I've been on a bit of a vacation from my blog for the past three weeks (hey, it happens every now and again). But I believe I have become rejuvinated and you will see a lot more activity here in the coming weeks ahead. I took a break right before the finale week of American Idol and never did a recap for the two finalist. At that point in the competition, both have to be pretty good to get to that point, which is why I felt a recap wasn't all that significant. I was happy to see my favorite to win it, Jordin Sparks, crowed as the next American Idol. I don't have anything against Blake, because he is a fabulous entertainer. But Jordin's voice was really amazing to me and I felt that way for awhile. Hopefully within the next few days, I'll be able to recap some of my favorite performances from the top 10 singers in a special end-of-the-season blog for you. But the topic of this blog is not about American Idol, but about another significant event that just happened over this past weekend. It was the ending of an era for me personally as well as for a good on-line friend of mine, as we closed down a message board called the "Three Amigos Internet Cafe," that we had spent a lot of time working on during the past 4+ years. During the past year, this board had been relatively inactive and not many new people were joining. We felt the time was right to shut it down now rather than let it just sit there and do nothing (well, it'll still sit there and do nothing, but it'll basically sit as a living memory of what we discussed over a couple years-time). There had been many significant events that occured since we formed this message board, and this blog will recount some of those.
The Three Amigos Internet Cafe (TAIC) was not its original name. In fact, it was originally called "Game Shows from A to Z." Myself and two others decided to form our own message board. The three of us were already members of a popular game show message board hosted by the Game Show Network. That message board was beginning to become overcrowded with new people and it no longer felt like the intimate home we once knew. So we branched out on our own and invited people from the GSN boards who were like family to us. Our new board became a hit right away and new people continued to join daily (0f course we advertised it on the GSN Boards). We were doing quite well and it was a joy to see the success that the new message board was drawing. But over time, things behind the scenes started to unravel, mainly between myself and one other administrators of this message board. I originally created this message board for her - it was to be her forum and I was helping her out. I created it and made the necessary changes for her until she felt comfortable running the place herself. Plus, she didn't have constant internet access which made it hard for her to administer the board all of the time. I was in college and had time on my hands to monitor the board on a frequent basis. Eventually her and I began to bicker about the arrangement of the board as well as the changes we wanted to make. We didn't see eye to eye on some of the changes and eventually it reached a boiling point. To make a long story short, she left the message board and formed her own forum. Myself and one other individual remained as administrators, but many of the members of this forum soon drifted over to hers, deleting their accounts from mine along the way. It was a huge misunderstanding between her and I that caused tremendous turbulance, not only between the message board we jointly created, but also at the GSN Boards. Many people turned on me, faulting me for the events that occured. It was an ugly time that unfairly ruined my reputation, but I moved on. I needed to recruit a new administrator to take over her role and someone in whom I could trust. I ended up choosing my best on-line friend, Tom, to become the third administrator.
Changes quickly took place as soon as she left, including implementing a new "skin" for the message board and renaming it. The new name would soon become "The Three Amigos Internet Cafe." Names for message boards never come easy to me, but this one ended up being pretty decent as it fit what our board was all about. Three male administrators lead the charge at the board, which is why the three amigos was so suited for us. We continued to lose members to the former administrator's message board, which we tagged as "competition." But yet, we recruited some new people. There were also members loyal to both places - which was a nice gesture by them. Eventually, though, we would end up losing our third administrator "Bryan" who suddenly disappeared from the internet completed. Over time, it was just Tom and I running the show. Bryan would pop in occasionally, but never consistently like Tom and I.
One of the staples of our message board was holding forum parties. This is where we would try and gather as many people as possible and hold an on-line party which took place within a topic on the board. One forum party took place to celebrate our first anniversary. By then, we had appointed a new "third amigo" named John, although he just served as a moderator for our board. Needless to say, our first anniversary forum party was not exactly nice to the members who had left our forum to join their own. We went all out, insulting, name-calling, and telling off those people we felt betrayed us. We knew what we were doing probably would cause a good deal amount of controversy, but we didn't care. We had a chip on our shoulders and felt we needed to give some paybacks. Eventually that thread got us into trouble. In fact, our board would eventually get deleted by Proboards, who ran our board. Despite what happened, we held no regrets for what we did. But the Three Amigos was now gone along with everything we created. Tom and I didn't really discuss it too much as soon as it happened, but eventually we talked about it. We felt we needed a break from the board and we decided not to rebuild at that time.
It must've been six to eight months until we started over, but not without some nudging by a new person I met who was a member at my All Grown Up forum. I had told him about our history and everything that involved the Three Amigos. He was a persistent young fellow and took "no" for an answer. So Tom and I, along with this young kid, re-started the Three Amigos Internet Cafe for a second time. Things started off pretty well for us, as we got some of the old members to re-join as well as some people from my AGU board to become members. But I don't believe it ever held the same amount of success as what we had when "Game Shows from A to Z" first started. Still, it wasn't a bad start and seemed like good fun to us. We held forum parties on occasion - usually celebrating our anniversaries and holidays - but they weren't nearly as controversial as our first anniversary party. In time, we booted the young fella who was our third "amigo," mainly due to a lack of trust, and we recruited John to become our moderator at the board, once again. The last couple of years in the life of the board, things gradually slowed down to nothing. And that is where we end up to this day. A message board lacking in any kind of activity and basically just sat there doing nothing. The perfect time for it to shut down.
And that's the story regarding the four years of The Three Amigos Internet Cafe. We had our tumultuous moments and our enjoyable moments. And now, they are just memories as the board is closed down once and for all. Tom and I haven't ruled out opening the board again sometime in the future - but for now, we need a break. The end had to come sooner or later, and now seemed like the best time to do it.
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