http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=754242


in reply to The early history of Perlmonks

I don't remember exactly when NodeReaper gained the ability to shut people out of chatter.

The two essential infrastructural nodes were created on 2001-02-02. One, borged users, is the data table containing whatever users are borged at the moment. The other, Borg's Belly, displays that data table. At that time, only gods (presumably) were able to add and delete users in that table. Five days later, the power users group was created, so that specially deputized users other than gods could keep the cb decent.

Alex the Serb joined on 2001-05-27. He didn't post until December of that year, and it's possible he wasn't otherwise active on the site until that time.

There were some significant changes (upgrades) in the borg-related infrastructure in 2002-06.
(Book 'em, Danno - nodelet for the power users group (unused); message - (patch) - implements borg'y stuff; borg - executes the borg command.)
It's possible, I guess, that these were motivated by a surge in troll activity.

Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: The early history of Perlmonks
by tilly (Archbishop) on Mar 31, 2009 at 01:34 UTC
    Thank you for that detail. My very fallible memory suggests that he began occupying chatter much earlier. When I woke up and logged in he was in the middle of a rant. I borged him, then found out that he had been going for 2 hours. That day we added several new power users on different time zones so we wouldn't have a hole while people were asleep in North America.

    I cannot say anything about what happened in 2002-06 because that happened during an extended period when I wasn't here.

        The time period is wrong for that to be the triggering event.
      "I cannot say anything about what happened in 2002-06 because that happened during an extended period when I wasn't here."
      I would suspect that A Level Playing Field, late in 2005, was probably one of the most significant changes at the monastery during that time.

      Cheers,
      Darren

Re^2: The early history of Perlmonks
by Petruchio (Vicar) on Apr 11, 2009 at 22:19 UTC

    These were created just after DiscoStu's extended campaign of stupidity, both in the chatterbox and in nodespace, in January 2001. While there had been trolls before, DiscoStu was the catalyst for the creation of many of the controls we have on the site now; I think users today would be surprised at how minimal the infrastructure was in 2000.

    As far as when the site was opened to the public: I became a user Feb 17, 2000 in order to ask a question, but I had known about the site for some time before that because a "slashbox" for it appeared over on SlashDot (in fact, I was rather annoyed with myself later for having waited so long to join; I was no longer cool for being early!). pschoonveld was a real user, and not a part of BlockStackers, so far as I am aware; he answered a question from CmdrTaco on December 2nd, 1999.

    I think that there was a certain ebullience about the site itself, and the community, early on that we no longer see; you were much more likely to see technical marvels like My 2 cents worth, for instance, and creative posts like Life at the Monastery. Chapter 1. Things have since settled into a routine, which I think was inevitable.

    I also think tilly is overly generous with Alex the Serb, who was a complete ass.

      I trust that Petruchio won't mind if I post this here...

      On 2007-11-15, Petruchio wrote (in the #perlmonks irc channel):

      1999: Tim Vroom gets drunk, launches site based on Everykludge, gifs of text, and Scotch Tape. First troll arrives 2 hours later.

      2000: Tim and CowboyNeal get drunk. CowboyNeal creates a Perlmonks Slashbox for Tim, sending scores of Slashdorks to the new site. Tim creates an XP system, then gives himself 1,000,000 XP when people start kicking his ass.

      2001 is split between people getting pissed off at DiscoStu and people getting pissed off at merlyn. Anti-Troll gear is created, and Perlmonks more or less gets rid of DiscoStu. merlyn remains a more difficult problem.

      Late 2001 or early 2002, vroom gets drunk and makes random users into gods. The site begins a steady decline which continues today.
      I'm not being particularly generous with Alex the Serb. I just am recognizing and empathizing with the obvious fact that he had post traumatic stress disorder. That is tremendously hard to deal with even under the best of conditions, such as is faced by returning soldiers going to a country with lots of resources and lots of trained therapists. It is far, far worse when you're living in a bombed out country where you're being forced to try to cope while basic survival is an issue.

      That said, sympathy notwithstanding, we did what we clearly had to given the needs of our community.

      About psychoonveld, I don't know what to make of that post. The gap between that isolated post and the sudden opening up on Dec 23 makes me wonder.

      pschoonveld was a real user, and not a part of BlockStackers, so far as I am aware; he answered a question from CmdrTaco on December 2nd, 1999.
      As discussed in more detail at Re: The First Ten Perl Monks, it seems that the mysterious pschoonveld, though not officially employed by BlockStackers, was a PerlMonks "insider", a Hope College buddy of vroom, who hung out on the early PerlMonks web site before it opened to the public on 23 Dec 1999.

      CmdrTaco, another Hope College student and PerlMonks insider, is the famous Rob Malda, co-founder of Slashdot.

      What did ever happen to paco?
        He went to Hollywood and became a fim star Paco (2006)