WarBoards.org
From ORG Wiki
Warboards.org is the central community discussion hub for the ORG Network and contains forums for all the ORG sites - Starcraft Debriefing Room and Starcraft II Conclave for Starcraft.org, World of Warcraft and Warcraft Town Hall for Warcraft.org, Diablo: The Last Refuge for D2Players.org and finally Flagship Studios for FlagshipStudios.org. Officially the name of WarBoards.org is spelt WarBoards.org. That is, it has a capital W and B, and the ".org" is part of the name, in the same way that ".org" is part of the name of all the other ORG Network sites.
Contents |
[edit] History
On February 8th 2004, WarBoards.org came to life as a result of a captivating event that took BlizzForums, the combined forum effort of the ORG Network and the Legacy Network, and split it in two. The plan to take the ORG Network to independence had been simmering in the minds of the ORG Network owner Edgewize and his dedicated right hand AJ for years, caused by the relative lack of control and direction over BlizzForums that could be exerted by the ORG Network's leaders in comparison to the Legacy Network's leaders. Even though the webmaster of Starcraft.org at the time, Gibb, was not included in the decision to move towards the creation of WarBoards.org, when he first heard of the plan to split away from BlizzForums, he was overjoyed, as it was a shared view of all of the people who had been ORG Network administrators of BlizzForums that they were not getting the say that they had the right to have.
[edit] Loss of control
The story of the ORG Network's loss of control is a drama that is upstaged by no other event in the history of the ORG Network. At some point during or before 2003, of which the date is currently not known, the members of BlizzForums were crying out when Xenon pledged to purchase BlizzForums for $10,000. Originally Enforcerman, the owner of the BlizzForums domain, intended to meet Xenon's deal, but quickly retracted when he observed the uproar that was caused by the act. In the blur of fighting and some account stealing performed by Xenon, suddenly the three Starcraft.org administrators, Gibb, Mystikal and dunchy were compelled to back down and relinquish their adminship at BlizzForums. Gibb said a few years later that he felt that BlizzForums was not heading in the direction that they wanted it to go in, and that was exemplified by what happened when Xenon stated his intentions to buy control over BlizzForums. Only the ORG Network owner Edgewize remained on the BlizzForums administration. Thus, in one day that changed the course of history, the power that the ORG Network had over BlizzForums deteriorated.
In the past, BlizzForums had been blessed with a great amount of flexibility and a dedicated server, due to the generosity of Edgewize and his hosting company. At some point during 2003, BlizzForums lost this blessing when Edgewize sold his hosting company and moved out of the hosting business. This resulted in the final loss of any control whatsoever that the ORG Network over BlizzForums. To the ORG Network, BlizzForums was a train that was boldly going off track and no one had the influence to stop it.
At this time, AJ was considered by most BlizzForums members to be a neutral party in the fray, little did they know that AJ was actually working towards the construction of WarBoards and trying to exit BlizzForums without incident, it did not occur as such, however. Still, behind closed doors AJ was being pushed aside just as our ORG Network leaders were, with the Legacy Network administrators, especially the most active leader XG3, considering him nothing more than a coder when in fact AJ was the most active and personal administrator at BlizzForums. Although AJ's multifaceted talents have been an integral part of both networks, AJ has mentioned in recent discussions that, at heart, he has always been an ORG Network evangelist.
[edit] A failed plan
During the year before the opening of WarBoards.org, it was decided that the ORG Network was going to split away from BlizzForums and reform a forum collaboration with Infoceptor, another popular Blizzard site. However, only days before the merge was imminent, the ORG Network reversed its decision when it was realised that Infoceptor would be an unfavourable partner. This lead onto a new plan - one that would see the creation of WarBoards.org, the first independent ORG Network forum in years.
[edit] Taking action
In the months before the initial opening, AJ and Edgewize assembled a team of staff members who would be able to make WarBoards.org a RAVASHING success. Although most of the staff members had already been moderators before at BlizzForums, there was one new face on the team. On one of his daily drifts around the internet, AJ discovered Fenguin, a competent graphic designer, and added him to the team as a technical administrator for his meld of graphic design and coding skills.
AJ, Edgewize, and Fenguin worked tirelessly for months to prepare WarBoards.org for its first day of judgement, and soon everything was falling into place. About a month before the founding of WarBoards.org, Schwitzer, who had already been let in on the secret plan, ceased all active moderation at BlizzForums. However, the punch line to this joke was that he never told any of the BlizzForums administrators that he had resigned. Instead, he changed his custom title, avatar and signature to reflect the fact that he had departed, then he simply waited for the BlizzForums administration to notice. They never did.
Two weeks before the day of the split, AJ made his stand, resigning from his position as a technical administrator at BlizzForums. To make sure everyone knew that something strange was occuring, AJ created a thread asking what people would think if he suddenly retired. Intending to milk it for what it was worth, Starcraft.org administrator dunchy made sure to hint that something must have been going down if AJ were leaving, leaving a question on the minds of the members as to what it was.
As the day got closer, the secret began to spread. More and more people were leaked information about the train that was just about the crash and split in half.
[edit] Judgement day
Finally, on February 8th 2004, WarBoards.org came into being. It was the beginning of a new era... one that still thrives as of now.
[edit] Who?
The Staff are responsible for the running of Warboards and the ORG Network. See the Staff List for a full list of the staff of WarBoards.org.
