Outlaw Star.Net History
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The Generations
Members of OutlawStar.NET's community frequently divide the timeline of the forums into "generations," designated based on what bulletin board service was being used. What follows are summaries of the generations based on what is remembered as most notable.
EZBoard Generation
Although it can be referred to in a variety of ways (e.g. "the ezboard days," "the ezboard time period," etc.) EZBoard Generation is nevertheless an appropriate term for referring to the time period in which OutlawStar.NET's message board was hosted remotely using the ezBoard message board service. This was the earliest incarnation of the board, lasting from February 11, 2001, until October 22, 2002. All of the forums' staff registered during this period of time. Zarove3, the most infamous user ever to exist on OutlawStar.NET, also was active during the EZBoard Generation. The EZBoard Generation, then, can generally be thought of as the time in which the groundwork of the site was put into place as well as having a nuance of being "the golden years" of the community, given that this was also when Outlaw Star was aired on television which greatly increased the community's popularity.
PHP Generation
The PHP Generation is the time when OutlawStar.NET shifted over to its own hosting on a shared server and was powered using the phpBB engine, lasting from October 22, 2002, until December 31, 2003. This generation can be thought of as a dark period in the board's history. During this time, with the decline of Outlaw Star being shown on television, the popularity of the forums followed likewise. Also during this time was a period of disputation between the staff as how to best manage the board. While the majority of the staff wished to maintain the strict guidelines that had been put in place during the EZBoard Generation as an answer to users like Zarove3 and others, other members, in particular the newly appointed Dark Nadir, wanted to see a more friendly and relaxed atmosphere to encourage users as a response to the aforementioned declining popularity. After long periods of debate, Dark Nadir nearly resigned. Soon thereafter, following a submission of evidence of blatant violation of board rules by SSJVinnieG to the head administrator, AKosygin, SSJVinnieG was promptly demoted, and subsequently banned, with Dark Nadir being promoted shortly after. As is generally agreed by most of the members around during this period of time, this event was a major change for the board, in terms of its overall philosophy on how to best enforce policy. Indeed, with the end of the PHP Generation occurring just months later with the switch over to vBulletin, the banning of SSJVinnieG can be thought of as the end of a generation in more ways than one.
VB Generation
The latest generation of OutlawStar.NET, starting December 31, 2003 and continuing to the present, the VB Generation is the period of time which the board has been powered by vBulletin, while continuing to be hosted by the same service as the rest of the site until November 9, 2005 when OutlawStar.net switched to a dedicated hosting. The VB Generation saw some of the lowest periods of activity for OutlawStar.NET, with the loss of many of its oldest members following in the wake of SSJVinnie's ban. More recently, however, this generation has also seen a resurgence of activity, with the return of many old members adding to the pool of newer ones that distinguished themselves during this time. The VB Generation, then, can be thought of, in a sense, as a kind of "renaissance" for OutlawStar.NET. Lastly, partway through this generation, Vincent made his triumphant return to Outlawstar.net because everyone found him too amusing to keep away. The Lesson: Even if you try to delete everything on the board, we'll still forgive you if you're funny enough.
Timeline
Before the Board's Creation
- April 5, 1994, Ryu Knight airs in Japan.
- March 28, 1995, Ryu Knight stops airing in Japan.
- January 8, 1998, Outlaw Star first airs in Japan.
- June 25, 1998, Outlaw Star stops airing in Japan.
- December 17, 1998, Thousand Arms is released for the Playstation in Japan.
- September 30, 1999, Thousand Arms is released for the Playstation in the US.
2000
- September 19, the domain OutlawStar.NET was registered.
- October 19, OutlawStar.NET was announced.
2001
- January 15, Outlaw Star airs in the US.
- February 11, OutlawStar.NET is launched with EZBoards message boards; EZBoard Generation begins.
- March 1, Outlawstar.net was awarded "Cool Site" by the Open Directory Project.
- June 2, Rick OShay is appointed as moderator.
- December 1, Crimson is appointed as moderator.
2002
- January 15, SSJVinnieG promoted to administrator.
- February 18, Laughing Hyena promoted to administrator.
- April 1, Professor Tim Osborne joins the board [1].
- April 2, AnimeKing joins the board [2].
- June 16, Dark Nadir joins the board [3].
- August 19, Michael1123 promoted to administrator.
- August 24, Jukai appointed as moderator.
- October 22, EZBoard convertion and switch-over to phpBB completed; EZBoard Generation ends and PHP Generation begins.
2003
- February 6, Dark Nadir appointed as moderator.
- September 28, SSJVinnieG demoted to moderator; retaliates by mass deletion of threads; subsequently banned from OutlawStar.net.
- October 8, Dark Nadir promoted to administrator; ssjinprincess and Professor Tim Osborne appointed as moderators.
- December 31, convertion and switch over from phpBB to vBulletin forums completed; PHP Generation ends and VB Generation begins.
2004
2005
- October 19, OutlawStar.NET became 5 years old and nothing special really happened.
- November 09, OutlawStar.NET switches to dedicated hosting.
2006
- November 14, Ghost and Electricity Gone Human appointed as moderators.
- December 9, OutlawStar.net's wiki officially opened to general users [4].
