History of this Forum

[Ring Bearer]

Hey! I was wondering if somebody on this website has ever tried to organise how this forum has changed over the years(decades)?
I actually saw a few posts from 2002 that had "Guest" written on them--I don't think that is allowed now...

This forum has an interesting group of people.

Also, a few members have actually been successful in their careers from being just teens/young adults here on this forum--obviously most of them have left now.
Actually, I today saw that many who were very young when they joined have turned 40!
There are many who joined as teens(also some pre-teens) that are now pretty old.

Do you guys have some sort of real world social media connection with each other--like maybe a Facebook group?

[Mithadan]

I have frequently posted on the history of the Barrow-Downs. The trick will be finding those posts. I will see what I can do or re-write it. I will note that the history of this site is necessarily very specific to the individual member and their experiences. Someone who frequents the Movies forum will not have the same point of view as someone who posts in Books. So others should chime in here.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

There is a Facebook group - private, so if you want to join, you need to contact one of us for an invitation. It's located here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204573651/

Quite a few of us have met in person at various Tolkien Society events and conferences as well as at self-organized moots. Others have not yet had that opportunity.

[Ring Bearer]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

There is a Facebook group - private, so if you want to join, you need to contact one of us for an invitation. It's located here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204573651/

The group is 15 years old! I thought Facebook got popular in the late 2000s.

[Mithadan]

As I said above, the history of this site is subjective; varying based upon point of view. To place my point of view into context, I am one of the few-remaining active administrators of these boards. By “active,” I mean that I still post here, and I do not mean to imply that others ignore this site’s operations or never peek in. By “administrator,” I mean that I keep an eye on things. I have no particular expertise (or interest) in the technical aspects of this site’s operations; if the boards go down, I reach out to others. As an administrator, I have primarily been a traffic cop, and even here these duties have been delegated to others over the years. But I do occasionally pop in and ban a spammer, soothe bruised egos, and put out fires (or flame wars as the case may be). To complete the framing of my point of view, beyond my obvious interest in Tolkien, this on-line community and its synergies fascinate me. I marvel at the way that our members, from different backgrounds, different countries, and different political/philosophical leanings, are able to interact civilly (more or less) and with respect and tolerance based upon a common intellectual interest.

It would have been very easy for me to fade away and disappear over the last several years. Indeed, I nearly did, first perhaps unintentionally but later with conscious consideration. I also considered letting “Mithadan” go and starting up anew with a different screen name and alter ego (I once wrote an essay entitled “I am not Mithadan,” discussing the concept of on-line personas). While I miss many members that have drifted off over the years, I cannot blame them. After spending a year or three indulging one’s Tolkien interests, it is not surprising that people are figuratively dragged away by their schools, their jobs and professions, and their families. For whatever reason, even if I disappeared for a day, a month, or a season, I always returned to peek in and, almost invariably, I would end up posting.

I mentioned above prior posts discussing or relating to this subject, I did a little searching (I hate the search function on this board – not user friendly or fully functional) and found several such posts. Rather than link them here, since I have decided to post a magnum opus, THE HISTORY OF THE BARROW-DOWNS, I will only point you all to a single thread that I started many years ago (and I invite you to post on it if the fit takes you) discussing my personal, pre-internet, history with Tolkien’s works. https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/II...arrowdowns.com Anyway, what follows is my version (subjective) of the History of the Barrow-Downs.

Context is important. As mentioned in my post, linked above, by the late 1990s I had entered into a new Tolkien phase, my discovery of HoME linked with rereading the primary works more than once. At this time, the internet was becoming a commonplace thing and, one day, I typed “Tolkien” into whatever search engine I was using at the time. I discovered… a wasteland. There were the usual commercial sites trying to sell books or whatever, some lonely fan pages (mostly pictures or a page or two of analysis) and a very few dry academic sites. Over the years that followed, I would occasionally repeat my search. I discovered the on-line mailing lists (difficult to navigate and impossible to search). I heard the first rumblings about plans for the movies. And I ran across my first message boards and did what everyone else does, I watched and skulked in the shadows. The first board I posted to was very small, friendly, and relatively thoughtful; its members disappeared in weeks. I found two relatively well-established boards and tried posting. One was literally hysterical over the upcoming movies (which were in casting at that time) to the exclusion of all else. The second was just becoming infected with movie mania but still had some decent discussions. I made a few posts and was roundly ignored; that board was effectively dominated by its webmaster and a few friends and I was none of the above. I kept looking.

In the spring of 2000, I came across a new message board. It was hosted on EZ-Board (later infamous for its ads and apparently ineffective security), had a hard to read black background with messages displaying in ugly green print. It had (if I recall) three forums: Books; Newcomers; and Movies. I liked that Movie posts had their own forum; to this day, I rarely enter that area. On the Books forum, there were perhaps a half-dozen threads. Most had been started by someone nicknamed Barrow-Wight, who was clearly trying to get folks to post. The board either permitted “guests” to post or allowed a user to post under a screen name without signing up. I watched for a while, then started a new thread. I was promptly, if mildly, flamed with “doesn’t this belong in the Newcomers forum…” by someone who I will not name (I know who you are and may yet have my revenge). I have not since been able to find that thread - maybe I posted as a guest. I almost voted with my feet, but decided to try once more, posting in someone else’s thread, and got better and friendlier results. Within a month, I was pretty hooked. I was researching my posts and starting threads. I made several friends, most of whom are long gone. Without realizing what was happening, I had my first experience with the transience of our membership. I interacted quite a bit with two members, Taimar and Dogtrot. One announced that he was moving somewhere where the internet was spotty and never came back. The other simply disappeared.

So, the Downs was created by Barrow-Wight. I think that it began as a splash page with links several months before the forums were added. The earliest date that I have found for anything affiliated with the site is August 1999. The splash page still exists though many of the links and add-ons no longer work. If BW sees this (he does pop in now and again though he rarely posts) I hope that he adds detail and corrects me when I am wrong. While we celebrate our “Birthday” on May 1, which appears to be the date the first thread was opened in the forums, the splash page existed before then. BW was the sole administrator for a while and did a fine job. By the fall of 2000, more forums were added, our membership had increased drastically, and the site had expanded. More content was added to the splash page, such as quizzes and essays. A chat room was added as well, and audio chats were sometimes scheduled. In 2001, we added name-generators, hang-hobbit, and other features. To be clear, “we” as used here with regard to technical matters almost never means me. I left the technical end of things to others.

Barrow-Wight asked Mr. Underhill, Sharku and I to assist him as administrators in late 2000. The need for help was prompted by two concerns. The first was the need to add content. Articles and quizzes were needed. An encyclopedia was under construction. Quite a lot was added during the first few years. BW, Underhill and Sharku in varying degrees took the lead on content. The second concern was the influx of new members both real and (correctly) anticipated. By early 2001, we exceeded 300 members. On October 8, 2001, we had 500 members (for the second time – we migrated the boards from EZ-Board to UBB in mid-2001 and everyone needed to re-register, but some did not). By the end of 2001, we had eclipsed 1000 members. The folks that joined in the pre-movies boom (and at that point, we didn’t know what “boom” meant) fell into two categories. There were a number of members like me who were fans of the books and were just learning about Tolkien on-line resources and communities. There were also a number of members who were curious about the upcoming movies who may or may not have read the books. The steady growth of our membership required oversight, from welcoming new folks to directing traffic (moving threads from one forum to another and explaining why) to outright policing, ranging from friendly advice and correction to warnings, suspensions, and bans. While all the admins took part in oversight, I believe that I kind of took the lead there and in another area, encouraging posting. So while I performed the role of enforcer (an earlier page of photos of the members had a picture of Gregory Peck brandishing a shotgun over my nickname) I better enjoyed the latter role. I started a lot of threads, asked open ended questions, and messaged new members who seemed interested in discussion. I do not recall any specific discussion on the subject, but the admins were pleased when the Downs gained the reputation of being the “serious” or “thoughtful” Tolkien board. By mid-2001, the proliferation of Tolkien message boards had begun. In December 2001, Boston.com named the Barrow-Downs as a Tolkien “mega-site.”

So this is where we were during the first couple of years, until December 2001. And then the first movie came out…

[Inziladun]

Thanks for that, Mith!

I too stumbled upon the Downs among a fairly large number of Tolkien-based EZ Board forums. Why I was looking for Tolkien web forums to begin with is now lost to me, as I am by nature not an outgoing person, and was in fact more than a little nervous of actually posting on a public forum.

What attracted me here were: 1. I think, the theme; the Barrow-Downs always had a distinct "feel" in the book. 2. The color scheme was striking; 3. The cerebral nature of the discussions.

Unlike Mithadan, my first post, responding to a question about the "Variags of Khand", was politely acknowledged by a long-gone member named Gwaihir the Windlord.

Originally Posted by Mithadan

While I miss many members that have drifted off over the years, I cannot blame them. After spending a year or three indulging one’s Tolkien interests, it is not surprising that people are figuratively dragged away by their schools, their jobs and professions, and their families. For whatever reason, even if I disappeared for a day, a month, or a season, I always returned to peek in and, almost invariably, I would end up posting.

Indeed. I have taken "sabbaticals" over the years, not posting much or at all for a while, and since 2019 or so I have found it more and more difficult to find the time for idle web browsing I once had. I still check in here at least once a day, though.

Originally Posted by Mithadan

So this is where we were during the first couple of years, until December 2001. And then the first movie came out…

Now that was fun!

When I learned Peter Jackson (of whom I'd never heard) was making blockbuster films of LOTR, I was rather nonplussed from the start.

I have always held Tolkien's work differently in my heart, from other works of art and fiction. There are reasons for this, which are not relevant to this thread. Suffice it to say, I did not want to see LOTR "modernized" for cinema, stripped of its soul. I was highly skeptical that any of the feel of the beloved books could be captured in a high budget production.
News of casting choices and "additions" like Arwen's enhanced role made me feel vindicated. I made a point of haunting the Movies section, arguing against not merely the way the films were being made, but of their very existence. I just didn't see the need for them.

My opinion was shared by a few others, but we were quite definitely in the minority. That's almost certainly even more so now. I still like reading those threads even today.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

The group is 15 years old! I thought Facebook got popular in the late 2000s.

Well, we did invent the Internet. So there's that.

[Mithadan]

Well, we did invent the Internet. So there's that.

When do I get my royalties?