TrekBBS |
The Trek BBS is the most popular and [http://www.treknation.com the Trek Nation]. It was created in 1999 by Christian Höhne Sparborth to allow a general discussion of Star Trek-related topics. Since then it has grown to include one of the most frequented general science-fiction discussions on the internet, however currently the non-Star Trek discussions are the most popular on the forum.
The board currently welcomes over 7400 registered users, however significant percentage are banned permanently, Dual_troll, spammers or internet_troll
= Forums =
= History =
In early 1999, Christian Hohne Sparborth and Saleel Majeed created a collection of websites, namely TrekZone, TrekToday and TrekSeek. TrekToday, now the premier Star Trek news web site, was given a sister site, the TrekBBS (originally at http://www.trekzone.net/trekbbs), and both were linked from what became the TrekNation. The TrekBBS, now a major bulletin board, was given its own URL - http://www.trekbbs.com/ - on 8 June 1999. At that point, the BBS was still fairly basic; the Lounges and Comics board would not exist until the end of July 1999, all the forums were open to guests for posting and viewing, and there was a Star Wars forum. This, however, soon changed as the board attracted more and more visitors.
The original ranking system ran to Captain; it was felt that very few people would ever get enough posts to rise above this rank. Thus, the Lounges - accessible based upon your rank via the bottom of the front page - have been expanded several times as new ranks (up to Fleet Admiral) were added.
June of 1999 brought a major shift in the administration of the TrekBBS. Saleel went on holiday, and Christian, feeling angered by Saleel s lack of acknowledgement for his behind-the-scenes work, modified the server passwords, locking Saleel out of the system. Eventually, a solution was reached whereby the TrekBBS split from TrekZone, and the TrekNation was born. During this split, Christian admitted regretting the loss of TrekSeek - the largest Star Trek search engine online, which has now gone offline. At one point, plans were considered to restart TrekSeek, but this project never emerged
The board was turned orange for Hallowe en of 1999, bringing many complaints about the garish colour scheme; it was decided in future years that such modification would not be made.
April 2001 saw the removal of the Star Wars forum. By this time, the board had been growing rapidly for some time; the board was now much more restrictive as a result. In early 2001, a poster had registered the username Red Quacker . This individual was eventually banned for various misdeeds, and someone started registering duals such as Teal Quacker , Blue Quacker or Green Quacker . It has never been confirmed whether this was the original owner of the Red Quacker username, but the official belief is that it was. As a result of this and other bannings, some members started the Troll Kingdom - a spin-off bulletin board created in order to troll the TrekBBS. Whilst their board s aims have changed, many of the denizens of TK still bear a great dislike of the TrekBBS.
To dissuade spammers, post-count was turned off in off-topic (i.e. non-Star Trek) fora; thus, several of the more long-term members, who only posted in the community forums, were separated from friends of other ranks. Some of the people in higher lounges who had recently been promoted were granted rank reductions in order to remain with their friends. This encouraged communities to form in individual Lounges, and when Lounge post-count was reactivated, several members found themselves about to be split from their community. Thus, some members created the Eternal Fleet Captains Lounge on the EZBoard site; this board was open to anyone who reached Fleet Captain and was invited by another EFCL member. That board grew, and one member gave the board their own Web space. The board was run democratically, and unfortunately, politics soon took over. The EFCL collapsed in 2004, to be replaced by the Real EFCL.
Whilst EFCL was in its infancy, the TrekBBS was attacked several times by hackers, pornography-spammers and so forth. It was discovered that the hacks were by members of the Troll Kingdom; these members were consequently banned from TrekBBS permanently (although many of them have been granted reprieves). These attacks continued through early 2002, and the TrekBBS staff-only forum was hacked multiple times, up to late 2004.
As 2002 drew to a close, the board was hacked by spambot registration. The board collapsed, and the staff pulled in Charles Capps to help with setting up UBBThreads. At this time, Christian resigned from day-to-day running of the board, handing it over to Lisa (although she d unofficially been running the place some time before that).
Somewhere in 2003, TNZ had a major ruleset change; loads of people hated this, so set up Wordforge.
TrollKingdom decided to close mid-late 2002, and came back in standalone software form, with their dot-com URL. The board started to decline soon after, and resorted to trying to troll just about everyone. They currently reside at a dot-net URL, since the owner of the dot-com address closed the original board.
TrekBBS changed hands once more in late 2004, and is to this day managed by T Bonz, who had, actually, been running the place behind the scenes for a short while before that.
= Notable Posters =
The most prolific poster for the last four years has been one Enterpriser, currently with over 64,000 posts.
= Affiliated Boards =
*CSI Files (http://www.csifiles.com/ ) an official spin off board for the CSI television franchise *Get Desperate! (http://www.getdesperate.com/ ) an official spin off board for the Desperate Housewives television show *SlipstreamWeb (http://www.slipstreamweb.com/ ) an official spin off board for the television show Andromeda, no longer updated
= Spin off boards =
In addition to the above spin off boards operated by the owner/administrators of the Trek BBS, the site has spawned a number of spin off communities founded by current or ex-members. These boards include:
*EFCL (http://www.real-efcl.net/ ) a spin off board, ruled by democracy, started by the members of the Fleet Captain s Lounge at the TrekBBS. *Troll Kingdom (http://www.trollkingdom.com/forum/ ) a board that used to be free of rules, begun by banned members of TrekBBS *Wordforge (http://www.wordforge.net/ ) an all purpose politics and controversial discussion board *TerranBBS (http://www.terranbbs.net/ ) a general board with a sci-fi bent *ExIsle (http://www.exisle.net/ ) a general board for sci-fi fans. Various writers and industry insiders post here. *Spacedock BBS (http://www.spacedockbbs.com/ ) focusing on sci-fi and fantasy shows, movies, games and books *LoNAF (http://www.lonaf.com/ ), or League of Non Aligned Fleets, a board originally created when users began to overwhelm the Miscellaneous board with fantasy fleet threads, now a general purpose board.
Many of these spin off boards were formed or populated by disgruntled subsets of the TrekBBS member base, a reflection of the complexities associated with virtual community Moderation system.
= External links =
*[http://www.trekbbs.com TrekBBS] *[http://www.trekbbs.com/members/faq.shtml TrekBBS FAQ] *[http://www.trekbbs.com/members/rules.shtml TrekBBS Board Rules] *[http://www.wordforge.net/forum/showthread.phpt=8725&page=1 A List of Banned Members] *[http://www.isnanchordesk.com/trekbbs/pix.html A TrekBBS member profile site] *[http://www.livejournal.com/~trekbbs A TrekBBS LiveJournal community] *[http://www.trekbbs.co.uk Trekbbs.co.uk, a shameless parody] *[http://www.fstdt.com/trekbbs A TrekBBS Quotes Page]|
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