It's the 10-year anniversary ... wait ... it was WHEN??!!

General discussion about Ghost in the Shell

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Jeff Georgeson
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It's the 10-year anniversary ... wait ... it was WHEN??!!

Post by Jeff Georgeson »

And I had all the party balloons and a cake and everything! :P

Anyway, just thought I'd marvel for a moment that this site has been going for 10 years (plus a few months)--making it one of the few sites to have been around since before the turn of the millennium! I've long ago stopped keeping track of the number of hits the site (and the Boards) has received--back at the beginning, it was a huge deal. Oooh, 100 hits! 200! 1000! And then suddenly it wasn't so important anymore, unless you were worried about advertising. Plus my poor little Perl counter kept resetting itself, and I changed hosts once, and somehow all those little Post-its tracking numbers from iteration to iteration got lost ...

Still, it does my heart good to know that this site still attracts visitors, even if almost entirely to the Boards, even though there hasn't been anything shiny and new in a while (although sooner or later Dreamworks will hit us with the live-action adaptation, and then there will be much clanking of glasses and swilling of beverages, I can tell you!). It speaks far more to the enduring legacy of Shirow's and Oshii's great vision than to my little tribute to them, but I am glad that there is still somewhere for those of us who want to talk about it all to go.

New people join all the time, whether or not they post, and I hope that they get a chance to delve into the massive number of old philosophical discussions and other historical bits and pieces. Some of it is timeless; some of it is definitely a creature of its time (like the endless speculation about MMI when it was due out, then delayed, then changed, then delayed some more, and we all thought we'd be able to become fluent in Japanese before Dar Horse managed to get it published). The record isn't even as rich as it could be; these boards started as old Discus boards, and those were jumbled a bit (although I may still have old files of them somewhere) when I switched to phpBB, and then years of those were lost again (although I definitely have most of those in old backup files that I couldn't manage to upload into the re-started boards) when we had a malfunction and some foolish admin (er, that would be me) couldn't get things to work again. As it is we have almost four years of posts (over 7000 entries). And that, my friends, is because of all of you.

Thank you, everyone, from the bottom of my heart. This all started when the Web was young and I posted a bunch of hopeful "starter topics" on my new Web site, then waited ages for any kind of response. I figured these discussion boards would never take off (certainly not as well as those I looked up to, like the Graviton City/Project A-Ko boards), and yet, through many trials and tribulations (and me being a bit absentee for awhile), things have worked out brilliantly.

A few of you deserve special mention ...

Marto ... man, you're brilliant! An excellent artist, full of great ideas, and more Motoko stuff than you could stuff into ... well, a really big place. And more posts than anyone here, especially counting the Before Crash posts.

Saito ... thank you so much for trying out the IRC channel and suggesting new topics and such ... it's great to have someone making wonderful suggestions and then working to make them happen. Kind of kicks me in the hinder portions as well.

Jeni ... wherever you are, loads of hugs and well-wishes! You stood strong as moderator when this admin had wandered off and stuck his head in the sand, and you weathered the really bad times when the SpamBots wandered the earth and only you and your tachikomas (or should that be fuchikomas?) stood between them and total board domination.

And, well, gee, EVERYONE ... I need to thank all of you again! You have made this site a joy to run, and given me a reason (many, many reasons) to keep it running. Cheers!

--Jeff
Last edited by Jeff Georgeson on Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jeff Georgeson
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Post by Saito »

Wow, 10 years 0.0 - now I really feel like a latecomer ;)

Well, I can't take too much credit, I only suggested 1 new topic and, largely, the IRC channel has lain deserted (it is still there by the way), but still, I felt like this was a community that needed a bit of support and encouragement.

Hats off to Jeff for his work and, despite what sounds like a war of software attrition, keeping the place running.

Here's hoping something big and new comes along one day and we can start out again discussing new aspects, meanings and stories of our favourite Anime adventures.

Hurrah!
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Post by GhostLine »

A GIANT cheers! 8)

This is an awesome forum to hang out in...the saloon is empty at times, but the booze is always free. Thanks Mr. Jeff for carving out this little watering hole in the grand worldwideweb.
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Post by marto_motoko »

I have only been here for 8 years and 11 months. :P ONLY!!!!!
And thanks Jeff. :) It's always been an outstanding pleasure to be part of this!

Either way, Congrats congrats CONGRATS!!!

Three cheers for our amazingly great close-knit family!


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Post by sonic »

Er, happy birthday then (late).

Agreed with above sentiments... cute to still see 'familiar faces' here as well :D . Hope you're well!
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Post by marto_motoko »

sonic wrote:Er, happy birthday then (late).

Agreed with above sentiments... cute to still see 'familiar faces' here as well :D . Hope you're well!
Heheh, the place is pretty much catatonic nowadays, but oh well, it's nice to know people "linger in and out" from time to time.

I just wish people like Jeni Nielsen, Elmo, etc would still be around.

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Post by sonic »

Not sure what happened to Jeni... she was teaching I think somewhere last I knew. Hopefully she's doing okay and is well, and doing something she loves somewhere..
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Post by marto_motoko »

sonic wrote:Not sure what happened to Jeni... she was teaching I think somewhere last I knew. Hopefully she's doing okay and is well, and doing something she loves somewhere..
Yeah, I think a lot of us can hope to be in the boat of that wish. :)

Boy, when I first started here I was a child. Merely a child. It's amazing how much time has passed!


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Post by simon's ghost »

Well I had to hop in and say something.

What to say...?

I was just about to pop in vol. 2 of SAC 2nd Gig and had a thought for y'all. Be good now.
Oh well.
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Post by alfonso2501 »

WOW! Ten years ago, where does the time fly. :shock:
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