The story of Alt Strek Swars

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Mr. Oragahn
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The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:13 pm

If you know anything about that place, please share your information.
The people, the content, the style, the high profile members, the ideas, where it came from, what was the point, why it closed, where are its members, etc.
I'm not even sure I got the name right.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Tyralak » Mon Sep 06, 2010 5:13 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:If you know anything about that place, please share your information.
The people, the content, the style, the high profile members, the ideas, where it came from, what was the point, why it closed, where are its members, etc.
I'm not even sure I got the name right.
alt.startrek.vs.starwars I'm intimately acquainted with the place, given that I sent the Usenet create request for it back in 1997. It really was the first serious place dedicated to the VS debate. That debate had been going on for years, of course, but there wasn't a place set aside for it. Most of the time, the debates happened at alt.startrek and rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc (RASSM) The problem with that was, most of the people in those respective groups hated the VS debate. They viewed it as, at best spam, at worst trolling. So, alt.startrek.vs.starwars (ASVS) was created July 28th, 1997. A list of membership up until 2003 can be found here. http://www.skayhan.net/ASVS-HN/classic/Fame.htm
The sad thing is, a lot of these memorable threads are disappearing from the Usenet archives (thanks a lot, Google). Pretty soon all we're going to have are memories. The general attitude and tone of the place was what you would expect if 4Chan and TrekBBS had a child together. It had a "Spit in the eye of the dragon" mentality, a lot of which can be traced back to one of our earliest members Cronan S. Thompson. A lot of the high profile members are names you all know. Myself, Mike Wong, Darkstar, Dalton, Wayne Poe, Raycav, The Baron, Thelea, Enigma, C.S. Strowbridge, John Healey, Chuck Sonnenberg, Sir Nitram, MK Sheppard, Rob Wilson, Ali Tavakoli, Aron Kerkhof, Timothy Jones, Paul Jacques H. Jr, Elim Garak, Celes Knight, Graeme Dice, Weyoun the Dancing Borg, and many more. It didn't so much close as it simply died of attrition. People went to web based boards, and Usenet access became harder to come by. Most major ISPs stopped offering it, so you had to go to a lot of trouble to get access, or use Google Groups (Which is a pain in the ass). I definitely love strolling down memory lane on this stuff, if anyone else wants to chime in.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Sep 06, 2010 6:02 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:If you know anything about that place, please share your information.
The people, the content, the style, the high profile members, the ideas, where it came from, what was the point, why it closed, where are its members, etc.
I'm not even sure I got the name right.
Are you talking about the ng alt.startrek.vs.starwars, or did you mean the web-based forum STrek-vs-SWars.net? They're two very seperate entities, and you seem to be getting their names mixed up.
-Mike

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:48 pm

Go figure. I posted for a year on strek.v.swars and keep messing up the names.
I'm speaking of the boards and eventually the website attached to strek swars.
I ended there, I don't know how, perhaps a PM from one of you actually, while I was bumping heads with SBC staff several years ago with my first account. RSA was still posting at SBC back then. I knew very little of the place, and it disappeared just like that.
I recall there was a main website with some content, but not much.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:50 pm

Tyralak wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:If you know anything about that place, please share your information.
The people, the content, the style, the high profile members, the ideas, where it came from, what was the point, why it closed, where are its members, etc.
I'm not even sure I got the name right.
alt.startrek.vs.starwars I'm intimately acquainted with the place, given that I sent the Usenet create request for it back in 1997. It really was the first serious place dedicated to the VS debate. That debate had been going on for years, of course, but there wasn't a place set aside for it. Most of the time, the debates happened at alt.startrek and rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc (RASSM) The problem with that was, most of the people in those respective groups hated the VS debate. They viewed it as, at best spam, at worst trolling. So, alt.startrek.vs.starwars (ASVS) was created July 28th, 1997. A list of membership up until 2003 can be found here. http://www.skayhan.net/ASVS-HN/classic/Fame.htm
The sad thing is, a lot of these memorable threads are disappearing from the Usenet archives (thanks a lot, Google). Pretty soon all we're going to have are memories. The general attitude and tone of the place was what you would expect if 4Chan and TrekBBS had a child together. It had a "Spit in the eye of the dragon" mentality, a lot of which can be traced back to one of our earliest members Cronan S. Thompson. A lot of the high profile members are names you all know. Myself, Mike Wong, Darkstar, Dalton, Wayne Poe, Raycav, The Baron, Thelea, Enigma, C.S. Strowbridge, John Healey, Chuck Sonnenberg, Sir Nitram, MK Sheppard, Rob Wilson, Ali Tavakoli, Aron Kerkhof, Timothy Jones, Paul Jacques H. Jr, Elim Garak, Celes Knight, Graeme Dice, Weyoun the Dancing Borg, and many more. It didn't so much close as it simply died of attrition. People went to web based boards, and Usenet access became harder to come by. Most major ISPs stopped offering it, so you had to go to a lot of trouble to get access, or use Google Groups (Which is a pain in the ass). I definitely love strolling down memory lane on this stuff, if anyone else wants to chime in.
Talk of those as well, now that I messed up the names, I say we have a discussion about both. :)

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Sep 06, 2010 11:39 pm

A rough and simple history of the Strek-v-Swars.net forum is available in this article from the SFJN Database. The only quick thing I might add are the regulars, who included a number of our current regulars, such as Robert Scott Anderson (Darkstar, Guardian 2000, ect), Kane Starkiller, myself, The Dude (then known as Corporal Kendall), Kazeite, Dakarne (now known as Narsil), and Gstone. Vympel (Leo1), and probably Point45 were all there along with Swede the Mange (known simply as The Swede) who are currently SBC and SDN regulars. I don't know what happened to Captain Newland, Big Hairy Mountain Man, or Weyon the Dancing Borg. Most of us moved on to ST-v-SW.net's second attempt at a forum for several months, and then when that went under, we all moved to JMS' forum. The rest, of course, is history.
-Mike

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by The Dude » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:11 am

I had forgotten all about that forum. I only have vague memories of it now but most of them good.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Sep 07, 2010 3:08 pm

Was it less Trekkie than JMS' board?

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by sonofccn » Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:01 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Was it less Trekkie than JMS' board?
It had a stronger Pro-Wars presence if that is what you mean. Which led to some lively debates if I remember correctly. Overall very fun while it lasted.

For anyone who knows, and please forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the forum supposed to be "resurected" if I may use that word by another debater or did my brain stroke off again? If it hasn't does anyone know whatever happened?

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Tyralak » Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:29 pm

sonofccn wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Was it less Trekkie than JMS' board?
It had a stronger Pro-Wars presence if that is what you mean. Which led to some lively debates if I remember correctly. Overall very fun while it lasted.

For anyone who knows, and please forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the forum supposed to be "resurected" if I may use that word by another debater or did my brain stroke off again? If it hasn't does anyone know whatever happened?
I don't really know. I never actually visited it while it was up, I only know of it in the past tense.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:32 pm

sonofccn wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Was it less Trekkie than JMS' board?
It had a stronger Pro-Wars presence if that is what you mean. Which led to some lively debates if I remember correctly. Overall very fun while it lasted.

For anyone who knows, and please forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the forum supposed to be "resurected" if I may use that word by another debater or did my brain stroke off again? If it hasn't does anyone know whatever happened?
That's what I thought. I remember something along those lines. For one, I don't get why people who close a discussion board don't wrap the whole forum file and share it.
I've seen many and huge geeky/tech forums get lost so miserably.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:58 pm

Captain Newland himself was pro-Trek,and some of his rules tended to reflect that in following RSA's own concept of SW canon. That is only the movies, the movies' novelizations, scripts, and NPR radioplays were true canon. Everything else was the parallel, non-canon universe of the EU, and that happened to also incude the ICS books. Newland was good enough to provide a forum section where people could discuss Versus scenarios with the non-canon of both universes, and that did get interesting.

But the best versus debates occured in the main section where people like Kane, Swede, and Vympel had to rely on actually presenting the case for superior SW firepower and technology without being able to wave their Holy Bible of the AoTC ICS for da Winz. Since Captain Newland originally was on the ball in giving equal enforcement of the rules, things stayed under control, and as The Dude said, mostly a lot of fond memories are the result. So good enforcement of the rules, combined with roughly equal numbers of pro-Trek and Wars member made for good times.
-Mike

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Tyralak » Wed Sep 08, 2010 4:21 am

I seem to remember you posting quite a bit at alt.startrek back in those years, Mike (1997ish) Unless someone else happened to have your same name. ;)
Last edited by Tyralak on Wed Sep 08, 2010 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by Mike DiCenso » Wed Sep 08, 2010 4:59 am

Some posts of mine wound up on asvs because of cross-posting, and more recently at least several years ago recent), I laid the smackdown on Graeme Dice over the true lower limits of the TESB asteroid turbolaser firepower. Check through the Empire vs Borg (Deja Vu) thread as from even further back. And for my pre-asvs days, check out the "GALAXY CLASS STARSHIP VS. IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER" thread from 1995. The thread that started it all.
-Mike

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Re: The story of Alt Strek Swars

Post by 2046 » Sat Sep 18, 2010 8:52 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:Most of us moved on to ST-v-SW.net's second attempt at a forum for several months, and then when that went under
I had two?

I thought I only had one. I know some other dude offered to host and run a dedicated one and I think I might've linked to him, but I don't think I ever actually posted there.

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