The old board
Hi D67,
I was active on the old board for many years before it converted to the new board. Back in those days it was known first as the "Gay Speedo Fantasy Board" then later the "Gay" was dropped (good move) at the request of some posters who were not gay. I think I started in the late 1990's, so the board goes back at least that far. I actually started posting my earliest stories there, so the loss of those archives took with it my first efforts at story writing on the board.
The biggest two differences were that there was no organization to the board, so stories, selling posts, and puzzles were all mixed in with conversational posts. Second was that you did not have to be a member and there was no sign in. Some of the posters from the old board used the same name when they came to the new one, others may have changed names. I was STS in both, but my earliest days I posted under a different name. I don't recall why I changed, but I think it was that another poster was using a name close to mine so I changed to avoid confusion.
Like this board, some posts at time got snippy. However, if you can imagine, it was a bigger deal back then because the old board had total anonymity (no sign in) so people would post nasty comments regularly. I don't think there was a private message feature (at least I don't remember there being one), so you had no way to communicate except on the open forum.
Topics did not float to the top when new posts were added, so strings just faded away and the topic would restart on a new string. However most of the conversation was the same as today, talk about swimsuits. There was also a "live chat" feature that was active at times, a chat room where you could banter live. That was a fun feature.
There are varied opinions on the old versus new. The old board was simple, the new one is more structured. I like the new board far better. First, the new one has a better mix of gay and straight (and bi) members, so there is more variety in topics. Second, the PM feature is a nice way to correspond with closer friendships you develop. Third, the topic areas make things easier to find and the floating posts, keeping current stuff up top makes sense.
Hope this helps, I am sure other long time members can add more.
STS
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