The Gang of Five
Howdy, everyone!

As you know, the forum has been fighting spammers and bots for years. We have seen our fair share of "Custom Kitchens UK", scammy Internet hosting companies, and bots trying to send us to a business's homepage. But after fighting the tidal wave of spam for so many years, the admins had a persistent thought: what if the spammers are right? Not in terms of posting nonsense links and trying to scam our users, but in trying to make money through our unique platform?

Well, thanks to the helpful counsel of Taunt, we have finally decided to move the forum in a new direction. Please see his important post on the matter in this topic

I've been here half my life

Mumbling

  • Administrator
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 9076
    • View Profile
Seriously. I joined this forum when I was 14 and I am 29 now. A while back I used a website to calculate when I would reach my "half life" point, and it was yesterday, 27 October 2022. I reckon slightly older members will be reaching this milestone soon as well.

I don't think my 14 year old self would have believed me if I told her this would become a really big part of her life. Thanks everyone for all the good years.


chomper94

  • The Chomper Fanatic (and the Meme Boy)
  • Member+
  • Ducky
  • *
    • Posts: 1156
  • Hop in, we’re gonna go visit the GOF.
    • View Profile
I wasn’t in the forum when you first joined, but what I can say is I’m proud of you for reaching this achievement.  Congratulations!


Enchanted-Valley96

  • Ducky
  • *
    • Posts: 1450
    • View Profile
It's quite an achievement to have spent many years on a forum when most people just post once and never again or stay there for a while and then are never active again.

Well done!  :)


ManOfWar GT

  • Spike
  • *
    • Posts: 391
  • He/him
    • View Profile
I actually already knew you joined the forums when you was 14.
But congratulations on your anniversary.


aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)

  • Member+
  • Littlefoot
  • *
    • Posts: 8427
  • Rations
    • View Profile
    • aabicus.com
Hooray for 2008! All the best users joined the forum then :P

The GoF had a huge impact on my personal growth as well, its quite a remarkable site and bunch of people. My Welcome thread is basically the first thing I ever posted on the internet under my own identity (everything earlier was like Wikipedia edits), so I basically learned how to behave online through how y'all treated me. And I couldn't have picked a better group to learn from!

I remember when landbeforetimelover messaged me a few days after I joined saying he'd removed the white background from my avatar (the same sandwich you see now) just because he figured I'd like it to look nicer. I was blown away by receiving a random act of charity from a regular when I didn't even have 10 posts yet. And then, sometime later, when I posted a cryptic vaguely-alarming message and left the forum without explaining why (wasn't y'all, was teenage depression mixing with real-life stresses overwhelming me) Malte emailed me to ensure I was alright, (he actually did it twice! Once immediately, and once a month later after I didn't reply to the first.) I never thought people online would care about other users to that degree, and his act of caring really helped me get through a tough emotional point in my life.

So yeah, I guess I'm trying to say I owe a lot to the GoF too, and I'm really glad its stuck around all these years. The current bunch of admins (especially rhombus, Mumbling, and nick22) really put a lot of work into fostering a positive and healthy community, carrying a torch that's been burning as long as I've been a part of the forum and earlier.


Sneak

  • Member+
  • Cera
  • *
    • Posts: 5391
    • View Profile
It's always nice to know your experiences, guys, filled with good memories. :)
Congratulations!