Haloscan Roll Call

Submitted by M-Dog on

Today is the 13th birthday of MGoBlog (see the thread below).  A lot of people have come and gone since then.

Who is still on here from Haloscan days?

For the uninitiated, Halsoscan was the hosting platform for MGoBlog from 2004 until late June 2008.

Haloscan was the wild west.

There was no Board. There were no "OP's".  You could not create content, you could only comment on the threads that Brian posted. 

Once Brian posted, it was a free-for-all in that thread. 

By the time you got to the 9th or 10th comment, the comments had nothing to do with the thread.  A comment could be responding to another comment that was 50 comments earlier in the thread.  Topics switched all over the place. 

Imagine every thread and comment on the current MGoBlog Board that happens in a given day . . . all residing in one thread.

If Brian only posted once that day, you could get up to a couple thousand comments by the end of the day.  So it was a big deal to be the first commenter of the day.  Often people would just post "First!" just to acknowledge the auspicious (and rare) occasion.  It only happened to me once.  It felt like I found money on the sidewalk.  

You could "handlejack" . . . steal somebody else's identity and comment as them.  This lead to all kinds of fun antics.  Immaturity is not a new thing on this blog.

There were no points, pos's, neg's or any kind of self-moderation by other members.  I don't recall any formal Mods either.

It was . . . interesting.

 

MGoBoard
Recruiting

corundum

December 4th, 2017 at 12:07 PM ^

First!

 

Shit, I'm actually 3rd.. My first MgoBlog memory was reading the entries right before the '04/'05 Rose Bowl against Texas. Been here ever since, although this is my second handle.

Joined: 05/10/2012

MGoPoints: 47323

YakAttack

December 4th, 2017 at 11:58 AM ^

I went by DreamBeaver for a while. I had a song after Shavodrick Beaver committed...

"Ohh Dream Beaver....I believe we can beat Penn State at niiiight..."

 

Joined: 01/20/2009

MGoPoints: 53682

WolverBean

December 4th, 2017 at 11:59 AM ^

Haloscan is like that kid's show or movie you fondly remember from your childhood, that doesn't actually hold up on re-watch as an adult but that you love watching again all the same. Looking at it objectively and with hindsight, it was vastly inferior to the current setup. But it's hard not to be nostalgic for the old MGoBlog.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 1959

Magnus

December 4th, 2017 at 1:26 PM ^

Haloscan sucked. I have no fond memories of it, other than realizing how long I've been commenting on this site. I think I blundered onto MGoBlog in 2006, so that was 11 years ago. It's crazy how fast time flies.

But this setup is far superior. I don't wish to go back to Haloscan, even for a second.

Joined: 07/17/2008

MGoPoints: 165915

wile_e8

December 4th, 2017 at 3:39 PM ^

Yeah, the combination of the conversation style and blogs still being off the beaten path deterred certain types of posters that frequent main stream sports message boards, which made it appealing to those that found it. Moving to standard comments and message boards killed that a bit. 

TL;DR: Keep MGoBlog weird

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 7381

Birdman

December 4th, 2017 at 12:10 PM ^

Brian coming in on his lunch break asking we settle down... 

When I first signed up on the new site it had everyname I had ever used sugggested... Clearly I was way more active then.

The real trick to handle jacking was to include the personal link as well for authenticity. Some allies would turn on each other, and then try to reconcile. 

Until 2007 it was relatively calm, but quickly turned into the 1000+ comments free for all and change was imminent.

Hope all you old fellers are well.

 

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 1509

bronxblue

December 4th, 2017 at 12:05 PM ^

I remember coming across the site during it's Haloscan days, thinking it was a nuthouse with the single-thread model, and then sorta checking in periodically until it moved to the new format, lurking some more, and then (apparently) making this username 9 years and a week ago.  This site really has grown in leaps and bounds since then.

Joined: 11/22/2008

MGoPoints: 171026

Lordfoul

December 4th, 2017 at 12:06 PM ^

MGoBlog has been an indispensable part of my fandom for seemingly forever at this point.  Cheers to all of you and congratulations Brian on 13 years!

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 1747

M-Dog

December 4th, 2017 at 12:17 PM ^

The "Joined:" dates that you see now are only from when MGoBlog moved to Drupal at the end of June 2008. 

None of the Haloscan join dates migrated over.

If you have a join date of late June / early July 2008, you were proabaly on here during the Haloscan days.

I forget what the process was to "join" during the Haloscan days.  I know there were no avatars, only text user names.

 

Joined: 07/06/2008

MGoPoints: 256955

jmblue

December 4th, 2017 at 2:50 PM ^

I don't think there was any process.  You just typed in your name every time you posted and that was that.

Originally,  I thought the name "Haloscan" was an inside joke about Michigan Stadium.

I remember the banner when we switched to this server: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are now blogging in space."

 

 

Joined: 11/07/2008

MGoPoints: 102715