Television Without Pity (TWoP)
Many, many of the people on my friends list, and several of you who've become friends face-to-face, are people I originally met through the forums at TWoP.
I have been a member there since May 22, 2000. I didn't hit Stalker status at the website until well into the first season of Smallville. My first forays into the pseudo-html code the forums use prepared me to use real html. With Queenofalostart and Miss Windy, I helped put together a tiny Smallville Con at the end of the first season, and we got a grant from Arisia to help us. It was also the very first of the TWoP cons and helped provide a model for the much bigger Amazing Race meet-ups and other forum conventions.
When I first started with them, the site was called Dawson's Wrap. It became MightyBigTV when they decided to expand and start recapping other shows with other forums. When a business wanted to be able to use MBTV as an internet shortcut, they paid the original founders of the site (Glark, Wing Chun, and Sars) to change the url. I was online the night the changeover happened and all sorts of weird glitches kept cropping up which drove me crazy until they finally posted the announcement about the name change.
The story I want to tell, though, is the story of 9/11. Sars was on Wall Street that day, and her account at her blog, Tomato Nation was posted on September 14. It was the first account I read from someone who was so close to the devastation and it's still a good read.
But what was important was what Glark and Wing Chun did as they were waiting for the news of their friend. They closed the forums, but opened two threads. The first thread they asked everyone to log-in just once. It let us know who was or might be missing (and I still remember the fanfiction yahoo groups that I was on, especially the one from Man from UNCLE, asking all of the American fans to check in. We lost two people off that list to the collapse of the towers.). Anyone could check that thread for news of their friends.
The other thread was a discussion and news thread. Sites for The New York Times, Washington Post, and other papers of record were collapsing under the weight of hits from people trying to find out the newest and most accurate information. People who made it through, especially to NYTimes and Washington Post would copy and paste the articles in the threads. We were able to keep up with the news, find our friends, and mourn together. We were all relieved when an announcement went up on the front page saying that Sars had been in touch.
TWoP introduced me to so many good people and wonderful things. My biggest worry is that the archives will not be publicly accessible. I don't know what The Wayback Machine has captured or not, but this has made me worry about future documentation for scholars. (I've participated in at least four master's papers with people researching the site. Scholars were always welcome to post links to surveys or request first person stories about our participation with TWoP.)
The internet is ephemeral, of course, but there are certain sites that we expect to have always with us. TWoP was one of them for me.
ETA: One of my favorite recappers, Miss Alli, posted a reminiscence at the NPR website.
I have been a member there since May 22, 2000. I didn't hit Stalker status at the website until well into the first season of Smallville. My first forays into the pseudo-html code the forums use prepared me to use real html. With Queenofalostart and Miss Windy, I helped put together a tiny Smallville Con at the end of the first season, and we got a grant from Arisia to help us. It was also the very first of the TWoP cons and helped provide a model for the much bigger Amazing Race meet-ups and other forum conventions.
When I first started with them, the site was called Dawson's Wrap. It became MightyBigTV when they decided to expand and start recapping other shows with other forums. When a business wanted to be able to use MBTV as an internet shortcut, they paid the original founders of the site (Glark, Wing Chun, and Sars) to change the url. I was online the night the changeover happened and all sorts of weird glitches kept cropping up which drove me crazy until they finally posted the announcement about the name change.
The story I want to tell, though, is the story of 9/11. Sars was on Wall Street that day, and her account at her blog, Tomato Nation was posted on September 14. It was the first account I read from someone who was so close to the devastation and it's still a good read.
But what was important was what Glark and Wing Chun did as they were waiting for the news of their friend. They closed the forums, but opened two threads. The first thread they asked everyone to log-in just once. It let us know who was or might be missing (and I still remember the fanfiction yahoo groups that I was on, especially the one from Man from UNCLE, asking all of the American fans to check in. We lost two people off that list to the collapse of the towers.). Anyone could check that thread for news of their friends.
The other thread was a discussion and news thread. Sites for The New York Times, Washington Post, and other papers of record were collapsing under the weight of hits from people trying to find out the newest and most accurate information. People who made it through, especially to NYTimes and Washington Post would copy and paste the articles in the threads. We were able to keep up with the news, find our friends, and mourn together. We were all relieved when an announcement went up on the front page saying that Sars had been in touch.
TWoP introduced me to so many good people and wonderful things. My biggest worry is that the archives will not be publicly accessible. I don't know what The Wayback Machine has captured or not, but this has made me worry about future documentation for scholars. (I've participated in at least four master's papers with people researching the site. Scholars were always welcome to post links to surveys or request first person stories about our participation with TWoP.)
The internet is ephemeral, of course, but there are certain sites that we expect to have always with us. TWoP was one of them for me.
ETA: One of my favorite recappers, Miss Alli, posted a reminiscence at the NPR website.