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Looking for archives of scene-related forums

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Blue Spikeball, Jun 8, 2019.

  1. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I don't suppose anyone knows where I can find mirrors or archives of the Area 51 forums, or any other old scene-related forums? Sonic Cult used to host a mirror at www.sonic-cult.org/community, but it was seemingly taken down it at some point after 2010, not to mention the whole Cult site is gone by now.

    Parts of the forums can be found at Wayback Machine, but they're obviously extremely incomplete. Only a handful of posts were archived by it, which is a pity IMO. I think the preservation of such forums is important, as they're basically records of stages of the community's history. Also, personally speaking, I've always been fascinated by the scene's early years (late 90s - early 2000s).
     
  2. Chainspike

    Chainspike

    Stealing rings since 1994 Member
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    I also think an archive would be a great idea. There was some information that seems to have never been posted anywhere else (that sure sounds familiar). Do we know if the databases of these websites still exist somewhere? Even an offline archive would be nice, just a way to see this stuff again.
     
  3. Ravenfreak

    Ravenfreak

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    I assume the best thing to do would be to contact some of the admins of the sites. That is, if they're even still part of the community or at the very least if some oldbies here have ways of contacting them outside the community. I'm also fascinated by the early years of the Sonic Scene, but I'm sure most of it is full of cringe since most oldbies were kids back in those days. xD
     
  4. It was mostly "My site is better than yours!" "Fuck you, MY site is better!" "Oh yeah? Well I just hacked your website and then told people on my forum so we all showed up in your IRC channel to stir up shit for a few hours!" and repeat ad nauseum. In 2003 Simon Wai came back and was like "okay guys this is dumb let's hack games not websites" and this forum database was set up. There was some elitism (read: a lot of elitism) and there were plenty of egos, but over the years what became Sonic Retro was THE place to be for hacking and prototype news in the Sonic community. If someone tried to start drama the consensus was usually "lol who cares we've got games to hack." If someone tried to make a big deal out of something like the color of Sonic's arms people would be like "lol who cares we're here to hack games and look for protos." It wasn't perfect, though; elitism was a big thing. There was a pervading hint of "if you don't want to put forth more than the bare minimum of effort then get that shit out of here;" guides were almost seen as a negative as they let people implement advanced features in their hacks without banging their heads against the wall until they figure the features out. Obviously people following the guides didn't pay their dues or whatever and thus they were in the "gtfo out of here with that half-assed nonsense" crowd.

    also like a decade ago i made a shitty mspaint chart for a post in the oldbie lounge. SS was all "Hey can I use this for the wiki?" and I was like "lol sure" and now my half-assed chart is immortalized in the Sonic Retro wiki page about Sonic Retro.
     
  5. JaxTH

    JaxTH

    Pudding Deity Oldbie
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    Jack shit.
    I loved that shit.
     
  6. RyogaMasaki

    RyogaMasaki

    0xffffffff Oldbie
    Cringe is a huge understatement....

    I held on to IRC logs from #scarz and #cult and #nazis those other spinoff channels for many years, but I think they've finally disappeared into the wind...
     
  7. Plorpus

    Plorpus

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    Sonic Cult didn't age well but I have precious memories of it and love it all the same. I posted there from like age 13-15 so I fit right in.
     
  8. Scarred Sun

    Scarred Sun

    Be who you needed when you were younger Administrator
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    Welp, this.
    So, uh, yeah.

    Without getting too into it, I do have database backups of a lot of the older communities, but there's a lot of issues around bringing those back online--mostly around converting them all to some modern, read-only system, but also: cringe factor. At this point they're mostly just being kept for reference and for future academic contributions. As it stands, this particular forum goes back more than 15 years, so it's not as though there are huge gaps in history past 2003.
     
  9. big smile

    big smile

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    Would you consider releasing the backups as downloads, so people can run them on their own system (or browser through the database in an editor)? It would be neat to go down memory lane.
    There were useful posts on those old communities which have been lost to time (such as a post on the Area51 EZboard forum, which released the Mary Garent story. I'd love to re-read that thread and see the context behind it).
     
  10. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I second this. No need to put them online, just downloadable archives would be greatly appreciated. I believe history should be available to everyone. Even the cringe and drama is informative, showing what the community was like back in the day, and led to it evolving into what it is today.
     
  11. Ravenfreak

    Ravenfreak

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    I think it'd be cool to have access to these old communities. Installing older forum software, depending on what software was used for the majority of the forums probably wouldn't be too difficult to do. Maybe someone else could help bring them back online, since you're focusing on converting retro over to the new forum platform. If we're all for preserving history, I think these sites deserve to be preserved just like all the other information regarding not only Sonic, but Sega as a whole.
     
  12. Nova

    Nova

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    I wouldn't be against it myself per se, but as per SS' concerns regarding cringe factor I probably wouldn't be too quick to check through it myself.

    I've seen some of my old posts and deviantART activity and some of it is honestly painful. Be careful what you wish for! :specialed:
     
  13. nineko

    nineko

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    Nova, that's nothing, reading my earliest posts on smspower (which are still visible, sadly) make my eyes bleed nowadays, I can't believe I thought I could speak English back then, I sounded worse than a stereotype. As for my earliest posts here on Retro, well, my English was already a bit better, but I was just an asshole. Most of my posts were rude, there are at least dozens of people I should apologise to. I was banned multiple times, from here, from OcRemix, from TASvideos, the list is long.

    This is to say, as much as I'm all for preservation of content, and as much as I believe that everything should always be archived everywhere, Scarred Sun does have a point. Posts from the past can reveal bad things about ourselves. I can't deny posting them, but I sure am ashamed of them. If you think back about that, I'm sure that many of the older sceners can share these concerns.

    And yes I still think I should be an Oldbie because I created the Sonic Triple Trouble VGM pack on smspower years before I joined Retro, and that's technically a "contribution to the scene".
     
  14. LocalH

    LocalH

    roxoring your soxors Tech Member
    Straight forum backups would still need some work - passwords and PMs would need to be completely purged.
     
  15. Pengi

    Pengi

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    Specifically this version, that also covers Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

    If anyone could fish out that specific thread, that could prove very valuable. At this point its exact origins are lost information.
     
  16. Billy

    Billy

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    That's not hard though, assuming the database backups are SQL. Just make a backup and be like
    DROP TABLE personal_messages;
    UPDATE users SET password = '';

    There would be investigation to figure out what tables/rows these are, of course.
     
  17. FollOw

    FollOw

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    I had a completely different user name back on the A51 boards...I would love to go back and see all the stupid things I posted...