Message Board Nostalgia
Some of you that know me from college remember the Gear Factory forums. They were dear to me, because they were mine. Not content to install some free message board like every other E/N site at the time, I actually built my own. Twice.
And it was glorious. Worked great, hundreds of posts a day, people from all over the nation, fun times and flame wars were had by all. Coding and maintaining those forums wasn't just a hobby. We actually had Gear Factory parties and annual conventions as a result of the social nexus that formed from those forums.
So, when my team at work decided we needed message boards on the site, I was thrilled. I know how to build them and I know how people use them. A perfect project for me.
While planning, I remembered I left the GF forums database schema on my personal website, so I checked it out to help me design the new ones. Not only was the schema still there, but the database was still filled with data. Every user, post, message, everything, still there after 6 years.
First thing I saw was a post I made: "I should just reset Jon's post count".
Anywho, I'm about halfway through the project. I think they're beautiful, again. And if you somehow didn't think I was a geek before, well, I just wrote a blog entry about nostalgia over coding online message boards.
Yep.
And it was glorious. Worked great, hundreds of posts a day, people from all over the nation, fun times and flame wars were had by all. Coding and maintaining those forums wasn't just a hobby. We actually had Gear Factory parties and annual conventions as a result of the social nexus that formed from those forums.
So, when my team at work decided we needed message boards on the site, I was thrilled. I know how to build them and I know how people use them. A perfect project for me.
While planning, I remembered I left the GF forums database schema on my personal website, so I checked it out to help me design the new ones. Not only was the schema still there, but the database was still filled with data. Every user, post, message, everything, still there after 6 years.
First thing I saw was a post I made: "I should just reset Jon's post count".
Anywho, I'm about halfway through the project. I think they're beautiful, again. And if you somehow didn't think I was a geek before, well, I just wrote a blog entry about nostalgia over coding online message boards.
Yep.