Why did the BWTF.com message forum close down?

[Tigermegatron]

Why did the BWTF.com message forum close down?

1- Was it due to the servers/site costing too much money per month/year? Did Ben yee feel this was all too much for him to afford.

2- Was it due to Ben yee being busy with other things in his life like family,friends,job,etc..? From my understanding BWTF.com's message forum were un-moderated,couldn't ben give the moderating to other fans he trusted & keep the site up for as long as possible?

3- Was BWTF.com message forum,not that busy of a forum? were the newer threads/replies so extremly low that ben felt it was time to close it down?

4- Did the trolls,flame baiters,mean spirted fans & spam bots force ben to permanently shut down his BWTF.com forum?

5- When did the BWTF.com message forum site shut down?

[Sparky Prime]

Uh... the message forums on BWTF is still open. Although by the looks of it, hardly anyone posts there anymore.

[Onslaught Six]

Not quite, Sparky. FROM THE TOP:

THE UNOFFICIAL GENESIS OF TFVIEWS (as told by someone not directly involved with its creation)

I can't speak for The Beforetime, before I found it. I can only speak of what I know.

It was 2002. Armada had just hit, and I was right in the middle of discovering Transformers and its huge, rich origins, after being obsessed with RID and its amazing toyline. I discovered BWTF, which seemed to have reviews and (at the time) plentiful good pictures of seemingly every toy ever released; even ones from obscure Japanese toylines I would never own myself.

Eventually I looked under the tab called "Forums" and started interacting with other fans.

The first board that I remember was "the old Ikonboard," as it came to be known. This was the forum where we did RID2, and a couple other things--things now lost forever to the sands of time.

I got the distinct impression from Ben's actions and things he said over the years that Ben was actually not fucking interested at all in having and running a forum. And that's fine--you can't expect everyone to be. It's a dirty job and it can get hectic, especially back then, when the Internet was kind of a wilder place to be, and social networking hadn't taken off yet. I think the real reason he had a forum at all was because, back in those days of the Internet, if you had a website, you had a forum. You just 'did,' regardless of whether or not you actually wanted to 'run' a forum or not. (I seem to also recall there was a link for a simple IRC chat room on Ben's site, but nobody ever used it.)

One day, the Ikonboard disappeared, and a few days later, a different forum appeared in its place. Ben worked to make sure the user information was transferred over, but it didn't work out for some people--notably 86, who I think had the Most Posts Ever on the old Ikonboard. I seem to remember, when we asked "Why the hell did you do this without warning us so we could save our important shit?" he was all, "Well, I'm a Figures.com affiliate. Basically, they pay my webhosting, and I have to do certain things. One of those things is using the forum software they ask me to use." That still didn't explain why he never gave us a warning, but I surmise now that it's because he didn't think there was anything anybody would want on it.

So a few years pass, but we started making sure we saved anything important we posted, because we always had a gut feeling that this shit would happen again--and it inevitably did. I think it was around late 2006 or early 2007--right when Classics was happening, I think--that Ben's contract with Figures.com ran out, and also I'm pretty sure he was going through a divorce at the time. (This was also not too long after a septic tank flooded into his basement and left him with a lot of, literally, shitty toys.)

Ben decided that he couldn't really afford to host BWTF the way it was anymore and let the contract run out, and basically shut down his website and said, "Sorry, I'm going through some shit. I'll be back later." Again, though, there was no warning--one day I got onto the forum and I couldn't get in.

Regarding your question of fans moderating his boards: We actually did that. We were CONSTANTLY asking him to appoint some longstanding members as moderators. Absolutely constantly. I remember only twice did he ever appoint anyone as a moderator, and even then it was sometimes people he knew who weren't all that active in the community, or even strangers who weren't that active. (86 and Dom, and possibly JT, were all moderators at one point, however.)

When the last board shut down, the moderators could still get in. I distinctly remember 86 asking me if there was anything important that I hadn't saved--I think he backed up the Alternators RPG bits we wrote, and that was about it. (In retrospect, I wish he had saved the Cybertron thread we had, where we all wrote tiny fanfiction snippets or discussed ideas about the figures' personalities and backstories.)

For almost two years, there was nothing. I used ATT to keep in touch with the fans over there, and some of the people from BWTF, I knew well already. Mostly 86, but a few others. One day he tells me that there's some rumblings going on over email, between him, Dom and JT, about starting a new forum. I said, if they start it, I'm completely in. JT started it, and has graciously put in the time and effort to run it ever since. That guy doesn't get enough credit.

At about the same time TFViews started to get running, or a little bit after, BWTF.com relaunched, and included a really, really, REALLY fucking terrible "forum" that's just incomprehensible to read and use. There was very brief talk about jumping ship back and abandoning our new home, but the terrible layout and the idea of once again being completely under the control of someone who seemed like he had no actual interest in running a forum meant that we chose to stay here instead.

I still don't think Ben is a bad person for what he did--I think he just started a forum because Starting A Forum Was What You Did, and then forgot about it. He didn't think that people were going to frequent it and start longstanding friendships and even, dare I say it, romantic relationships (At least two relationships started because they met on the forums. They didn't work out.) He didn't think people would put their hard-written fanfiction and other stuff on there. And why would they? BWTF was little more than Ben's personal TF website. The fact that its forum grew to the point it did was nothing short of astonishing.

But the idea of going back to that--being under someone else's mercy as far as running the forum goes--I don't want to ever have to go back to that. That's why I stay here, and try to make sure this place stays alive as it can. And I don't think it's ever in danger of actually dying--not unless it starts costing JT more money than its worth--but I think we are kind of on a downswing right now. Which is okay! It's just because TF isn't that engaging right now.

[Tigermegatron]

Not quite, Sparky. FROM THE TOP:

THE UNOFFICIAL GENESIS OF TFVIEWS (as told by someone not directly involved with its creation)

I can't speak for The Beforetime, before I found it. I can only speak of what I know.

It was 2002. Armada had just hit, and I was right in the middle of discovering Transformers and its huge, rich origins, after being obsessed with RID and its amazing toyline. I discovered BWTF, which seemed to have reviews and (at the time) plentiful good pictures of seemingly every toy ever released; even ones from obscure Japanese toylines I would never own myself.

Eventually I looked under the tab called "Forums" and started interacting with other fans.

The first board that I remember was "the old Ikonboard," as it came to be known. This was the forum where we did RID2, and a couple other things--things now lost forever to the sands of time.

I got the distinct impression from Ben's actions and things he said over the years that Ben was actually not fucking interested at all in having and running a forum. And that's fine--you can't expect everyone to be. It's a dirty job and it can get hectic, especially back then, when the Internet was kind of a wilder place to be, and social networking hadn't taken off yet. I think the real reason he had a forum at all was because, back in those days of the Internet, if you had a website, you had a forum. You just 'did,' regardless of whether or not you actually wanted to 'run' a forum or not. (I seem to also recall there was a link for a simple IRC chat room on Ben's site, but nobody ever used it.)

One day, the Ikonboard disappeared, and a few days later, a different forum appeared in its place. Ben worked to make sure the user information was transferred over, but it didn't work out for some people--notably 86, who I think had the Most Posts Ever on the old Ikonboard. I seem to remember, when we asked "Why the hell did you do this without warning us so we could save our important shit?" he was all, "Well, I'm a Figures.com affiliate. Basically, they pay my webhosting, and I have to do certain things. One of those things is using the forum software they ask me to use." That still didn't explain why he never gave us a warning, but I surmise now that it's because he didn't think there was anything anybody would want on it.

So a few years pass, but we started making sure we saved anything important we posted, because we always had a gut feeling that this shit would happen again--and it inevitably did. I think it was around late 2006 or early 2007--right when Classics was happening, I think--that Ben's contract with Figures.com ran out, and also I'm pretty sure he was going through a divorce at the time. (This was also not too long after a septic tank flooded into his basement and left him with a lot of, literally, shitty toys.)

Ben decided that he couldn't really afford to host BWTF the way it was anymore and let the contract run out, and basically shut down his website and said, "Sorry, I'm going through some shit. I'll be back later." Again, though, there was no warning--one day I got onto the forum and I couldn't get in.

Regarding your question of fans moderating his boards: We actually did that. We were CONSTANTLY asking him to appoint some longstanding members as moderators. Absolutely constantly. I remember only twice did he ever appoint anyone as a moderator, and even then it was sometimes people he knew who weren't all that active in the community, or even strangers who weren't that active. (86 and Dom, and possibly JT, were all moderators at one point, however.)

When the last board shut down, the moderators could still get in. I distinctly remember 86 asking me if there was anything important that I hadn't saved--I think he backed up the Alternators RPG bits we wrote, and that was about it. (In retrospect, I wish he had saved the Cybertron thread we had, where we all wrote tiny fanfiction snippets or discussed ideas about the figures' personalities and backstories.)

For almost two years, there was nothing. I used ATT to keep in touch with the fans over there, and some of the people from BWTF, I knew well already. Mostly 86, but a few others. One day he tells me that there's some rumblings going on over email, between him, Dom and JT, about starting a new forum. I said, if they start it, I'm completely in. JT started it, and has graciously put in the time and effort to run it ever since. That guy doesn't get enough credit.

At about the same time TFViews started to get running, or a little bit after, BWTF.com relaunched, and included a really, really, REALLY fucking terrible "forum" that's just incomprehensible to read and use. There was very brief talk about jumping ship back and abandoning our new home, but the terrible layout and the idea of once again being completely under the control of someone who seemed like he had no actual interest in running a forum meant that we chose to stay here instead.

I still don't think Ben is a bad person for what he did--I think he just started a forum because Starting A Forum Was What You Did, and then forgot about it. He didn't think that people were going to frequent it and start longstanding friendships and even, dare I say it, romantic relationships (At least two relationships started because they met on the forums. They didn't work out.) He didn't think people would put their hard-written fanfiction and other stuff on there. And why would they? BWTF was little more than Ben's personal TF website. The fact that its forum grew to the point it did was nothing short of astonishing.

But the idea of going back to that--being under someone else's mercy as far as running the forum goes--I don't want to ever have to go back to that. That's why I stay here, and try to make sure this place stays alive as it can. And I don't think it's ever in danger of actually dying--not unless it starts costing JT more money than its worth--but I think we are kind of on a downswing right now. Which is okay! It's just because TF isn't that engaging right now.

06,Thanks for all the detailed info.

BTW,In case your wondering or not,Onslaught86 is posting threads/replies on the TFormers message forum. But I gotta warn you,the members their are major trolls & so are all the mods/owners. So save yourself the headaches & frustration & stay away from that TFormers message forum.

[Onslaught Six]

BTW,In case your wondering or not,Onslaught86 is posting threads/replies on the TFormers message forum. But I gotta warn you,the members their are major trolls & so are all the mods/owners. So save yourself the headaches & frustration & stay away from that TFormers message forum.

What?! Traitor! He'll be hearing from me about this on Twitter! All the times I bitch at him to get back on here, and he goes 'there?'

[Sparky Prime]

Not quite, Sparky. FROM THE TOP:

Not quite what? BWTF currently has a message forum and it is still open. Albeit no were near as active as it used to be years ago, before Ben relaunched BWTF, seeing as some of the forums have been idle for more than 3 years now. But the whole history from the top? That's a bit of a different question considering how long ago all of that was now, so naturally I thought TM was referring to the modern forum.

[Gustavo]

Not quite, Sparky. FROM THE TOP:
When the last board shut down, the moderators could still get in. I distinctly remember 86 asking me if there was anything important that I hadn't saved--I think he backed up the Alternators RPG bits we wrote, and that was about it. (In retrospect, I wish he had saved the Cybertron thread we had, where we all wrote tiny fanfiction snippets or discussed ideas about the figures' personalities and backstories.)

You may be able to find what you lost on archive.org -- the Internet's Way-Back-Machine. http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://bwtf.com

Hunt it down, repost it here, and everyone can stare at it's beauty. Or realize it wasn't as good as you remembered. One of the two.

[Onslaught Six]

Not quite, Sparky. FROM THE TOP:
When the last board shut down, the moderators could still get in. I distinctly remember 86 asking me if there was anything important that I hadn't saved--I think he backed up the Alternators RPG bits we wrote, and that was about it. (In retrospect, I wish he had saved the Cybertron thread we had, where we all wrote tiny fanfiction snippets or discussed ideas about the figures' personalities and backstories.)

You may be able to find what you lost on archive.org -- the Internet's Way-Back-Machine. http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://bwtf.com

Hunt it down, repost it here, and everyone can stare at it's beauty. Or realize it wasn't as good as you remembered. One of the two.

Nah, we've tried that before. Unfortunately, most of the relevant threads weren't archived, or if they were, there were only a few pages. (Some of these things were 50-page epics.)

And they probably weren't as good as we thought. So be it!

Not quite, Sparky. FROM THE TOP:

Not quite what? BWTF currently has a message forum and it is still open. Albeit no were near as active as it used to be years ago, before Ben relaunched BWTF, seeing as some of the forums have been idle for more than 3 years now. But the whole history from the top? That's a bit of a different question considering how long ago all of that was now, so naturally I thought TM was referring to the modern forum.

Well, okay, here's the bit: Anytime I describe TFViews, I give an abridged version of that story. We're refugees who came from the BWTF forums when they shut down. Ben shutting his website down was actually kind of a big deal when it happened--I remember other sites talking about it. I usually just say that he shut it down, and I assumed Deathy was curious as to why the original website was shut down.

Here's the thing, the forum he has now is just inactive and shitty--but it was 'always' inactive and shitty. The only time it ever closed down was back in the day, so I assumed it would've been that.

[BWprowl]

Six gave a pretty good rundown of the hows and whys of the old BWTF forum and how those of us from there wound up here, but I do feel like addressing one thing TM asked about: Moderation. Specifically that yes, the old BWTF forums were either low-moderated or sometimes not moderated at all. But despite that, save for the occasional spambot attack (including a few *really* vulgar ones that made even using the forums dicey for a little while) and a couple of trolls/bad characters so out of control that Ben DID have to step in to kick them out (Trinachron, RUINATION, Giant Head and his assorted aliases), the forums were generally pretty decent due to the majority of the posters moderating the forums *themselves*. Despite this now-niche group just barely keeping these forums alive, the BWTF forums generally had anywhere from 50-100 members of varying relative activity, meaning discussion moved at a decent clip (though nothing like Allspark or 2005 or anything), but the majority of the people posting there were able to be civil and respectable about it (and encourage others to do the same) that widespread, constant moderation was something that wasn’t especially *needed*. That level of decency with the discourse is one factor I’m pretty certain contributed to these members growing as close as they did and still wanting to discuss things today. Whereas on other forums any of the discussions between say, Sparky and Six would inevitably wind up with both members losing their shit and having to be banned in a hellfire, the way things were there (and here) they can have this vehement discussion and total disagreement, and still manage to keep talking to each other like human beings and not resort to ad-hoc insults or cheap-shot persecution complexes (and you wonder why a guy like Synjo couldn’t hack it in discussion with us?). God, even a maniac like KIttyRose managed to keep it just restrained enough when talking with us about her insane G1-titanium-action-master-comic-character-headswap preferences and how Classics were the most insulting TF toys ever because Prime’s red was half a shade too bright and just looked ATROCIOUS jesus never mind how did we ever deal with that crazy lady?

As an aside, this is why some of us (including me) got really worried when those Allspark users invaded the board for a couple weeks to participate in that Powerlinx Blurr vote (the results of which are hazy and uncertain to this day, and I personally believe to be the major contributor to why Hasbro hasn’t done fan-toy-polls for Transformers since!); because we were concerned that our more measured, civil discourse would be broken up by the bigger, messier, more…forum-ish behavior of these Allspark guys.

That said, I still wouldn’t mind drumming up more interest in this place. What about that podcast, guys? Wait, my home computer’s nuked, I wouldn’t even be able to participate until I got it fixed.

[Tigermegatron]

Six gave a pretty good rundown of the hows and whys of the old BWTF forum and how those of us from there wound up here, but I do feel like addressing one thing TM asked about: Moderation. Specifically that yes, the old BWTF forums were either low-moderated or sometimes not moderated at all. But despite that, save for the occasional spambot attack (including a few *really* vulgar ones that made even using the forums dicey for a little while) and a couple of trolls/bad characters so out of control that Ben DID have to step in to kick them out (Trinachron, RUINATION, Giant Head and his assorted aliases), the forums were generally pretty decent due to the majority of the posters moderating the forums *themselves*. Despite this now-niche group just barely keeping these forums alive, the BWTF forums generally had anywhere from 50-100 members of varying relative activity, meaning discussion moved at a decent clip (though nothing like Allspark or 2005 or anything), but the majority of the people posting there were able to be civil and respectable about it (and encourage others to do the same) that widespread, constant moderation was something that wasn’t especially *needed*. That level of decency with the discourse is one factor I’m pretty certain contributed to these members growing as close as they did and still wanting to discuss things today. Whereas on other forums any of the discussions between say, Sparky and Six would inevitably wind up with both members losing their shit and having to be banned in a hellfire, the way things were there (and here) they can have this vehement discussion and total disagreement, and still manage to keep talking to each other like human beings and not resort to ad-hoc insults or cheap-shot persecution complexes (and you wonder why a guy like Synjo couldn’t hack it in discussion with us?). God, even a maniac like KIttyRose managed to keep it just restrained enough when talking with us about her insane G1-titanium-action-master-comic-character-headswap preferences and how Classics were the most insulting TF toys ever because Prime’s red was half a shade too bright and just looked ATROCIOUS jesus never mind how did we ever deal with that crazy lady?

As an aside, this is why some of us (including me) got really worried when those Allspark users invaded the board for a couple weeks to participate in that Powerlinx Blurr vote (the results of which are hazy and uncertain to this day, and I personally believe to be the major contributor to why Hasbro hasn’t done fan-toy-polls for Transformers since!); because we were concerned that our more measured, civil discourse would be broken up by the bigger, messier, more…forum-ish behavior of these Allspark guys.

That said, I still wouldn’t mind drumming up more interest in this place. What about that podcast, guys? Wait, my home computer’s nuked, I wouldn’t even be able to participate until I got it fixed.

Thanks for the further info. I checked out BWTF.com's forum yesterday. According to the forum their hasn't been a new post in over 3 years.