It's labor to keep an internet community running. Web hosting, domain renewals, board updates, moderation, and running a community of people with different personalities, interests, and desires require consistent commitment. To keep that up over years and years for free and with little thanks is a truly impressive endeavor.
They've stayed steady when users have made splinter Discords, splinter forums, etc. That kind of stuff hurts feelings and I think most of us would have given up by now. But they didn't. I see you, Demi, bork, and Joe Molotov.
Forums feel like ancient technology and at my age I really appreciate it. This might come off very old man yells at clouds but the internet is so shitty now. Social media is a hellhole that I never could have imagined in the 1990s. One giant ad platform that empirically makes people's lives worse but people are compelled the share their entire lives on. The promise of the limitless, democratized web has turned into 5 websites that people visit and they are all awful and run by venture capitalists or modern robber baron goons. Web 3.0 still threatens to exist and transform the internet into a casino with worse odds. LARPing has transformed from a niche internet community into the past time of everyone and every performative post they make, from Q conspiracies to social media leftism. "Content" is king now and literacy is down.
But here there is still an example of what the internet once was: a small band of misfits writing, reading each other's writing, earnestly offering feedback, entertaining and supporting each other. I guess there are antisemitic and transphobic posts too but I think that also existed 15 years ago. This website doesn't have to exist. I'm sure Demi, bork, and Joe Molotov all have better things to be doing. But it does. I have never worked on anything as long as Demi has spent running this site. I spent a couple hours reading old posts last night and really enjoyed it. Thank you.
