Updates, fixes, etc
I have overhauled the site. Everything you’re looking at should look pretty much the same as the front page. The archive has been tidied up and thousands of spam comments and spam profiles have been removed.
The forum is working again — I didn’t even know that it wasn’t working. Again, thousands of spammers have been removed, and it looks (roughly) like this page, although I’m still not happy with it. Also, I got completely side-tracked re-reading the wank that kicked off in 2007. I’ve left it up, although a sensible grown-up should lock and hide it. I can’t believe it escalated so massively.
The RPG link is still broken, and eventually I’ll delete that and sort it out, but at the moment, I’ve run out of time. That area is kind of like District 13 at the moment. Bits of it are still on fire after the spam invasion.
Oh my goodness, this is a blast from the past. I was reminded of this old site the other day and went on a trip down memory’s lane, and found this post when the forum was down. I’d long forgotten about the wank in 2007 (which feels strangely so far removed that wank feels like an ancient word, even though it shouldn’t), but rereading some of the posts on the forum through the Wayback Machine… I’m horrified. You and Carla were treated so, so unfairly. It was all a massive misunderstanding and you guys were never given a chance by some of the other people involved.
I was so young at the time (sixteen, good lord) and I don’t recall getting involved myself – hell, I wasn’t even old enough to access the I Talk To David thread at the time – but I do remember feeling swept along by the people I’d interacted with more regularly and feeling pressured to go along with their outrage. I don’t remember saying anything, but regardless, I was still part of the hurt towards you and that was wrong of me. The times I spent on this forum were some of my happiest memories as a teenager, no matter how brief, and that was because you and Carla took the time to maintain a forum that was so welcoming to someone shyly entering fandom for the first time. I’ve long since abandoned this username and email, but in order to apologise properly (and if you’re still in contact with Carla, and if either of you even want this apology, please pass it along to her, too) but it felt right to revive them in order to say this. I don’t know if you’ll ever see it, but… I hope you do. I hope, however belated, that you know how much I regret wronging you and how thankful I am to how you facilitated my shy growth as a person.