Well first off I want to say that Ironworks is definitely the BEST message board I swear that I have ever known. The fact that we for the most part are open and friendly towards eachother. Yes, maybe now and then we get a few heated debates, but in comparison to other places, they are so mild. And trolls are basically a very infrequent thing here, and they usually get their IPs banned fairly quickly.

There are some message boards out there that are horrors people! Sheesh. I have to admit that Ironworks was the very first message board I visited. And I've stuck to gaming forums mostly since becoming an IWs member, checked a few other gaming message boards out. Well out of curiosity for some reason a few weeks ago I decided to check out a few message boards, two to be exact. One was MTV.com and the other was Americanidol.com. Basically message boards based on TV programs. OMG. I thought these places would have decent discussions going on. But no. It's insane. Both sites have a TOS, but people just use symbols for cursing, and they do it a lot! LOL, I've seen so many "shut up you Bi&%$!" replies it isn't even funny. I've read people saying their account was deleted but apparently their IPs never get banned so they just return again and again under a different name. There are no moderators. They have a "Notify Moderator" button on everyone's post, so I guess you just click on that if offended LOL. Fat lot of good that'll do you though. Flames and childish behavior is rampant there. It is just kinda sickening to go to a message board where mostly all you read are the same group of people practicing hate in all its glory every day. MAN. Again, so glad that I have Ironworks [img]smile.gif[/img] , seeing these forums lets you see just how special this place is. If you don't believe me, go to one of those message boards, especially the MTV.com ones, see for yourself in all its ugly glory.

Anyone else have any "other message board" stories?

LadyZ you are soooooo right. IW is by far the best forum I have known and I have been a member of quite a few gaming boards as many people here have. Many of us remember the demise of IW biggest competitor "BG Dungeon Tavern"! I actually started out there before I found "Ole Blue" and even though IW was tiny by comparison, this is where I stayed. I still visited the "Tavern", but gadz, what a nightmare. The place turned into a "flaming troll central". I remember the notice that they posted when they closed the forum, stating specifically that it was because of the flaming and abusive nature of the members that they closed it.
The Freespace2 forum is another one that started out good but gradually went the way of the "flaming dragons" and was closed down.
Pandemic's forum for "Dark Reign2" was another that was great during beta testing and after initial game release. But after a few months those insipid individuals who suffered from "short mans troll syndrome" destroyed that forum as well, driving away new members by insulting them and being rude. This board was unique for a game board in the sense that it turned into a "clique" of jerks who basically took it over, drove all the new people away. Us older members finally left because Pandemic wouldn't do anything about it. Well needless to say a clique of about 20 jerks didn't last long and that forum vanished as well.
IW is the best in my opinion.

IWs is the best beacuse of all the members here :D lets hope IWs NEVER suffers the fate of those other forumns u've mentioned...

I believe in IW! ;)

I've been to a few other message boards (like for games that IW doesn't host forums for) and was glad to be done with my game and leave lol.

While IW was down, I didn't need to go looking for a forum fix and waited patiently (until I thought it was a problem on my end and wrote Ziroc lol) and while I waited, I put up a website and made some new friends through hosting links to graphics related sites. Worthwhile experiences in comparison to trying to find another forum as good as IW.

I remember that about the BG Dungeon back then Relic. I had never gone there, but somebody I think on IWs talked about it, and I clicked on the website and read something there that the forum was closing because of excessive flamers. Even though I had never been a member there, nor never even had yet visited their website before, I still felt bad for them. That they took so much time and effort to make a haven for gamers to come together and talk about Baldurs Gate, only to have it crushed by a bunch of essentially losers with nasty mouths. Messed up..

Oh and nice to see you around Relic [img]smile.gif[/img]

As ever, I'm going to play the 'nay-sayer'. :rolleyes: Hey, you do need a healthy balance of views, right?

IW is great -- no mistake about that. But there are other message boards I've joined with just as colorful a mix of people, some nice, some nasty, and so on. No need to be jingoistic about IW. There's an awful lot of message boards out there, I'm sure, some of which we're not even aware of and can be great to join, too.

Wonderful seeing you LadyZ [img]smile.gif[/img] I finally have some online time again so I'm taking advantage of it while I can. It is sad to see forums die that way. What is even sadder is that the admin and moderators allow it to go on and even to destroy their forum in the first place. BG Dungeon used to be a great place. I know there are other members here who frequented there and remember what it was like before its demise. That's why when we find a good home like IW they just can't seem to get rid of us [img]smile.gif[/img]
Sure there are other great boards K.T. , Relic news home of Homeworld is one, I've been a member there since beta testing, they are only a few years old, but going strong, and there are others. LadyZ and I are only speaking from "our" personal experience, and I know that a good portion of IW membership agrees [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 08-16-2002, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: The.Relic ]

Heh, I guess I should also mention that IW is personal for LadyZ and I and many others. IW "Ole Blue" had about 50 active members when I came here. And the lovely LadyZ joined not long after I did. So for us and those who have been here growing with this great board from less than a hundred to nearly 10k members is an incredible experience. We have alot of ourselves invested in IW and it is like a second home to many of us, even if we don't post as often anymore [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color="silver">If you need a good site to fall back on, other than Ironworks, I suggest Deathmage's Realms.

Thats where I go, whenever I'm not on IW, and sometimes when I am! ;)

Its filled with alot of Ironworkers.

Such as:

Lady Blue
Sir G.
Talthy
Lennon
Megabot
Willard
Downunda
Myself
and some more, that I can't think of off the top of my head. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Its kinda small but alot of fun. :D [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Its sad what goes on in other boards. Downright horrible. Let me tell you what, I'm happy the first message board I came to was IW. Z has done Awesome Work! [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] ;) </font>

Glad to know you have some free time to be around Relic, I had wondered where you had gone for awhile there, we loose a few sometimes, I was a bit worried LOL. Hope all is going well for you [img]smile.gif[/img]