Oddworld Forums

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The Oddworld Forums are an unofficial Internet message board for fans of Oddworld.

History

Oddworldian Forums was first created on ezboard on 11 May 2000 to accompany Oddworldian, the fansite of Sydney Cander.{ref name="FOM10"/> Fan Corner was opened on 30 June 2000 to accomodate fan fiction stories.[1] Some time between 11 and 19 July the message board was renamed Oddworld Forums.[2][3] Sydney made Abe Babe co-administrator of the Forums at the start of July in advance of her opening of Oddworld-Web.[4][5][6]

Sydney and Abe Babe wanted to discontinue the Oddworld Forums on ezboard to switch to an advert-free message board, but neither of them was willing to pay for hosting. Pilot offered to host the new Oddworld Forums, powered by an Ultimate Bulletin Board bootleg of Abe Babe’s, on his personal server at no charge. Sydney and Abe Babe accepted and in return granted Pilot a position moderating the Spoiler Forum, which had been newly created for the release of Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee.

According to accounts by Pilot years later, there came a time when, over the course of a few months, Sydney began "acting strange" and "starting to become spurious in his administrative duties," being unaccountably absent for long periods, immediately banning members for minor misdemeanors without consulting the other Forum leaders, and generally "exuding a strong insecurity". When confronting Sydney with their concerns only resulted in his effectively stating it was "my way or the high way",

Sydney started "acting strange, pretty unpredictable, very defensive, very controlling and authoritative where he didn't need to be; overreacting to things that members were saying and doing, like somebody would post what would today be considered spam and they'd just get a ban right away, no questions asked, no discussion with the other Forum leaders at all


they would be moved to Ultimate Bulletin Board, initially on

ezboard later changed to Ultimate Bulletin Board and eventually vBulletin. It has remained on vBulletin ever since, although in times when the Forums’ server went down a temporary board was created on ezboard.


Staff

References

  1. Cander, Sydney (30 June 2000). ‘Fan corner’. News item on Oddworldian. Archived by the Wayback Machine (23 August 2000).
  2. Kilgour, Kristen (11 July 2000). ‘Oddworld Feature Film’. Message 2485 on the Exoddus Club. Yahoo! Groups.
  3. Cander, Sydney (19 July 2000). ‘Fanart section’. News item on Oddworldian. Archived by the Wayback Machine.
  4. 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).
  5. Cander, Sydney (31 August 2000). ‘Oddworld-Web opens and new fanart’. News item on Oddworldian. Archived by the Wayback Machine (25 April 2001).
  6. Kilgour, Kristen (31 August 2000). ‘Oddworld-Web goes Online’. News item on Oddworld-Web. Archived by the Wayback Machine (1 May 2001).

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