout days, I can say that you had one helluva site at one time.
Not that its not just as good now - I've just never seen anything like this before. In fact, I'm a double-major, and I might be interested in doing a research paper on these records.
I won't say too much about my theme because I want it for myself, but I feel it is safe to say that there are remarkable characteristics inherent in this site's pre-blackout days as board ethics and social protocol were being worked out by the different groups participating in different site developments.
I lurked here for a while and while I am sure it is just as good if not better in its own way now, let's just say that the same type of "spark" that I find so unique is not surprisingly absent now.
Needless to say, there are some very interesting characteristics about this Apple site that are peculiar to Apple people because almost everything, even the tenor among obvious adversaries which was incredibly uniform and thought-out.
I'd like to know if there are any old-timers around if they could confirm what I am implying about the difference between then and what you commonly see now on the good boards.
For the record, and I'm sure I'm oversimplifying things, there seemed to be three distinct camps - all pretty sophisticated in their own right.
Following the suggestion of a nice and helpful present boardmember, I did a search on the username (theblackhat) I have to use and found a pretty interesting post which my immediate previous mentor (the true blackhat) apparently made when he was first a student here.
It is called Bill Gates Annual Christmas Card where he wishes holiday cheers to a bunch of AppleInsider boardmembers and he names them.
I wondered why theblackhat would post something that had Bill Gates name on it so I emailed him and just got an answer back.
He was new then (like I am now) and didn't know the ropes but one of the guys from the large grant job they were running back then had posted under the name of Bill Gates (for whatever reason) and has asked theblackhat to continue the annual Christmas card tradition to everyone even though he was going on to bigger and better things and wouldn't be doing it himself.
Well, theblackhat said he went to all the trouble to type all these guys names to wish them Merry Christmas for this Bill Gates guy, and just a handful of members even bothered to look at it, and only a couple even bothered to reply.
Naturally he said to heck with that, and he couldn't see what all the care was about the Appleinsider site from all these guys who were graduating, so he said to heck with that.
I'm going to email post him back and tell him I figured it out - this response was post-blackout!
Apparently, something profoundly significant happened between the pre and post blackout eras on this board, because the dynamic exchanges that occurred in the 98-2001 records that I have indicate high levels of discourse and interaction that occurred regularly before the nov 2001 blackout.
Anyway, I'd also like to know if the old-timers see it generally like I seem to have put it together - that there were three distinct camps which made up the nucleus of the Appleinsider (AI) board.
First, there was the "good guys" - defenders of the faith who, like a priest class, regularly held the high road for Apple and its environs.
In this group there was Mark, robo, seb, NormS, Pippen, 68k, The Installer, onlooker, pscates, CDon8100, Fran441, moogs, solishu, Dajjal, CrazyMac, Think Secret, EriMac, Michaelm8000, THT, pfflam, murbot, Eugene, Infinite Jester, hmurchison, MajorMatt, jholman, Duke Nukem, beefy-guy, Belle, MacAddict, MacGregor, Scottpar, Leonis, sentry65, matsu, and Mac'o' the Isles, among other notables.
Then there was a counter (PC) group composed of the likes of PeterB, Lefty Right, PCUser, Lil Billy, Simple Truth, IMKoRnNuts, Flamethrowing Troller, Lurch, Kormac 76, little cuss, Rudedog, MaDTrOLL, Naim, and similar posters.
Finally, there was the "reactionary proletariat" quick to abrade the priest class if opportunity presented itself but even quicker to "high-low" the counter group, shooting from the hip and ask questions later.
Some Of these I'm sure worked here right in this lab at one time, but this latter group struck me as being a little older than most and therefore naturally a little further along the education track than most (notice I'n NOT saying smarter!).
This group was comprised of the guys who are heavily documented in the "stacks" I've read - namely, BillGates, Kimkapsol, MacMonkey, Groverat, code red, Junkyard Dawg, Darwin's Ape, & Brothers Karamatzov (these I believe were the Russian twins who were students here before the turn).
I see some of these guys are still here (or maybe like theblackhat) its now someone else just using the name. I notice that Bill Gates in his Christmas card wished merry christmas to another Bill Gates who had apparently ripped his name off by re-registering it first after the nov 2001 black-out.
Anyhoo, here's some names I'd appreciate some insider info on from the old-timers and the way they seemed to them at the time on the part any poster may have played at those early times.
Thanks!
Very interesting stuff!!! Before I started my job here this summer, I had pretty much avoided everything Apple (or Mac) because I had a certain attitude about it.
Was even a mod on a little board that was only PC. But I never ran across a better example of the high art of community boardship than what can be read in those pages.
Truly amazing in certain ways.
No way I've read through all those stacks yet but, having amused myself at length many long nights this summer watching a very unique unfolding of characters and dialogue in this site's pre-blackout days, I can say that you had one helluva site at one time.
Not that its not just as good now - I've just never seen anything like this before. In fact, I'm a double-major, and I might be interested in doing a research paper on these records.
I won't say too much about my theme because I want it for myself, but I feel it is safe to say that there are remarkable characteristics inherent in this site's pre-blackout days as board ethics and social protocol were being worked out by the different groups participating in different site developments.
I lurked here for a while and while I am sure it is just as good if not better in its own way now, let's just say that the same type of "spark" that I find so unique is not surprisingly absent now.
Needless to say, there are some very interesting characteristics about this Apple site that are peculiar to Apple people because almost everything, even the tenor among obvious adversaries which was incredibly uniform and thought-out.
I'd like to know if there are any old-timers around if they could confirm what I am implying about the difference between then and what you commonly see now on the good boards.
For the record, and I'm sure I'm oversimplifying things, there seemed to be three distinct camps - all pretty sophisticated in their own right.
Following the suggestion of a nice and helpful present boardmember, I did a search on the username (theblackhat) I have to use and found a pretty interesting post which my immediate previous mentor (the true blackhat) apparently made when he was first a student here.
It is called Bill Gates Annual Christmas Card where he wishes holiday cheers to a bunch of AppleInsider boardmembers and he names them.
I wondered why theblackhat would post something that had Bill Gates name on it so I emailed him and just got an answer back.
He was new then (like I am now) and didn't know the ropes but one of the guys from the large grant job they were running back then had posted under the name of Bill Gates (for whatever reason) and has asked theblackhat to continue the annual Christmas card tradition to everyone even though he was going on to bigger and better things and wouldn't be doing it himself.
Well, theblackhat said he went to all the trouble to type all these guys names to wish them Merry Christmas for this Bill Gates guy, and just a handful of members even bothered to look at it, and only a couple even bothered to reply.
Naturally he said to heck with that, and he couldn't see what all the care was about the Appleinsider site from all these guys who were graduating, so he said to heck with that.
I'm going to email post him back and tell him I figured it out - this response was post-blackout!
Apparently, something profoundly significant happened between the pre and post blackout eras on this board, because the dynamic exchanges that occurred in the 98-2001 records that I have indicate high levels of discourse and interaction that occurred regularly before the nov 2001 blackout.
Anyway, I'd also like to know if the old-timers see it generally like I seem to have put it together - that there were three distinct camps which made up the nucleus of the Appleinsider (AI) board.
First, there was the "good guys" - defenders of the faith who, like a priest class, regularly held the high road for Apple and its environs.
In this group there was Mark, robo, seb, NormS, Pippen, 68k, The Installer, onlooker, pscates, CDon8100, Fran441, moogs, solishu, Dajjal, CrazyMac, Think Secret, EriMac, Michaelm8000, THT, pfflam, murbot, Eugene, Infinite Jester, hmurchison, MajorMatt, jholman, Duke Nukem, beefy-guy, Belle, MacAddict, MacGregor, Scottpar, Leonis, sentry65, matsu, and Mac'o' the Isles, among other notables.
Then there was a counter (PC) group composed of the likes of PeterB, Lefty Right, PCUser, Lil Billy, Simple Truth, IMKoRnNuts, Flamethrowing Troller, Lurch, Kormac 76, little cuss, Rudedog, MaDTrOLL, Naim, and similar posters.
Finally, there was the "reactionary proletariat" quick to abrade the priest class if opportunity presented itself but even quicker to "high-low" the counter group, shooting from the hip and ask questions later.
Some Of these I'm sure worked here right in this lab at one time, but this latter group struck me as being a little older than most and therefore naturally a little further along the education track than most (notice I'n NOT saying smarter!).
This group was comprised of the guys who are heavily documented in the "stacks" I've read - namely, BillGates, Kimkapsol, MacMonkey, Groverat, code red, Junkyard Dawg, Darwin's Ape, & Brothers Karamatzov (these I believe were the Russian twins who were students here before the turn).
I see some of these guys are still here (or maybe like theblackhat) its now someone else just using the name. I notice that Bill Gates in his Christmas card wished merry christmas to another Bill Gates who had apparently ripped his name off by re-registering it first after the nov 2001 black-out.
Anyhoo, here's some names I'd appreciate some insider info on from the old-timers and the way they seemed to them at the time on the part any poster may have played at those early times.
Thanks!
\ (That'll be one of the very few times you'll hear me utter those four words, so make the most of it.)
