Well…this is interesting:
The current (and possibly last) owner/boss of that particular forum is not the same guy who has been running it all along. He picked it up way back from someone else who passed it along to him. Editorially, it changed, for the worse in my opinion, after that. While always a bit hypocritical with a heavy dose of judgement, it’s a rather long-running forum. In fact, it’s probably the one of the first I ever signed up to. (I was there really, really early but had to create a new account when they changed hands or had some big crash, as I recall.) I think I originally signed up around ’97. I was there for their big Anti-Catholic purge way back when, and I followed along as the current guy in charge had his feud with the local government (Craftbury VT Selectboard) about who had right of way to the property he had his ‘compound’ on. (Mention of it on the board was quickly quashed and deleted without comment by admins, even though a quick Google search of the public records of the town meetings would tell you all you needed to know.)
I suppose that big boards like Arfcom or FALfiles can make good coin with their discussion forum advertising, but I would think it requires a pretty large userbase and a large amount of advertisers who aren’t worried about being judged ‘by the company they keep’.
I have to hand it to them. though. Over the decades they managed to remain fairly active and relevant. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone wants to step up and buy the place. It’ll be also interesting to see who will wind up moving up the hierarchy for the title of longest-lived preparedness discussion forum. Stay tuned.
I got bored with them and left even before the religious nut bought them. When i went back to check on them after the ownership switch, i was WTF is wrong with this guy. I’m surprised they lasted this long.
I did really liked that site, even met some great people there. However I was booted out during the Catholic purge and after I deleted the several short stories I had wrote there. I’m really surprised it was still l around.
Had no idea that was still alive. I remember it as being a good place to argue if Jesus could hit a curveball.
I think I was one of the original Frugal forum members. Many other start up forums started about the same time. Alpha Group, Prepare Today Survive Tomorrow, Survival Forums, Viking Preparedness, Equipped to Survive, etc. were pretty much the go to pre-Y2K groups. They are had a purpose back then and you took what info you wanted from them and ignored the rest. Unfortunately infighting, egos and keyboard commandos had a bad effect on them all. I haven’t logged into most of them in years but I might take a nostalgia bread and do that sometime. A lot of the info is still pertinent.
Those were the days…
Regards,
Templar
I left there a long time ago. It was a good site at one time…..but.
I especially enjoyed the fiction, contributed a few myself.
But, got kicked off with the Catholics (I’m Jewish…the horror!)….
And now, I cannot even figure out how to make an offer…..Well, OK then,
Be fun to buy the domain and forward it to a porn site just to watch the membership’s heads explode.
Sometimes it is time for something to die… or be shot. The Catholic purge was it for me too.
I left because Hangfire is an ass and a moderator. Deadly combination.
Didn’t realize they were still around I was on it late 90’s maybe into early 2000s, I actually always liked captain Dave’s site, never got updated tho lol.