It’s the end of the year and like last year I want to take a post to reflect on the events of the year here at Blue’s News. I’m posting this today as I’m off from work between now and Friday and my computer time will be spotty at best.

As for the site itself:
This year marked the end of anonymous posting. We have moved through the multi-month roll out of the new design. Retro Colors were retained to the joy of many and the consternation of a few. A new round of advertising was unleashed in order to return the site to profitability. Multiple requests for other ways to support this site remain ‘under official review’.

On the lighter side:

I explained what TPFKAS2S means twice this year.

Dantastic promoted himself to Mayor with no major complaints from the masses. Does that make us his willing constituents?

fred/fiddlestix/whatever finally managed to cross the point of no return with Blue firmly wielding the banning stick with +3 proficiency.

The AntiElvis mad a quiet return to the board with no real explanation for his absence.

Halsy, for no apparent reason dropped his nick of ‘Weas’ and set up a new account.

People that seem to have disapeared over the past year(s):

anon@127.0.0.1

the mane mahn

LordSteev

Morn

There are others I am sure. They have not posted in a while so I forget who they are.

Flame wars burned at a lower temperature this year with a few exceptions. One being the Halsy vs just about everybody else threads. Also, the dude vs. JediLuke ‘discussions’. While not really a flame war per se, the exchanges between these two were always entertaining. Why did the flames die off? I think it is a combination of banning anonymous posts and maybe the rest of us have grown up a little bit (just a little).

I wanted to list some of the memorable threads of this year but I did not have time to go back through 12 months of comments. Off the top of my head, the debate around banning anonymous posting, user account abuse (including nin’s aria) and the Valve HL2 leak rank among the best of the best. For an idea of just how tight a community we are I would look to the threads regarding both Ray and Blue’s loss(es) this year. There are many more, if I just had a way to search them easily...

This ties into my wish list for 2004:

• A method of supporting this site.

• The implementation of a more robust comment system. This system would include:
  
  Searchable comments.
  
  Links within comments would launch into a new window.
  
  More emoticons.
  
  When viewing a users comments, it would be nice to display more than 5 at a time. It would also be nice to specify a date range and see those comments.
  
  Possibly a user rating/karma system (maybe).

• That everyone with a fredrickson .sig would change it to something else. This issue appears to be settled, we should move on at this point.

• Return of the mailbag whether answered by Blue or a regular with a sense of humor.

• A system for users to rate current games. I trust the opinions of the people here more than any game magazine.

• The possibility of a monthly tech/gaming article written by some of the more knowledgable people that frequent the boards.

• That everyone here would treat the few developers that do post here with a small amount of respect. I am certain that they would post here with greater frequency if we cut them some slack with the WTF? Where is game X?

The Supreme Commander would be the exception to the above rule.

Looking back, it is hard to believe that so many events big and small have come and gone. While this was a year of loss for some, for me it was not. Words can not express the happiness I feel when I look back to this time last year. The period between November 02 and March of 03 was the bleakest in my life..

It was at my lowest point in dealing with this that Ray posted a message that reflected him perfectly. Despite the long odds facing his mother, he was positive and upbeat. I sent him an email, one reader of this page to another, thanking him for the inspiration. It was during that time, despite his own family problems, Ray took the time to try to encourage me to look for some positives.

Since this time my situation has changed dramatically. If someone told me then what I know now I would never have believed them. Miracles do happen.

So, if you spend time here trying to spoil the positive nature of this place, you are wasting your time. There are far too many fine people here, they outnumber you significantly. I’ve enjoyed interacting with everyone here on the board. To those of you that I have exchanged emails with whether it merely to tell a joke or help me with an IT issue I could not manage to figure out myself, thank you. I’ve met some fine people here from all over the world. I truly appreciate your friendship.

Good luck to everyone next year. Be careful over New Years Eve.


-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.org