Oddworld Forums
The Oddworld Forums are an unofficial Internet forums for fans of Oddworld. They are owned by Abe Babe and Alcar, and currently contain over 18 thousand threads, 475 thousand posts, and 7500 registered members. Among the members are past and present Oddworld Inhabitants and Just Add Water employees, including Alf and Stewart Gilray.
The Oddworld Forums were founded in 2000 by Sydney Cander, who co-administered the site alongside Abe Babe until he left the community in 2002. For a while, the site was identified as a component of OddNet along with Oddworld-Web, Oddworld Universe and OddChat. The Forums’ current active administrators are Max the Mug and Nate.
History
Oddworldian Forums was first created on ezboard on 11 May 2000 to accompany Oddworldian, the fansite of Sydney Cander.[1] Fan Corner was opened on 30 June 2000 to accomodate fan fiction stories.[2] Some time between 11 and 19 July the message board was renamed Oddworld Forums.[3][4] Sydney made Abe Babe co-administrator of the Forums at the start of July in advance of her opening of Oddworld-Web.[5][6][7]
After receiving a number of complaints about the increased number of adverts appearing on the Oddworld Forums, Sydney, Abe Babe and Elum decided to create new Oddworld Forums powered by Ultimate Bulletin Board, an ad-free system. These were opened on 12 April 2001.[8][9]
On 28 October 2001, Sydney released the Munch’s Oddysee skin.[10] On 24 December 2001, Abe Babe enabled vBulletin’s Private Messaging feature, along with Buddy and Ignore Lists.[11]
In April 2002 the server that was hosting the Oddworld Forums (along with Oddworld-Web and Oddworldian) emailed Sydney and Abe Babe to inform them that they were undergoing a merge, but that because of the size of OddNet (at the time 150MB), they would have to switch to a more expensive hosting plan in order to continue on the service.[12] In order to avoid paying these costs, Sydney and Abe Babe accepted an offer by Pilot to host OddNet on his personal server at no charge.[12][13]
On 13 April 2004, Abe Babe released the new Industrial style for the Forums, which became its default with the existing Native style remaining selectable from users’ control panel. Alongside this, new profile fields allowed members for the first to specify their gender and favourite films and games.[14]
Staff
References
- ↑ Sydney (?). ‘Fan of the Month 10’, interview with Sydney and Abe Babe by Alf. Alf’s Rehab and Tea. Official Oddworld website.
- ↑ Sydney (30 June 2000). ‘Fan corner’. News item on Oddworldian. Archived by the Wayback Machine (23 August 2000).
- ↑ Abe Babe (11 July 2000). ‘Oddworld Feature Film’. Message 2485 on the Exoddus Club. Yahoo! Groups.
- ↑ Sydney (19 July 2000). ‘Fanart section’. News item on Oddworldian. Archived by the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ Cander, Sydney (c. 2 July 2000). ‘Introducing our new Forum Administrator...’. Thread title only on p. 13 of Necrum Burial Grounds, Oddworld Forums as archived by the Wayback Machine (7 January 2002).
- ↑ Sydney (31 August 2000). ‘Oddworld-Web opens and new fanart’. News item on Oddworldian. Archived by the Wayback Machine (25 April 2001).
- ↑ Abe Babe (31 August 2000). ‘Oddworld-Web goes Online’. News item on Oddworld-Web. Archived by the Wayback Machine (1 May 2001).
- ↑ Abe Babe (12 April 2001). ‘Announcement: Oddworld Forums is Moving!!!’. Off-Topic Discussion. Oddworld Forums. Archived by the Wayback Machine (25 July 2001).
- ↑ Sydney (13 April 2001). ‘Welcome to Oddworld General Discussion’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
- ↑ Sydney (28 October 2001). ‘Announcement: Oddworld Forums' New Look’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
- ↑ Abe Babe (24 December 2001). ‘Announcement: Private Messages Enabled’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
- ↑ Jump up to: a b Sydney (9 February 2002). ‘Important Oddworld Forums Announcement’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedskype1 - ↑ Abe Babe (13 April 2004). ‘New Layout’. Forum Suggestions & Help. Oddworld Forums.