Taken from a 404 topic on the LUElinks LUE board:

From: Worldmaker | Posted: 11/24/2006 02:29:16 PM | Filter | Message Detail
After AOL/Time Warner bought out the forums, pretty much zero communication went on between the new community manager and myself. I got an email from our tech admin, Chip, about resetting admin passwords or some such shit, but I hadn't checked that mail for a week or so, and he sent a follow-up letting me know that he finally figured out that, since he was sitting next to the friggin' server, he didn't need admin access to the forums to do what he needed to do.

Nothing happened for a few months, I stopped caring or bothering to draw a paycheck, and this last week the forums simply went blooey. No idea why. There's SOMETHING there, but the coding (as usual) is fucked up and no browsers (as far as I know) can recognize it.

Basically, nobody at GD bothered laying out the forum plans for AOL's new community manager (I wasn't even told who it was until I asked a third party), even though the last month before we were sold was filled with intensive planning and scheduling for a lot of forum activities and integration into the mother site, and AOL is, as usual, either ignoring their purchases or strip-mining the site and loading it with AOL horseshit.

I could probably still pull a paycheck, because I don't think they have any idea who the hell is doing what for the forums, but it's really not worth the trouble. They'll probably restart the forums and it'll turn into some Gamespot-style crap with a load of retarded 12-year-olds clamoring about DBZ and Zelda:TP 24/7.

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From: Worldmaker | Posted: 11/24/2006 02:32:12 PM | Filter | Message Detail
From: Gamemaster414 | Posted: 11/24/2006 01:28:41 PM | Filter | Message Detail
And Justin isn't responding on AIM.

As far as I know, the street marketing team he ran was dissolved. Maybe not, I stopped really bothering to find that shit out for a while. He offered to help get a lot of the forum planning moving along and we were collaborating during the last month with our respective boss(es), but they kinda hung him out to dry with the AOL sale. I could be wrong, but that's the gist of it as far as I'm aware.

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From: Worldmaker | Posted: 11/24/2006 02:36:59 PM | Filter | Message Detail
And I more or less left because I got tired of juggling the members' wants and desires with the unrealistic expectations of GD. It was a few months of trying to get some contests going that nobody cared about, trying to get go-between traffic that simply wasn't there, trying to drive up hits on the forums with minimal investment from the editorial team and linking from the GD site. It was just frustrating bullshit, and not worth the monthly cash.

It was a tightly-knit community that basically hated the company that bought their forums (baselessly, for the most part) and weren't willing to compromise and work with the company when they wanted to improve forum traffic with some really shittily-implemented ideas. (lol individual game boards)

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Summary?

Sounds like the GD forums are gone for good. Maybe Brian'll come back here and just be a regular member again.

I mean, he's right. We weren't willing to come to any solution due to our love for a tight-knit community, and all the GD/AOL shit was stupid. But whatever. We're used to moving.

Basically the tech admin Chip is porting 404/GD into the AOL gameboards?

There is a back-up, but it's in a code no one but this tech admin knows?

bitching over all the work, and how little he got for it.

Sounds like this is as good as it gets.

I agree with what he said as well. We were 404 and they tried to make us into GD. Yeah, maybe some of GD dying is our fault for being stubborn and not open to new ideas, but that's what defined us as such a tight-knit group. That's why people posted on 404 every day for 2 years straight. I for one missed the good ol' 404, where you could post fuck and not get banned. I hope that this board is the first step back in that direction. If we thought GD was bad...imagine an AOL run board...

I know I know, the was sarcasm...


Anyways this is better then what GD was at it's current state.

yeah, yeah, don't mind me, my time online is limited, so I am trying to whore out my extra 3,000 posts I lost.

*coughs and remembers when half of everyone was against the merge, including myself, and half of everyone was saying it wouldn't do anything significant other than help the community grow*

But that's the past. To me, 404's been dead since March 15th, 2005, and I visited like 6 times since. Hopefully this will be a new beginning of sorts.

Yeah dogg, you totally predicted this


No one saw GD getting bought out, no one thought the admin problems would continue, and despite some new users being brought in, there was never enough to prevent the slow loss of traffic.

This place is the bestest thing ever. So even if the forums do come up, I wouldn't post again.

No kidding. Nothing ever died here to me. People still posted, I still had my friends here and I still had my place to waste time. It was just obvious that most of our originals didn't want anything to do with different ownership. Our tight community has always been very independent as well.

But this isn't a rebirth or whatever. It's just us moving again and, assuming GD doesn't come back, starting a new chapter. Fine with me. I don't mind.

It's not 404 if we don't move at least once a year!

LIES!!!

o wai

I don't recall saying I predicted this. I do recall saying there would be huge problems selling a forum made to break away from a larger site to, well, a larger site.

I'd quite like worldmaker to appear on here, actually .

I can send him a private message with the link through LUElinks. Should I?

Of course.

I too could do that - I've got a LueLinks account, though I don't go there much . He'd probably respond far better to you .

What do we think, 404 error? Poll!

Why poll? Of course he should be here. He's one of our most important members.

Go get him already and teal too.

Yeah, Teal might be interested now that we went independent again.

gamedaily's broken him down

PMed him on LL. And Teal.

Not his fault. GD just didn't give a shit about us despite what he wanted to do.

I mean Nate, Chrono, and others came back. Why wouldn't Teal or WM?

There is certainly no harm in inviting everyone. Don't ask folks just invite. If they cause bother or don't like it here they will find the door again soon enough. But we might as well fill up our Ark!

For months now I've been seeing him more and more at LL because I've spent more time there than at GD.

I don't think he will like the way the lounge and fortress have melded in a way, he'll come back he probably won't stick around as much though because by his own admission he is cutting out alot of the internet in his life

What about Justin himself? How did his career go? Please fill me in on all the gossip .

Seriously, how hard is it for them to make a little sql backup? It takes like 10 minutes for boards that are 5x the size GD was. GD just doesn't want to hand it over without a price.

Ask him yourself.

Fuck WM imo.

Oh, get over your grudges. Everyone else here has.

No damnit. He stacked in GB. For that, he can never be forgiven!

If he's just gonna be an elitest hoighty toighty asshole he shouldn't be here anyway.

There's really nothing wrong with cutting down one's Internet time.

Why are you both talking for him? He hasn't even popped in here yet!

I'd like WM to be here too. He was the best admin we had, and tried to do a lot for us. At the very least, he kept us informed.

Plus, he still owes us pics of him in a dress, and he's not getting out of that shit just because the old forums imploded.

*didn't read any of the topic*

Last time I talked to Justin, back before we were sold to AOL, he said he could have gotten a job with them but declined since he would have had to move.