A while back, regualr CBM user
THEHAWK posted an editorial about his time here on the site and while my experiences haven't been quite as "death defying" (so to speak), I've seen a huge change in the site. I've seen it grow from just a few members to the massive online community it has now become. I thought it would be fun to talk about the times when even
JoshWilding, RorMachine and others were just noobs!
If I were to take a bet, I'd say that a majority of the users currently on the site have joined in the last year or so. Prior to the site taking off to new levels of awesome, there were just a handful of folks who were regular contributers here at CBM. What originally brought me to this site, and several other users that I know, was an article that was posted stating that Wolverine would be making a cameo in
The Incredible Hulk as a way to bring down the Hulk. Obviously, this turned out to be a false story, I believe it was an annual April Fool's story, a custom that, to this very, day drives me insane! I continued to return here and there in hopes for gaining more information regarding upcoming comic book films. After several months, I created a fan site (as all of you should be doing) and became an active member of the site. I was enthralled with how CBM was set up: we could actually contribute news! Not only that, but the comment section allowed for users to hold discussions about the news. This is a combination, that as far as I am aware, no one has dared to duplicate.
Initially, there were just a few people contributing articles; folks like jman1977, bsprecher and of course ComicBookMovie. But it was the user in the comments sections that made this site so enjoyable. Here, you'd see the likes of
TheMyth (where are you),
Joslezio, Shaman, Souleater, THEHAWK, THEPHOENIX and others (sorry if I missed you, I still love you!). Back then, it was easy to have conversations with each other without it breaking into a name calling session. Many topics were discussed, but it would always stay civil. Not long after that, folks like
JoshW, RorMachine, LEEE777, as well as a few others who shall remain nameless, showed up and assisted in taking this site to a new level of news reporting. At about this same time, the Fan-Fic tab was created. The incredibly imaginitive minds here at CBM were creating some amazing fan-fic stories and there was a need for a home for this out-pouring of creativity. We also saw our very first fan-casts, where LEEE777 posted a castin of the entire Avengers roster and JoshWilding (JoshW at the time) put up an article casting 200 characters from the Marvel universe. It was a time when fan-casts were more than just a couple of pics and a sentence or two would suffice. Not to mention
Shaman would amaze and impress us with his awesome artwork on a regular basis...which I miss quite a bit by the way. I also submitted my first article, which was a fan-cast of the original X-Men team. Looking back on that now...it was terrible and could be likened to a Beverly Hills 90210 version of the team. But hey, we have to start somewhere, right?
We also had our very first troll in the form of
SuperMike. A troll that could out-troll anyone on this site to date. We had our arguements and discussions and eventually...he went away. As
THEHAWK said in his article, some feel he is still with us using a different name, but most feel he just went away.
Fastforward a few months and the CBM community was struck by what seemed to be a tragedy in the popular user
TheMyth (come out, come out wherever you are) was on his deathbed and wouldn't make it much longer. THEHAWK, being a good friend put together an article as a tribute to Myth. Luckily things were exaggerated and Myth, last we heard recovered well. Shortly after that, we learned that THEHAWK had died...for the first time and again, the CBM community was saddened. Come to find out, HAWK had his information hacked and his life with thrown into a whilrwind. Obviously, HAWK is still with us, even after a second death notice.
This is when we saw a huge increase in the number of users here on the site. I"m not sure what happened to increse the numbers here, if it was a particular story or news piece, but the activity sky-rocketed. Maybe
Galactus can fill us in on what helped the site increase so rapidly...? Regardless, with this increased number of folks came some growing pains, things that Jim and Nate have addressed very well. It also caused a bit of a rebellion among it's users, one that was quickly addressed and squelched in an appropriate manner.
Jump ahead once again, to last fall when we saw a brand new feature here on CBM, one that has changed the site dramatically: CBM Chat. Along with that came some new users in the form of
nuck, Gusto, Tittie and a few other Chat Room staples. Some say that's when things really went south, but Gusto isn't really that bad, is he? Right about that same time, I was selected to join the likes of RorMachine, JoshWilding and others a Herald of Galactus...a Jr. Editor, which has been quite an experince. It has not only helped me with my own writing, but it also gets me a chance to get to know and comunicate with other users, even if it
is to tell them I deleted their article.
So, what's the point of this article? I wanted to give a lot of the new users an idea of where the site started; where it has been and the changes and improvements that have been made. I also hope it will allow us to get back to what made this site so awesome in it's early days (not that it isn't awesome now); that it is possible to have discussions and debates without it resorting to name-calling and trolling. We did it for several years and just because our numbers have increased, it doesn't mean that civility and respect has to go away.
Galactus, and his awesome right-hand-man, NateBest, are in the process of adding some incredible new features to the site, which will only add to the uniqueness and awesomeness of the site. So....noobs and veterans alike, here's to another many years of great discussions, fantastic growth and hoping that Gusto makes it to the next day.
*Thanks to
THEHAWK for allowing me to borrow his idea and putting a bit of ecksmanfnan on it!