A Brief History of Brontoforumus

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13165
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Thad » Sun Oct 21, 2018 1:44 pm

I figured hey, we got a new guy who may not know what our deal is here, so why not give an extremely brief rundown?

This community was started by Scott Sharkey II, who was kind of an Internet celebrity in the late '90s/early '00s, back when people making sarcastic comments about old cartoons and video games were still a novelty instead of an industry.

Sharkey started the #finalfight IRC channel on esper.net. It's still active; as far as I know it's a lot more active than these boards (though I haven't been there myself in about a decade). That's basically where this community started.

In 2002, a #finalfight admin who goes by Maou started a community messageboard. It ran until 2008, when Maou had a disagreement with the rest of the board admins (the details of which aren't really worth rehashing). Sharkey and another admin named Arc started a new forum, which eventually became Brontoforumus; the old boards eventually went away. (If you're ever very bored, you can look them up in the Wayback, but sadly(?), a lot of old stuff didn't get saved.)

The first six years of Brontoforumus are at fossilized.brontoforum.us; they're unmaintained, so a lot of shit like icons and spoiler tags doesn't work anymore, but hey, there are six years' worth of posts there.

In 2014, Brentai (an admin and also one of my oldest friends) restarted the forums on phpBB. That's the iteration you're looking at right now. At this point Mothra does most of the day-to-day admin stuff and Lady runs the server that hosts the boards.

Anyway, that's Brontoforumus, more or less. We used to have a lot more people than we do now; the decline in membership probably has a lot to do with the decline of messageboards in general and the rise of big monolithic social networking sites. So it's nice to see a fresh face every once in awhile.

User avatar
IGNORE ME
Woah Dangsaurus
Posts: 3679
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 2:40 pm

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby IGNORE ME » Sun Oct 21, 2018 2:44 pm

<3

User avatar
Friday
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:40 pm
Location: Karma: -65373

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Friday » Sun Oct 21, 2018 5:21 pm

We used to have a lot more people than we do now; the decline in membership probably has a lot to do with me banning fucking everyone, just banning people left and right and center, up and down, north and south, ban ban ban, oh and also I lock every thread, all threads will be locked, forever, and also I delete posts, Thad stop deleting my posts, aaaaaaaaaaaaaa I'm leaving forever


hmm, that doesn't sound quite right

We used to have a lot more people than we do now; the decline in membership probably has a lot to do with Arc left


that's closer to correct

We used to have a lot more people than we do now; the decline in membership probably has a lot to do with Arc isn't giving every single thread an icon


almost

We used to have a lot more people than we do now; the decline in membership probably has a lot to do with yyler being temp banned that one time


perfect
ImageImageImage

User avatar
Smiler
Imperisaurus Rex
Posts: 972
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:27 pm

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Smiler » Sun Oct 21, 2018 8:22 pm

Half of our member accounts are just the corpses left from Soracross whenever we ban him.

User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Büge » Sun Oct 21, 2018 10:40 pm

Like the brain parasites from Star Trek: TNG!
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13165
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Thad » Sun Oct 21, 2018 11:50 pm

Friday wrote:
We used to have a lot more people than we do now; the decline in membership probably has a lot to do with yyler being temp banned that one time


perfect


You know, I hear Norondor left because I didn't respond to that post by one of Guild's sockpuppet accounts, that was posted after Norondor already announced he was leaving.








(Note to WingSounds: The other thing about joining a small community of people who have known each other for 20 years or so is that it means you kind of have to put up with 20 years' or so worth of inside jokes that you will not get. Yyler was a guy who was very angry that we would sometimes refer to events that had happened in the community before he got here and tell jokes that he did not get.)

User avatar
Büge
Posts: 5440
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Büge » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:40 am

See: Cassius
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13165
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Thad » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:54 am

Sei: Cassius

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:05 am

Say: Cassius' name three times and-

oh shit
Image

User avatar
Friday
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:40 pm
Location: Karma: -65373

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Friday » Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:27 am

(The below post changed due to insufficient context)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
ImageImageImage

User avatar
Friday
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:40 pm
Location: Karma: -65373

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Friday » Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:30 am

I'd just like to say, before this thread devolves into Guilty Gear puns, that my all time favorite in-joke/bronto meme is the fact that I can put "Guild" as the final option of any poll and it will consistently get more votes than any other option.
ImageImageImage

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 22, 2018 5:34 am

That's because a vote for Guild is always correct. In or out of wolfgames.
Image

User avatar
Newbie
Posts: 883
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:30 pm
Location: January 20th, 2014, 5:30 pm
Contact:

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Newbie » Mon Oct 22, 2018 11:52 am

I can attest that posting on the forums without also participating in irc.esper.net always felt a bit like watching a movie when one of the audio jacks is unplugged; it's just off enough that you know you're not getting the full experience. I could see how compounding that sensation through unfamiliarity with literal decades of obscure references to outdated drama might be a little unappealing.
tiny text

User avatar
Mazian
Posts: 517
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 3:47 pm
Location: Lullaby Supermarket

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Mazian » Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:51 pm

Heck, I've found it unappealing in communities where I was around in the Olden Tyme. But I think we're not too bad about it these days, at least on a relative scale; it might even have helped that the boards were reset in '14, so we're not still posting on page 523 of a thread where every poster on page 1 is long gone.

User avatar
Mongrel
Posts: 21290
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:28 pm
Location: There's winners and there's losers // And I'm south of that line

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:35 pm

Mazian wrote:Heck, I've found it unappealing in communities where I was around in the Olden Tyme. But I think we're not too bad about it these days, at least on a relative scale; it might even have helped that the boards were reset in '14, so we're not still posting on page 523 of a thread where every poster on page 1 is long gone.

and half the threads have cool icons and the other half don't for no immediately apparent reason.
Image

User avatar
Thad
Posts: 13165
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:05 am
Location: 1611 Uranus Avenue
Contact:

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Thad » Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:56 pm

Newbie wrote:I can attest that posting on the forums without also participating in irc.esper.net always felt a bit like watching a movie when one of the audio jacks is unplugged; it's just off enough that you know you're not getting the full experience. I could see how compounding that sensation through unfamiliarity with literal decades of obscure references to outdated drama might be a little unappealing.

Well, sure. I think Yyler would have done much better if he'd asked us nicely to tone it down and be less insular and more welcoming instead of, say, starting a thread to demand that I leave.

It's not that being more accommodating to newcomers is an unreasonable request. It's that he requested it in an unreasonable way.

User avatar
nosimpleway
Posts: 4514
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby nosimpleway » Mon Oct 22, 2018 2:07 pm

The amount of fuss over a new porn-seeking user says a lot about us and the boards, but I'm not sure what.

User avatar
beatbandito
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:04 am

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby beatbandito » Mon Oct 22, 2018 2:24 pm

Is... is this thread covered in goopy slime?
Image

User avatar
mharr
Posts: 1583
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:54 am
Location: UK

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby mharr » Mon Oct 22, 2018 2:48 pm

While we're here, how does Outer Heaven Rising: Revengeance work? I'm vaguely aware of the existence of that streaming channel in internet lore, but does Bronto have its own spin-off version?

User avatar
Silversong
Posts: 714
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:00 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: A Brief History of Brontoforumus

Postby Silversong » Mon Oct 22, 2018 2:53 pm

I've been around since like day 3 of the IRC channel, and I still only get half the jokes. The key is to guess when it's safe to smile and nod.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests