It might crawl across the finish line, but it would be a magical moment if the Gang of Five forum can make it online for 20 years.   I started this back when I was 18 and putting websites and stuff online.  Life has changed for me since then and I'm doing other things, but I still remember this place!

Today is December 8, 2022.  The official GOF founding date is October 12, 2003.

308 days to go after today!! 

15 years.  Wow!  A picture says 1,000 words.  The picture above is truly my own reaction to the reality that the Gang of Five forum has been online for 15 years now.  Granted we’ve had our shares of road hazards, and have had to move the forum on four different hosting platforms (hence why the founding date does not say October 12, 2003), but we’ve come through it all!  At this stage, we are in the most stable situation we possibly could find ourselves in as the GOF pays for its own hosting and domain name, no longer at the whim of any free web host, plus we are ad-free too!

I won’t make a big speech like I did for year 10.  My role is quite different now, consulting for the forum, and basically running the GOF Discord Server.  To keep things about the forum, its memories, its good times, and even its bad times, I would like everyone—no matter how long you’ve been here—15 years or 15 days—to share a memory of this place!

Thank you all!  

Adam (Petrie/Chipper Blu-wolf)

Don't remember who I was talking to, but I was sharing that I run an official Ranger Rick archive, and this is one of my favorite pictures.  The person said it would be perfect caption fodder, and I agreed.

So here it is:

Welcome to the new, improved Gang of Five forum!      

     

You will find that some things are slightly different with your profiles.  Take a moment to look around and figure out all the features.


Furthermore, to keep the GOF an active, friendly place for LBT fans, we've made some changes at the top, quite literally.

Your current admin staff have red usernames.  They are rhombus, Nick22, and zero-point.  zero-point joins the staff as lead forum designer and manager of code as zetaboards requires a different code set than the older invision power boards.

Inactive administrators still have admin powers, but should not be contacted for immediate issues with the board.  They are part of the Circle of administrators, have a light blue color, and admin badge.  They should continue to be respected as honored leaders of the GOF whenever they come online to post.  These members are Malte279, Littlefoot1616, and Mumbling.

Currently, two moderators are still part of the GOF, and have powers to moderate all sections of the board.  These members are Kor and the Great Valley Guardian.

I remain a consultant to rhombus and Nick as necessary, but am not part of the active administrative team, thus I do not have a red badge.

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As for forums, everything appears to have transferred smoothly.  Still, some changes have been made.

The Rock Circle has been renamed "Forum Issues" and is now simply a section to discuss current happenings on the board, or to pose a question to the staff about the GOF.  The voting process that used to be part of the Rock Circle section as part of the decision making process has been disbanded permanently.  This will no longer be happening.  Administration will continue to work together to make decisions, but it will be no more complicated than that.

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I thank you all for your patience and thoughts, as we were given no choice on the matter of upgrading our board system, and chose the option we felt would give us the smoothest transition possible.  In time, I believe you will find that zetaboards will work just as well as our old invision system, and the upgraded changes should keep spambots out.

Be well.  

- Petrie

Basically popped in to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Hope everyone's day is filled with cheer.

It would probably get missed in the birthday section, so I felt like posting this out here.  I almost jumped the gun during the summer thinking the GOF had actually been around for 10 years, but then checked the math again and realized it hadn't been.  

On October 12, 2012, the GOF forum turned 9 years old, having been officially created in 2003 with a far different purpose in mind.  Its been at this location on invisonfree since 2004.

       

If it can manage one more year, that would be awesome.  


Share a favorite GOF memory as we look back on 9 years.

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I'd like to remember the original team that decided to jump ship with me from ezboard to invisionfree in 2004 when we decided to go all out and create a better Land Before Time forum for fans.  Those that came with me--Malte, Nick and Jason (Littlefoot1616).  It may have seemed crazy at the time, because we basically went and started from scratch all over again, but that hacker at ezboard put an end to my willingness to stay there.  Hard to believe we're all still around in some way after nine years.  

I'm going to work on some coding here, so if something looks odd or amiss please let me know.  Also if I mess something up you'll probably know. :

Not many of you will likely know this save Malte and Littlefoot1616 since we were in this together, but we weren't always here.  The Gang of Five was originally at http://p072.ezboard.com/bgangoffive and their whole network of boards was attacked (that's what they said) recently.

Our entire archive (I guess you can say history) outside of this board has been wiped out.  :cry2  I don't think anyone here ever visited it to see the old topics (I did try to bring some over to spark new interest) but it's another LBT board that has truly bit the dust now.

Yeah I got them....four in three days, so I'll catch you on the flipside. : (How's that for teen lingo? )

See you Thursday at the earliest.

 

Hope you enjoy your day and be sure to tell us how it went.