What happened?

[cigar joe]

This was posted on the Black Board Forum

All is quiet along the Potomac tonight, but it is worth remembering that in the dark past there were some battles fought here that were as violent as anything that happened South of the Mason Dixon line. To wit, "Back Alley Noir" was founded by secessionists who departed from the Blackboard after the hostilities. The current requirement of logging on to the Blackboard by entering your user name and a secret password is a testimonial to those unpleasant times.

So exactly what happened? It would be nice if somebody gave us a bit of background.

[Steve-O]

A few of us used to use The Blackboard message board (at least 3 years ago now). The software was ancient at the time -- posts would disappear after 30 days (that's how the NOTW page started - so peoples reviews wouldn't just disappear); there were rules were we couldn't post about DVD sales or you'd be banned (the board at the time was tied into a home-made pirate DVDs of noirs record off TV for sale. Any mention of other sales or internet sharing was prohibited). That sort of thing. So the guy running it at the time (who was just about to abandoned it) said, "If you don't like it leave. If you can do better go ahead." So I did.

There are only a few of us left from the Blackboard and there are even many that are members of both boards today. The Blackboard isn't under the same management as it was (so I can't comment on how it's run today)...

I don't hold a grudge about The Blackboard. I simply created BAN for noir fans and myself and I'm happy with the outcome. I've reached out to them in the past to see if they wanted to combine the boards, or run contests on both sites and the response was a simple "not interested."

Not that big of a story... the hostile folks mentioned in the quote above don't participate at BAN anymore. I certainly wasn't hostile to anyone.