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Old 04-03-2016, 07:58 AM   #1
Rangeet
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Has anyone been on UPN since before I was born?

So, while doing my unofficial "duty" (read: updating a thread once a year) as ASB historian I stumbled upon some interesting dates. I don't know how long UPN's been around, but this version has been around since at least 2000, going by the copyright date, and older versions clearly exist given Talon's "birthday" (which is actually his joindate, wow, dedicated much? :p) and also I remember a conversation with deoxys where he implied UPN was around in 1998.

So, even going just off Talon's joindate, he's been on UPN since before, say, MtG, DLADV, and some people around that age have been born. This is pretty amazing to me. I love factoids like this.

My question is, who's been around since even before that, and is still semi-active today? Kuno? Mozz? Deoxys? Dopple? For reference, my birthdate is Jan 13, 1998. Has anyone been active on any incarnation of UPN before that? Did UPN even exist then?

(Also, mildly related question. Anyone have approximate dates for formation of PASBL and/or FB?)

I think this stuff would be super cool to know!
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Old 04-03-2016, 09:00 AM   #2
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Via Bulbapedia, the current iteration of UPN (with Kuno running the show) has been around since 2002. It was preceded by the Universal Pokemon Network, which was owned by Jaxel from 1999-2001. So if that's accurate I'd say probably not.
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Old 04-03-2016, 01:03 PM   #3
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I have a quick question. What happened in 2007 that made everyone have to re-register?
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Old 04-03-2016, 02:37 PM   #4
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I honestly don't remember if it was the software upgrade or the server crashing.

I'm pretty sure it was the server crashing.
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Old 04-03-2016, 04:55 PM   #5
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I honestly don't remember if it was the software upgrade or the server crashing.

I'm pretty sure it was the server crashing.
The old backups I used to make apparently were all corrupted and weren't salvageable. I think that was the time we were briefly on a different board service and then we went back to vb when we changed servers.
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Old 04-03-2016, 06:02 PM   #6
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1. UPN's age I've always known UPN's web forum to have launched on June 19, 1999. A lot of other UPNers who were around back then agree with this date, but Jaxel has stated on several relatively recent occasions that we're mistaken about the date. So who knows exactly when "UPN" first went up, however you want to define it. What I can tell you is that most of the OG veterans registered in the Summer of '99, I registered on July 14, 1999, and there was a definite community present by the time I signed up. (Members like Kojiro, Kasumi Violet, Kasumi the Mighty, and CPioli were already posting by this point in time.)

2. Who's been around longest I'm definitely the oldest UPNer you're going to find out of the Kuno UPN Regulars pool. I honestly can't say whether AK2 signed up before or after me, I believe it was before. If it was before, then he's the oldest UPNer we have who has posted on UPN within the last twelve months. If we're going to compete by who has an account on Kuno UPN and has used it to post, well then Jaxel wins the contest outright.

All of the names you listed are (to me, hilariously) new/young. Kuno isn't exactly "new"/"young", but he's definitely green by Jaxel-era UPN standards. Back in the '99, 2000 days, I would say that the way the community treated Kuno was an awful awful lot like the way the Kuno UPN community treats a member like blazeVA or Kindrindra. (Specifically. It was that exact sort of chemistry.) So if you think it's crazy that Emi or Kind might one day be the 14-year webmasters of a forum community, just look at Kuno! There was a very strong "veterans vs. newbies" dichotomy on Jaxel UPN and the veterans were pretty cleanly broken down between "veteran by virtue of registration date" and "veteran by virtue of association/hangout." (Not to confuse the matter, but it's like a Venn diagram and most veterans were definitely in the center of the diagram.) The latter was really the social network that ran the show "ran the show" isn't quite right ... more like, was the life blood of the party. In the same way that an older ASBer might gloss over TO posts by newbies but specifically sifts for posts by a Dave or a Jeri, so too did the OG veterans' posts stand out the most on Jaxel UPN. And none of the members you just listed off were really in that group before 2001.

Sometimes people will mention having been on Jaxel UPN (like deoxys) but I have zero memory of it. That's what I'd have to put down for Mozz or Doppel or anyone else in your list minus Kuno who claims to have been on Jaxel UPN. I just flat out don't remember them being there. Kuno was definitely there. I was there, and if you'd enjoy a partial list of the Kuno UPN-registered members who were there that I can recall from memory, then ...
  • Jaxel
  • Iyse (I believe has a Kuno account)
  • Kasumi Violet
  • CPioli
  • AK2
  • NTTC
  • Talon87
  • Lindz
  • NoBS_PiccoloNamek
  • ajnrules
  • Draizuh
  • halloweenjack
  • Kuno
  • ChaosRocket
Emphasis on list being incomplete. List provided in estimated order of registration date from oldest to newest. Could be mistaken. Whatever. Moving on ...

3. UPN and your birthdate UPN the website I am 98% positive did not exist on the Internet before 1999. I seem to recall Jaxel explaining that UPN (the website) was a project he began working on right around January 1999 / February 1999. Things began to coalesce and it wasn't too long before he began looking at webforum options. So if you were born in 1998, I think that rules out the possibility of UPN predating your birth.

The webforum definitely does not predate your birth.

4. ASB's age, FB's age These games are all (as far as I am aware) Kuno UPN additions. Fizzy Bubbles originated on Bulbagarden but found a home on UPN because some of the Kuno UPN's OG were also members of BMG FB. I believe the UPN chapter of ASB enjoys a similar history: UPNers who played it on other webforums brought it over here where it was played by older Kuno UPNers.

I want to say FB celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2014. (I remembered wrong. It was 2012 when this happened.) FB holds its anniversary every year shortly before Halloween. So as a guesstimate, October 2002 would be when Fizzy Bubbles started.

5. My "birthdate" I've used July 14, 1999 for my birthdate on Pokémon webforums for as long as I can remember. It used to be that I'd just leave the field blank. Then I started using the birthday field as a way to identify when I signed up. (Possibly starting around 2003.) But yeah, July 14, 1999 is definitely not the date of my birth.

This was something that used to be a lot more obvious to people when I was in college. Even in 2008, people understood that no 9-year old would be that articulate and that 1999/07/14 had to be a date with special significance to me. But you've indirectly made a sharp point that my plan has gone awry now that we actually have people in the fandom posting on webforums who would've been born in 1999. That still seems crazy to me, just as it seems crazy to you in the reverse that I've been posting on Pokémon webforums since the time you were in diapers. But yeah ... I should probably change my sign-up date outside of UPN if I don't want people to think I'm 17. You guys can just deal.

Last edited by Talon87; 04-03-2016 at 07:26 PM.
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Old 04-03-2016, 06:24 PM   #7
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All of the names you listed are (to me, hilariously) new/young. Kuno isn't exactly "new"/"young", but he's definitely green by Jaxel-era UPN standards. Back in the '99, 2000 days, I would say that the way the community treated Kuno was an awful awful lot like the way the Kuno UPN community treats a member like blazeVA or Kindrindra. (Specifically. It was that exact sort of chemistry.) So if you think it's crazy that Emi or Kind might one day be the 14-year webmasters of a forum community, just look at Kuno! There was a very strong "veterans vs. newbies" dichotomy on Jaxel UPN and the veterans were pretty cleanly broken down between "veteran by virtue of registration date" and "veteran by virtue of association/hangout." (Not to confuse the matter, but it's like a Venn diagram and most veterans were definitely in the center of the diagram.) The latter was really the social network that ran the show "ran the show" isn't quite right ... more like, was the life blood of the party. In the same way that an older ASBer might gloss over TO posts by newbies but specifically sifts for posts by a Dave or a Jeri, so too did the OG veterans' posts stand out the most on Jaxel UPN. And none of the members you just listed off were really in that group before 2001.
I kept to myself a lot on board three. It really wasn't until the refuge that I really became more known (due to smaller forums, etc). After Chaka's forums, there really wasn't anyone who wanted to take the mantle and so no one objected too much to me taking over. I think it was on Chaka's that people started to not like me as much due to me posting more (there was some KtM drama I think with el luchador or whatever his name was). Dami was also a board 3-5er.

I believe ASB was on old UPN then moved to BMG after it went down. Mozz or Hana might know more about that since I didn't participate.
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Old 04-03-2016, 06:25 PM   #8
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I registered sometime in October/November 1999, because I remember coming to the board and people were buzzing about the impending release of Pokemon The First Movie.

Don't remember how exactly I found the board, it may have been through Anime Web Turnpike.
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Old 04-03-2016, 10:53 PM   #9
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Wow, UPN has actually been around that long? I didn't know.

Lol I bet mostly everyone on here was alive before I was born. No crap
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Old 04-03-2016, 11:45 PM   #10
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Cool stuff! Yeah, I figured that I'm just a year or so too old for that, but it's still interesting. I'll try to get dates for the beginning of ASB, even if it's not on UPN. It'll be fairly interesting. I'm a little surprised, actually, because I thought Mozz was a lot older than that, but I'm guessing it was an ASB only thing and perhaps not on UPN.

Also, you'd probably be surprised to know that Emi, Kind, and me are already considered vets of ASB. Well, especially Emi because I/Kin don't ASB anymore, but it's quite interesting to see the changing of the guard to a point.
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Old 04-03-2016, 11:46 PM   #11
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Sometimes people will mention having been on Jaxel UPN (like deoxys) but I have zero memory of it.
I was only ever a lurker, to be fair. I am pretty sure I had an account but I spent most of my time on Bulbagarden. I mainly perused UPN (at the time 'Universal Pokemon Network') for leisurely things, such as Pokedex, episode guides, and trivia. Bulbagarden, I had followed since the days it was a shitty angelfire/geocities site that had a looped MIDI of the Mt. Moon music playing the background - the same time when "Top 100" sites reigned supreme as the primary method of fandom expansion. There were two or three times where Bulbagarden moved and it took me a while to find them again, and eventually I joined the forum and became somewhat active in Fizzy Bubbles in 1999. At some point UPN disappeared, too, and in 2001 Serebii replaced what old-UPN did for me. Then, in 2003, I found UPN again, somehow - pretty sure it was through a Google search (this is when Google started to take off). My dad would take me to his office with him in the summertime and I would basically just sit on the computer all day while he did work. My free time primarily consisted of 1. UPN/Fizzy Bubbles 2. Cartoon Network's Cartoon Orbit and 3. Nickelodeon's equivalent of that, whatever that was called (excellent 13 year old USA Today article on that here).

Anyway back on topic, I did not seriously join UPN until June of 2003, but I did browse old UPN in 1999-2000, though I was a BMGer first and foremost.

Also, if anyone wants a blast of old UPN nostalgia, here you go, and yes, many of the links do work.

To answer your question geet, no one was on UPN before you were born, but when you were still in diapers, definitely.

Last edited by deoxys; 04-03-2016 at 11:52 PM.
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Old 04-04-2016, 12:18 AM   #12
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>Recommended browser: Internet Explorer 4.0
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Old 04-04-2016, 12:22 AM   #13
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>Recommended browser: Internet Explorer 4.0
Well when the alternative was Netscape Navigator or America Online...


I'm pretty sad the jukebox doesn't work, by the way
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Old 04-04-2016, 12:23 AM   #14
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>Recommended browser: Internet Explorer 4.0
Gods what
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Old 04-04-2016, 12:45 AM   #15
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That actually is an excellently designed site for 2000.
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Old 04-04-2016, 01:26 AM   #16
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I had an account on Jaxel's UPN as "Shadow Rider". I had registered on the "Big 3" Pokemon websites featured through the web ring, TPM (#1), Pojo (#2) and BMG (#3). I think UPN was #4. I barely had any presence on Jaxel's UPN before it died, but I've been Doppleganger since Chaka's board (2001).

2007 was also the year of the Al-Qaeda hack. Was that the reason we ended up changing servers?
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Old 04-04-2016, 06:15 AM   #17
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I had an account on Jaxel's UPN as "Shadow Rider". I had registered on the "Big 3" Pokemon websites featured through the web ring, TPM (#1), Pojo (#2) and BMG (#3). I think UPN was #4. I barely had any presence on Jaxel's UPN before it died, but I've been Doppleganger since Chaka's board (2001).

2007 was also the year of the Al-Qaeda hack. Was that the reason we ended up changing servers?
How could you forget Azure Heights. I think the hack is just what prompted me to change my name. I don't think we lost data? Might have had to roll back a bit, though. Changing the hosting and the corrupted vb backups required us to start over (which is why the new server admin moo is user #2 and I'm not #1, that bastard).
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Old 04-04-2016, 06:19 AM   #18
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Hey Kuno, obviously you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but like...how much does it cost to run UPN? I've always wondered.
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Old 04-04-2016, 11:26 AM   #19
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Certainly less than in times past. One thing about the early internet was there was so much demand for bandwidth, costs were in the thousands of dollars to maintain a site each year. BMG was something like $5,000 a month with its traffic and that cost was a big part of why it stumbled...and we had click campaigns where the staff advised us to abuse ads on every page.
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Old 04-04-2016, 11:03 PM   #20
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I love UPN. Can't imagine my life without it now. Yes that sounds dorky but it's true.
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Old 04-05-2016, 06:22 AM   #21
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I love UPN. Can't imagine my life without it now. Yes that sounds dorky but it's true.
It's heartwarming hearing this since you've been here only a short time compared to a lot of other people here.
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Old 04-05-2016, 04:27 PM   #22
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Shit. I wasn't even 4 when UPN was created. I feel damn young now.
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Old 04-05-2016, 04:44 PM   #23
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If this thing was June/July 1999, then I wasn't even two years old when it was created. I've been on here for about a year and a half now. ...This is mildly disturbing.
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Old 04-05-2016, 05:05 PM   #24
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Shit. I wasn't even 4 when UPN was created. I feel damn young now.
wait you're only a year older than me? this is madness I definitely thought you were like mid-20's

also to go along with other people's sentiments, I find it kind of shocking that I've been on UPN for more than 20% of my life. But hey it's been a good ride fo sho
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Old 04-05-2016, 07:29 PM   #25
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>not having been on UPN for nearly 50% of your life
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