Tonight I was randomly bopping about the forums, as I tend to do sometimes, I think it was the linksville thread. In there, I saw a thread devoted to chronicalling the history of the forum/community, and now suddenly I go to look for it again, and it's dissapeared, dispite IIRC, it being stickied.
Does it still exist in some fashion? I had only skimmed it, thinking I could come back to it later on.
The PA CULT is a unique community devoted to the worship of all things penny arcade. It was the first major PA forum that I know of. From the FAQ: "(Sim) got the idea for PAC from a friend (Deathbent) and while we originally just put [PAC] in front of our names on GameSpy Arcade, I quickly made a website for the cult. The site has gone through three designs (I think) and two or three hosts. The cult has grown enormously since I first started it in the summer of 2000.
We currently reside in PAC Phase 5. Phase 1 was the original blue and white phase. Phase 2 was the spooky black phase. Phase 3 was the scary dark grey. Phase 4 was dark grey with the added PHP automation. We currently live in Phase 5. Phase 6 is coming soon. That is what you get for letting Sim answer questions."
On May 12, 2006 Pacult closed its doors. you can read the farewell message on the front page: http://www.pacult.com
Way back in the day, there was a very poorly done forum, that is still visible here:
Edit: not available since the server change in 05, sorry.
Then the glory days of the Mighty PHorum begain, it grew to include the Artist Corner and the Pit of hate, where all things trollish resided.
Moderating was left to the PA crew , Batjew reigned supreme and handed out bans and titles indescriminently.
The first major Phorum reworking came with the creation of M2, the deletion of the Pit of hate, and the departure of most of the PA people from the administration of the forum. Moderating was left to devoted forumers and abuse of power was definately curtailed.
The changes, however made a huge impact on certain forumers. They felt that such dramatic changes without regard to the community wishes was a call to arms, and a large portion of the community left and started the Citidel of Truth. http://www.citadeloftruth.com/
Then the Dark Times came, when a major bug in the phorum code allowed a mass spamming the likes of which had never been seen before. Gabe shut down the Phorum to investigate and all were left in the cold. No one was sure when or IF the Phorum would reopen, a temporary retreat was created by Razlus on EZ Boards and most of the M2 crowd came over. The EZboards are popup free for 30 days, so after a month we moved, at the end of that month we moved again.
The first EZboard "PA Forum Retreat" succumbed to pruning in 03,
The second board "Echo Base" succumbed to pruning sometime in 05.
During the Dark Times, there was some miscommunication from a mod of the Phorum to the people of the EZ boards, We were told the Phorum would not be coming back. Appaled at the expense of popup free EZ boards, and with a sense that this group could survive without PA, several members decided to make their own Community Forums. And Torch The Bridge was born. After while Gabe came to Echo Base to tell us that the Phorum was indeed coming back, better, stronger, and faster than before. Many were overjoyed, but those that had invested time and money into making TTB decided to go ahead with their little venture.
Also during the dark times the forumers from the Artist Corner decided to do their own venture as well. I do not know much about it, but it is called Comic-Toast.
"Comic-Toast had the distinct honor of suffering from both the too-many-cooks idiom and the little-red-hen syndrome at the same time. To put it another way, CT floundered until it sank but like the Flying Dutchman shall sail again. When the time is right, you will see CT's rebirth the way it was intended to be." ~Mr E
Finally the grand return of the PA Forums, without the ph, that introduced a lot of subforums to cater to specific tastes and clear out the clutter. It is a huge community with wildly varied tastes and obsessions that are centered around the reading of a webcomic. You are reading it right now.
I may add more to this later, as information comes my way. If you have anything to share just PM me.
Edit:1-31-06 I am hearing a lot of rumors of other PA-related web communities, if you can post a link and a brief history in this thread I will update the first post.
Edit: 6-12-06 RIP PACult
Edit: 9-19-06 Gave proper credit for the first ezboards to Razlus, thank you Razlus.
Posts
thanks
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
all we do is trade lesbian porn all day
Shouldn't it get dumped in the archives, at least?
...
and were lucky enough to get and admin to upgrade their membership
4 years later and I finally get an honest answer.