History of this Forum

[Mithadan]

"Fun?" Define, "fun." Of course, you were not an administrator during that period.

FYI, for those interested, I plan to follow up on my History post with at least one more.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

"Fun?" Define, "fun." Of course, you were not an administrator during that period.

FYI, for those interested, I plan to follow up on my History post with at least one more.

I have popcorn at the ready. The ominous weight you put into that final line is just perfection.

I can push the date for the "earliest Downs" back a little further - the archived version of the News page contains clues to the site's original name, and the archived version of the original site features a guestbook comment from the webmaster:

Comment: Welcome to the Middle-Earth Resource.

We hope you spend a lot of time roaming around checking out everything. Please feel free to leave any words of wisdom here on the Guestbook. Remember, the forum is the best place to start a discussion or to get a question answered.
Date Signed: 07/24/1999 10:09:08 AM

The other half of the design team responds on the same date, so I think the 24th July 1999 is the genuine launch date for the site.

(Avoiding links because there's real names associated with all this.)

hS

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

"Fun?" Define, "fun." Of course, you were not an administrator during that period.

Hm. I remember the debate being mostly respectful. Then again, that was quite a while ago.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Hm. I remember the debate being mostly respectful. Then again, that was quite a while ago.

Late 90s, the Great Balrog Wings Flame War was still going. Although the nastiest battlefield was rec.arts.books.tolkien (anyone even remember Usenet?)