History of Bartertown?

[friar.tuck]

Greetings Bartertown brethren,

Just a post to say two things.

Thank you for this site. While I do not have a heavy trading volume, I have learned a lot and have met some very nice folks along the way. (Even picked up a local FOW player through a trade)... I recognize that a lot of people put in a lot of time (on a volunteer effort) to make this work and it is appreciated.

So here is my question: What's the history of Bartertown? How did this originally develop? When it was started, did they have any idea it would grow the way it has? Was it meant to become an international trading platform or was it originally intended to serve a local community? What is the vision for the future? Where is it heading in the years to come?

Just curious how we got where we are today and where we may go with it tomorrow...

Thanks everyone for making this online community a success! May all your die rolls be sixes...

[kturock]

The people who can answer this best, are less frequently on the site.
If you look at members list and look at the oldest members, you'll see who were the 1st members and who started the list.
I started back in the mid 1990's. [check my refs and you'll see some from back then.]

Trademaster Adam started b-town on his colleges servers. I don't recall which school it was.
After he graduated, he kept using the site. It kept growing and since he was no longer a student, and was using tons of bandwidth; he was asked to leave.
He then set up btown and asked for donations and sponsers to cover the costs.
Adam became busy with RL and Lin took over the tech end.
It's since grown and moderators and watchmen have been added.

That's a short version.

[MagickalMemories]

So here is my question: What's the history of Bartertown?

It was born a poor black child...


kt's hit much of the nail on the head.

It started in 1996. It was a project of TrademasterAdam for college that just never died.
I started here, myself, in 2002. At that time Linrandir was already an Administrator.
Over time, as the site grew, Mods were added to the fold, then the Watchmen were created as a kind of "introductory" staff member to help with a lot of the little things going on. Essentially, they were like "helpers," so to speak. They watched out for anything that needed Mod or Admin attention and reported it. As time went on, they were folded into staff more thoroughly and given more duties and abilities. While still not full fledged Moderators, they're a kind of "Moderator-Light" LOL.

In 2003 (this was before the Watch was added as staff), we were upgraded from the original incarnation -often referred to as "the scrolling boards," due to the fact that everything posted to one list and you had to scroll through it, title by title- to phpbb bulletin board software.

I don't think Adam really had any expectations for what it would eventually become. Honestly, I doubt that he expected it to get as big as it has. Early members were random and scattered. While there were certainly clusters of people who knew each other, you'll occasionally see (in references) that people just kind of "found" the place.

The vision for the future is, in a way, status quo. It's not that we don't intend to change anything. Rather, we intend to continue handling change as we have in the past; only when necessary. As more tools (and time to implement them) become available to us, we continue to add little functionalities for everyone and some for just BT+ members.

We're not trying to always change, but we are always looking to adapt, whether it be to needs of our users or ourselves (as staff). Our rules have been tested and tweaked over many MANY years, as has... well, just about everything else related to the site.

I hope that helps give some insight.

Eric

[kturock]

MM, you recall if it was U of Kansas or U of Arkansas?

The last part of the original boards were .edu and either kan or akan.

[MEDEVL]

I'm not sure what school but I do know Adam was in Kansas back then.

[MagickalMemories]

MM, you recall if it was U of Kansas or U of Arkansas?

The last part of the original boards were .edu and either kan or akan.

When I joined the site in 2002, it was bartertown.org. If you typed in bartertown.com, it redirected you to the .org site.

Eric

[Imaginos]

I thought it started earlier than 1996. You can see my trade history goes back to 9-5-96. IIRC, there was a server reset at that time which is why my early feedback all shows on that same date.

[kturock]

My refs don't show all of my refs from 1996. a seach on my Name shows all, but a check on my account name shows only back to 2006.

MM, is there anyway you can correct that?

[tordeck]

I think the ITL system only shows the most recent x (not sure of how big x is) refs. Take Pork for example. He has like a million refs but you cant see them all.

[MagickalMemories]

I thought it started earlier than 1996. You can see my trade history goes back to 9-5-96. IIRC, there was a server reset at that time which is why my early feedback all shows on that same date.

From my understanding, 1996 was the start year. There may have been something that happened in 96, though.
I'm sure that, once Lin gets his butt back online, he'll be able to clear up any miscommunications.

My refs don't show all of my refs from 1996. a seach on my Name shows all, but a check on my account name shows only back to 2006.

MM, is there anyway you can correct that?

Nope. Sorry. I have no access to the ITL in that fashion. Plarz may be able to help you, though. Email the admin@bartertown email address. He has that funneled directly to him.

I think the ITL system only shows the most recent x (not sure of how big x is) refs. Take Pork for example. He has like a million refs but you cant see them all.

Not as far as I know.
Have you counted how many show up there? Remember that one ref is 2 points... so, 1000 ref's = a 2000 score (don't know what Pork's up to now, but I know it's more than that).

Eric

[tordeck]

I think the ITL system only shows the most recent x (not sure of how big x is) refs. Take Pork for example. He has like a million refs but you cant see them all.

Not as far as I know.
Have you counted how many show up there? Remember that one ref is 2 points... so, 1000 ref's = a 2000 score (don't know what Pork's up to now, but I know it's more than that).

Eric

I just counted yours and got ~200 (might have missed one or two) and even if you times that by 2 it does not equal your current ref status of 578.

[MagickalMemories]

Odd. I counted them and got 289.
What's the oldest one you can see on there?

Eric

[imp522]

Odd. I counted them and got 289.
What's the oldest one you can see on there?

Eric

10-25-2007 ,

my oldest one shows 10-27-2008

[Adunaphel]

My most recent is in 2009, which isn't even close to the most recent. I was on the original boards back in 98 or 99. I did have a different member name, but those references got pulled forward when we got all fancy with the new board.

Karl

[MagickalMemories]

Odd.
I wonder if that's something the Mechanic can shed light on.
I'll have to email him about that.

Eric