Members Anderton Posted December 8, 2015 Members Share Posted December 8, 2015 Every now and then I'll look for something on the internet and instead of getting a 404 or a redirect, I'll end up at a site that looks like it was just...abandoned. For example, in answering the thread about online jamming, I wanted to see what digitalmusician.net was up to. It was kind of like stepping through the ruins of an old mining town...the forum had most recent posts as a couple years ago, although amazingly, there was a forlorn post from 12 weeks ago asking if there would ever be a 64-bit version of the collaboration plug-in... Then I checked out jam2jam, and found a forum frozen in time...the last post was 2013, but aside from that, pretty much all the "last posts" were dated from 2008 to 2010. Then there are ones like Jamglue.com, where you arrive at a screen that says "Jamglue.com has shut down"...as if a sandstorm came by, and buried the town forever. Then there's Zipjam, which appears to be intact, until in the counter you see there's 1 guest online, and you realize it's you. When I was a kid in Europe, I was fascinated by ruins of old castles and vestiges of the Roman empire. These old web sites are sort of like time capsules of people urging you to "sign up and check out the free trial!", which disappeared into the internet's black hole years ago. Interesting. Run across any archaeological digs of your own lately? I can't wait until we run across the first haunted internet site... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Ghost towns. As a curious person as well as a night photographer, I love exploring ghost towns. But so far, physical ones. I've never heard of any of those sites that you've mentioned, I don't think. I'm assuming that sites like this keep their content up to act as a resource? Or is it more neglectful and less altruistic than that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted December 9, 2015 Author Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Ghost towns. As a curious person as well as a night photographer, I love exploring ghost towns. But so far, physical ones. I've never heard of any of those sites that you've mentioned, I don't think. I'm assuming that sites like this keep their content up to act as a resource? Or is it more neglectful and less altruistic than that? I have no idea. Only the ghosts know...and I can't hear them over the wind rustling in the trees, and the occasional cry of a coyote off in the distance. But is the coyote real, or one of the ghosts... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted December 9, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 Sometimes I click on a favorites link that I haven't touched in a while, to discover the site is gone and the domain name is up for grabs again. I see this more often than an abandoned but still running ghost town site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Years and years ago, when I was still on dial-up, I had a webpage on Flashnet. Many years later, after FlashNet had crashed ,burned, been sold or absorbed, I typed in the address for the old webpage and it was still there. Evidently they hadn't done a very good job of flushing the servers. I frequently end up on webpages or Forums that haven't had activity in years. I've hit topics here that haven't had posts or comments for years.Kinda creepy. You wonder if those posters still walk the earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 The Blogosphere has more ghost towns than living ones, that's for sure. Kind of sad, but blogs are such a time drain and hard to maintain for the long haul. The old VS-Planet website for users of Roland VS recorders is getting pretty ghostly. That was a rockin' site for a long time, almost like a chat room at times the posts were so fast and furious, but still full of top-notch info from serious posters. What's Second Life like these days? Is it a graveyard? nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mark L Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 The Asylum hasn't quite become a ghost town just yet, but it's well on its way to achieving ghost town status Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Cue Ballad of Harmony Central. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted December 9, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 I recall a few of the jam sites. About all I remember about them was how unlike live jamming they were like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 The old Mackie forum had a slow death. It was pretty vibrant in the late 90s up until 2007 or so. Then one day it was no longer there. Kind of sad because you get to know people and suddenly all of those connections are gone and this was before FB. At least with FB, I can check in with people from HC and see what they actually look like and you kind of get a better idea of what they`re really about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Sadly, my empires of dust are mostly that -- except for what those friendly bots at the WayBackMachine (aka the Internet Archive, www.archive.org ) have preserved... Here's the oldest I could find, from about 17 years ago... my first domain name -- the rather oddly chosen Swervomation. https://web.archive.org/web/20010509...h.com/tkmajor/ EDIT: OK! NOW I'm bummed! My TRIPOD page is 404'd! http://members.tripod.com/~TKMajor OTOH, I find that my succeeding domain (which still exists as a kind of utility site for me) had a front page oddly suited to today's mobile phones... https://web.archive.org/web/20010516....bluetrip.com/ Better yet -- I just discovered that some of the long review threads I was writing on the old Mp3.com actually go preserved! I'd forgotten I was even doing that. Some 'great' stuff... My favorite thread title: Drunk & Alone Reviews. [Worth noting I hadn't drank alcohol in ~6 years at that point. Long shadows. ] https://web.archive.org/web/20010604...tegory_id=3001 And -- what a trip! -- here's the MP3.com main artists' forum, four weeks into the new millennium. (As I measure millenniums, not as Prince and most folks do, mind you. A year and four weeks to those folks.) Yes... and complete with you-play-mine-I'll-play-four-of-yours 'swapping' threads... Ah, the good ol' days... https://web.archive.org/web/20010708...tegory_id=3001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bookumdano4 Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 I have a bizarre sense of humor and I think it would be cool to purposely create a ghost town forum page. If I knew how to do it, I know what I'd do. A geocities type look (or other garish.... or faded sepia-look) audio forum where the last post was say, 1995, the arguments were say, over 8bit vs 16 bit, or "why are 500mb hard drives so expensive where each guy's avatar was now a skeleton or dead guy hunched over a desk where you couldn't see a face, the moderator is a skeleton dressed in rock stage clothing or hat etc, cobwebs on the topics, occasional tumbleweed blowing across the page, all referenced sound clips lead to wind howling across a desert, a new member sign-up page that requires you to list your system and only allows system choices of "286/dos", "386dos", Pentium/windows3.1, "PentiumWin95", or "Mac Plus". I'd start posting to that thing in a millisecond. But of course, the ghost town page would be locked for new posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted December 9, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 I have a bizarre sense of humor and I think it would be cool to purposely create a ghost town forum page. If I knew how to do it, I know what I'd do. A geocities type look (or other garish.... or faded sepia-look) audio forum where the last post was say, 1995, the arguments were say, over 8bit vs 16 bit, or "why are 500mb hard drives so expensive where each guy's avatar was now a skeleton or dead guy hunched over a desk where you couldn't see a face, the moderator is a skeleton dressed in rock stage clothing or hat etc, cobwebs on the topics, occasional tumbleweed blowing across the page, all referenced sound clips lead to wind howling across a desert, a new member sign-up page that requires you to list your system and only allows system choices of "286/dos", "386dos", Pentium/windows3.1, "PentiumWin95", or "Mac Plus". I'd start posting to that thing in a millisecond. But of course, the ghost town page would be locked for new posts. A decent coder could really have fun with this...don't lock the pages. But any submission gets "translated" (that's where the good coder come in) into a relic page. Times and dates get moved back, names of Presidents and artists get switched to what was in vogue at the time you select. A virtual Wayback Machine of sorts.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 Ghost towns. As a curious person as well as a night photographer, I love exploring ghost towns. But so far, physical ones. I've never heard of any of those sites that you've mentioned, I don't think. I'm assuming that sites like this keep their content up to act as a resource? Or is it more neglectful and less altruistic than that? Just don't fall through or otherwise get trapped in an abandoned mine shaft or well or such. Judging from TV, this must happen all the time, particularly if you're the plucky, heroic type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 9, 2015 Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 I have a bizarre sense of humor and I think it would be cool to purposely create a ghost town forum page. If I knew how to do it, I know what I'd do. A geocities type look (or other garish.... or faded sepia-look) audio forum where the last post was say, 1995, the arguments were say, over 8bit vs 16 bit, or "why are 500mb hard drives so expensive where each guy's avatar was now a skeleton or dead guy hunched over a desk where you couldn't see a face, the moderator is a skeleton dressed in rock stage clothing or hat etc, cobwebs on the topics, occasional tumbleweed blowing across the page, all referenced sound clips lead to wind howling across a desert, a new member sign-up page that requires you to list your system and only allows system choices of "286/dos", "386dos", Pentium/windows3.1, "PentiumWin95", or "Mac Plus". I'd start posting to that thing in a millisecond. But of course, the ghost town page would be locked for new posts. Make sure you use lots of animated gif's, not of the photo/video variety, but rather the chunky graphics of super-low-bit web cheez. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted December 9, 2015 Author Members Share Posted December 9, 2015 What's Second Life like these days? Is it a graveyard? I'm curious about that too, was wondering about the other day. It was going to be the next MySpace. Maybe it was the next MySpace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 10, 2015 Members Share Posted December 10, 2015 Just don't fall through or otherwise get trapped in an abandoned mine shaft or well or such. Judging from TV, this must happen all the time, particularly if you're the plucky, heroic type. Not something I want to do. I don't generally go for mine shafts. I scout the places during the day, wear boots with steel shanks, and am really careful. I am going in these places at night, and don't need to jack myself up. I'm most concerned about putting my foot through something and hurting myself, twisting an ankle, or having nails go through my shoe. The steel shank takes care of the latter, the fact that it's a boot helps curb the possibility of twisted ankles, and as for the rest, I just need to be smart and careful. Most of the time, it's really really obvious where the floor is and what is solid (a lot of places I go into have hard packed dirt or even cement, and if they have rotten floorboards throughout and are raised, I generally don't go in there at night). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted December 10, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 I saw what you did there. Nothing wrong with being another MySpace. At 45, Tom Anderson is essentially retired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted December 10, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 I'm curious about that too, was wondering about the other day. It was going to be the next MySpace. Maybe it was the next MySpace. Jeff The Weasel was active on Second Life for a while, performing regular concerts from his dining room. Haven't heard anything of Second Life or Jeff for a while now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mandolin Picker Posted December 10, 2015 Members Share Posted December 10, 2015 What's Second Life like these days? Is it a graveyard? nat whilk ii Its still around - http://secondlife.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members veracohr Posted December 12, 2015 Members Share Posted December 12, 2015 A couple years ago a forum for my local psytrance scene had dwindled to nothing & the site owner was talking about shutting it down. It was a really small scene & the regulars migrated to Facebook to talk to each other. Somehow the forum still exists, pretty much ghost town-like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted December 13, 2015 Members Share Posted December 13, 2015 So psis are fake? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted December 14, 2015 Members Share Posted December 14, 2015 I've run across a few ghost towns; some mostly intact and others with lots of broken links. I even have one of my own ghost towns on Comcast where I had a personal website. I haven't had Comcast for years. I can't log in to take my old site down, I'm not paying for it anymore, but there it is just sitting there waiting for someone to notice I guess. I use the Wayback Machine a lot to visit old sites that still have resources the new sites have taken down, or for companies that have gone out of business. Robots that prevent the Internet Archive from taking snaps are of the devil. It should be against the law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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