The Abyss
From The Abyss Wiki
The Abyss is a community that could be considered an offshoot of The NewDoom Forums.
Contents |
History
NewDoom
- See full article: NewDoom
The Abyss began its life at the heart of a rebellion against the ham-fisted moderation and administration on behalf of NewDoom maintainer Phoebus. Many users wished to be able to debate current events and discuss more elevated matters such as religion and philosophy, of which requests were denied. Upset with the restrictive rules and censorship, Rustyslacker took matters into his own hands and created the first incarnation of The Abyss at Freeboards.net.
First Generation
Initially, it was an invitation-only community, comprised mostly of concurrent NewDoom members, as well as a few of Rusty's close personal friends. Most of The Abyss' most prolific members began their posting careers on the original forums, including Nomad, Fatal, g6672d, Ace Sigma, and the infamous Cary.
The success of the original Abyss was short lived, however. Not too long after it was started, Phoebus got the hint and opened the "Politics" and "Current Events" sections on NewDoom, and The Abyss's original purpose was no longer relevant. Rusty, in haste, closed and locked The Abyss thinking that its purpose had been outlived.
It is unknown exactly how long the first Abyss lasted, but it is estimated to have only been in service for about a month before being closed down.
Second Generation
Things seemed to have cooled down on NewDoom for a short while, and the original The Abyss had become not more than a fond memory to the few that had participated. However, after a time many of the conditions that had spawned the first Abyss began to crop up again; forum members were mysteriously banned for little or no apparent reason, the more restrictive rules began to come more into play again, as well as censorship of relatively harmless topics. Again appalled by the handling of things around NewDoom, Rustyslacker took the initiative to re-open The Abyss. However, the original location was locked previously, and he had forgotten the password required to get back into it.
So instead, The Abyss was created in a new location at Invisionfree.com, only a few months after first Abyss had been created, on November 27, 2006. Many of the previous members of The Abyss were invited to the new location, as well as quite a few new faces. Most notably Osiris, Raptor, Kekkimaru, Jethro/Blue, CrazedImp, and a few others.
The second generation Abyss managed to last for two years[2], to the amazement of most of the membership. The community, however small, had grown and evolved through and through to be a strong group of friends and would continue to grow for some time.
Not too long after the second Abyss birthday, some of the membership decided that it should be about time to improve things around The Abyss; make it more accommodating to new members and increase the scope of the community as a whole. The largest most agreed upon thing was that the forums desperately needed to be upgraded; Invisionfree at that point had been running on several year old Invision Power Board software, and its age was beginning to show in many of the features (or rather, the lack thereof). So, Rusty did some research and found that the owners of Invisionfree had created a new, proprietary format forum service called Zetaboards and that The Abyss could be put on a queue to be converted to the new software. Rusty posted a poll asking whether the forums should be converted, and the response was unanimous[3].
Before it was ever converted, however, this proved to not quite be enough to quite satisfy the membership's desires for something more of the community. The biggest argument was that The Abyss deserved its own domain for more freedom and room to spread out for development. What transpired next spurred the third incarnation of The Abyss to rear it's ugly head.
Third Generation
In January 2009, long time member Nomad bought hosting space and started the domain Internetlantic.com. Soon negotiations were underway to introduce The Abyss to a new home, and a decision was finally made that Internetlantic.com would be the new location.
Since Invisionfree did not offer copies of the databases for hosted forums, at first the plan was to attempt to back up the forums with a Python based program that would crawl the forums and dump the appropriate information into a phpBB compatible database file that could be uploaded to the new host, but unfortunately the process did not end up working as planned. The member list and the forum structure was preserved, but none of the posts could be transferred to the new host, so it was ultimately decided to start fresh with the new software.
The New Abyss, or "Newbyssia" officially began its life on January 28, 2009. Not too long afterward, in March, Wordpress blog software was installed on the Abyss Main Page in attempt to expand The Abyss's scope to include editorials and miscellaneous articles.
Later in April, NewDoom maintainer Phoebus made the announcement that come June 1st, NewDoom would be closed down. The community was upset, but largely accepting of the idea; however soon after it was announced that NewDoom would change servers and continue its life. However, soon after the server change things took a turn for the worst.
- See full story: NewDoom: MGE Shut-Down
In the aftermath, many upset former NewDoom members joined up to The Abyss to express their disdain, but only a few stuck around; the forums also began to officially cover Doom related topics, though Doom related traffic has remained fairly low. After the dust settled, the forums went back to business as usual. a few of the new regulars included Acyclitor, Ill, and Darkwave0000.
Terminology
- See full article: Abyss Terminology
Notes
References
- ^ Image depicting a private message from Rustyslacker to Nomad about the original "The Abyss" messageboard: Media:Rusty-abyss-pm.png
- ^ Abyss thread "Happy Birthday.... (To The Abyss)"
- ^ The Abyss thread "ZETABOARDS (I AM SHOUTNG)"
The Prose Edda
Long, long ago, there was a country run by an ancient god of Fear. The tyrannical deity rampaged through his realm, savagely and brutally quelling every discussion and query that he did not like. Many were banished amidst the chaos, and the peasants rebelled.
The tyrant proclaimed, "If you don't like the rules, start your own country, you fags!"
And lo, our hero Rustyslacker did just that. He sailed across the Internetlantic Ocean and founded a new nation, which he dubbed Abyssia. A land where its inhabitants could enjoy the right of freedom of speech, as well as the freedom to be a complete dumbass without fear of persecu--well, without being banished.
The country flourished for a short while, but the infrastructure was poor and the communication system was obsolete. Soon afterward the hectic state of the immigrants' homeland died down and many of the Abyssians returned to their familiar surroundings. Our Hero, in a panicked state, abandoned his newfound country and put a curse on the lands so that no man would ever return.
Life back in the Doomed lands was bleak, but most of the residents were used to it. Until one day, when the vengeful god returned and wreaked his cruel and unfair wrath upon the lands. The lack of freedoms that many inhabitants previously longed for began to surface once again, and the Hero was called upon to lead the rebels to yet another new land!
They sailed once again through the Internetlantic Ocean, and found their new home. The New land of Abyssia was formed, and once again it flourished. Throughout the era, it has gone through many triumphs against marauding barbarians, and many hardships amongst the its own people. But to this day, after two long epochs, the nation lives strong, and it's peoples hold their banners high above their heads.
The land of Abyssia shall be known across all the lands as one built on victory over a great evil.See Also
External Links
- The Abyss Main Site
- The old Abyss forums (Locked from posting)
