Witnesses.net Rediscovered!!!

obiefernandez

The grandaddy of big JW discussion boards like this one is the site that I launched in 1997 after leaving the Mining Co., witnesses.net (or witnet). If you weren't into the whole jw online scene before 2001 then you missed it.

When I pulled the plug on the site about a year and a half ago, I did not keep any archives of the site. I knew the only way to completely ensure that I would never again get involved in being a JW webmaster was to let it go completely. When the server was deactivated, about 3 gigs of accumulated discussion board content bit the dust, forever!

Imagine my surprise today when I heard about The Wayback machine at http://www.archive.org Apparently they have spent the last half-decade archiving web content and it is all searchable. Included in there is quite a bit of content from my site. Check it out at the following URLs:

witnesses.net

discussion.witnesses.net

Who knows, maybe I'll have to mine the best messages from the archive and reactivate witnesses.net as an archive?

Love,
Obed

PS: Hey if you have any witnesses.net memories please go ahead and post them here. I would love to hear about it.

Edited by - obiefernandez on 26 June 2002 12:12:15

obiefernandez

Just a note: The links take a long time to return content. Probably cause they have to dig thru petabytes of compressed data on their servers.

Farkel

Hi Obie, you Vile Apostate!

: PS: Hey if you have any witnesses.net memories please go ahead and post them here. I would love to hear about it.

I made only one post over there before getting disfellowshiped. After I was gone, I got a hoot out of reading the members like "Big Jim" (I believe) saying he knew who I was and that I was a psychopathic liar!

If I'm not mistaken, I believe I tore to shreds some poster's idiotic arguments and called that person some harmless little name like "braindead moron."

Dubs are just SO sensitive about stuff like that!

Farkel

LDH

LOL This kicks ass, Obie. I'm glad. Let me dig for memories.

People I mixed it up with at Witnet:

"Jane"

"MOTG" (Man of True God)

"Big Jim"

and probably others.

Lisa

ItsJustlittleoldme

Farkel:

Dubs are just SO sensitive about stuff like that!

It just proves the saying -

The truth hurts sometimes

Imbue

Obie I thought you promised no archives! OMG... LOL ...

RR

I'd love to Obie, but I can't remember all those names I used, everytime you kicked me out, I'd come back as someone else ... lol

COMF

The grandaddy of big JW discussion boards like this one

Oy, some things never change, do they! I remember how you used to pop in on Hourglass2 Outpost from time to time, trying to pick a fight with the Admins and saying how your board was going to blow H2O out of the water. LOL

Grandbaby is more apt... but, whatever. Enjoy your wishful thinking. :)

obiefernandez

COMF,

Let me say up front I realize where you're coming from. And I admit that I was a bit of a pompous ass at times on H2o. However, during its heyday, witnesses.net was significantly larger than H2o in terms of visitors & traffic (based on interpretation of statistics from Rick and their web counters) and forum topics. That was a significant source of pride for me at the time, although now its all inconsequential. The layout of the homepage, forum topics and a lot of other things about this site are basically copies of what I took great pains to evolve on discussion.witnesses.net. Almost all of the JW discussion sites post-witnet (WitnessesOnline, GreatCrowd, etc) have been straightforward copies. IMO the wwwboard single-forum style of H2o is dead in the water.

Obie

COMF

Hi, Obie,

I didn't visit witnesses.net, so I'm not in a position to speak knowledgably about it. If you developed a forum format that's been emulated by others, then you certainly have a valid reason to take pride in it.

Witnesses.net Rediscovered!!!

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