# Some help from '99ers needed about ubb **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 24, 2023, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483 "2023-07-24T18:11:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/21 "2023-07-25T18:28:17Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > With very few exceptions, all the threads going back to the dawn of UBB time are still right here. If you know how to look for them. Those are fun to look at occasionally because a lot of posts back then had signatures at the end. With that and remembering old user names it’s surprising how much you can figure out from those posts. > [@AHunter3](#): > > Those five forums date back to the big bang. Thanks for those links, that will be handy! > [@Baker](#): > > I remember when you couldn’t post for an hour. By CST it was in the wee small hours of the morning, but for non US dopers it must have been a pain in the butt. If I remember right, NYC was three a.m. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > I _know_ I was here when IMHO was created. Don’t leave us hanging, details man. Did threads get moved there? Was it started blank? What were the reasons given for another forum? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It was initiated by a poster (or posters) who would proselytize by framing Christian messages in the form of questions and posted them in General Questions. Geez, I don’t remember that either. Getting old is hell on the memory. I wonder how much of the memory confusion is how little time we spent on AOL and ubb. Things just kind of ran together. > [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > As I understand it, the backups were still being done nightly, but the problem was that the database had grown to the point where it no longer fit on the backup tape, and no one noticed the error that it had been throwing. Now that sounds familiar. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/22 "2023-07-25T18:35:38Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > > It was initiated by a poster (or posters) who would proselytize by framing Christian messages in the form of questions and posted them in General Questions. > > Geez, I don’t remember that either. Getting old is hell on the memory. I wonder how much of the memory confusion is how little time we spent on AOL and ubb. Things just kind of ran together. Hmm… RevJimTull? Or was that AOL days? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/23 "2023-07-25T18:36:06Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > Don’t leave us hanging, details man. Did threads get moved there? Was it started blank? What were the reasons given for another forum? The Powers That Be contacted me after I let them know I would like to be a mod, and asked if I would like to be in charge of a new forum. It was started as a sort of Great Debates Lite, and some Not So Great Debates were moved there during the first few weeks. I know I was working from a slow as fuck AOL telephone hookup, but I got a great Straight Dope Moderator whiskey mug out of the deal. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/24 "2023-07-25T18:47:27Z")
I can also tell you that the most common forum move, during my first tenure as a moderator, was from GQ to IMHO. We didn’t go through and look for old GQ threads that would be better in the new forum, but if any got bumped after it existed, they probably would have been moved. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/25 "2023-07-25T18:57:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > We didn’t go through and look for old GQ threads that would be better in the new forum, but if any got bumped after it existed, they probably would have been moved. That’s what I remember. It worked similarly when Cafe Society was formed. Active threads were moved and bumped threads were moved as appropriate, sometimes years later. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/26 "2023-07-25T19:14:41Z")
That explains the unexpectedly early date for earliest IMHO thread. It’s going off the creation date of the first post in the thread, when it was no doubt in some other forum. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/27 "2023-07-26T08:52:01Z")
I used to bookmark each forum so I did not know cafe society existed for about a year! ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/28 "2023-07-26T19:32:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The Powers That Be contacted me after I let them know I would like to be a mod, What the heck, did you suffer a blow to the head? 🤕 I come here for fun and entertainment, I can’t imagine all the time people spend modding. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > I got a great Straight Dope Moderator whiskey mug out of the deal. See, now that’s way better than a coffee mug! Or did they just send you a coffee mug and say it was for whiskey? Did the mug also time out two or three times before you got it? 😉 Most of all, did you have to buy your own jackboots back then? > [@AHunter3](#): > > That explains the unexpectedly early date for earliest IMHO thread I wanted to say thanks again for the links you put up earlier. Without them I would have kept putting it off again. 🍻 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/29 "2023-07-26T19:35:11Z")
If you’re drinking your whiskey 12 ounces at a time, that might explain some things… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/30 "2023-07-26T20:00:54Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > See, now that’s way better than a coffee mug! Or did they just send you a coffee mug and say it was for whiskey? It didn’t come with any instructions…but I _suppose_ you could also put coffee in it. Spanish coffee, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/31 "2023-07-27T19:26:45Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > No, that’s was a different issue. We lost a month’s worth of posts, give or take. Spend several weeks in exile on a different temporary board platform run by “BBBoy”. All those threads and posts were also lost, but we knew that in advance, that the temporary board posts would not be preserved. I remember there being quite a bit of chaos immediately after the decamp to the temporary board, because it had a bunch of weird features like animated emojis (smileys I think we called them back then), which people didn’t like, and there were placeholder parameters you could insert in a post that would be interpreted when someone viewed the page - there was one placeholder that would be replaced by the username of whoever was reading the page - so there were threads like “I think [user] is the best poster on this board!” - people reading it and seeing their own name there all flooded in to say “awwww, thanks!”, then got confused about the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/32 "2023-07-27T19:33:12Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > and there were placeholder parameters you could insert in a post that would be interpreted when someone viewed the page - there was one placeholder that would be replaced by the username of whoever was reading the page - so there were threads like “I think [user] is the best poster on this board!” - people reading it and seeing their own name there all flooded in to say “awwww, thanks!”, then got confused about the whole thing. Huh, I remember Smashy (an animated smiley with a big hammer), but I don’t remember this at all. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/33 "2023-07-27T19:58:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Huh, I remember Smashy (an animated smiley with a big hammer), but I don’t remember this at all. I don’t either. I recall that we had to mind our language a bit because the new place had stricter rules and needed to be family friendly. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/34 "2023-07-27T20:39:07Z")
I think it only lasted less than a day before the feature was turned off - I think it was a BBcode called ‘who-view’. There were also codes for scrolling marquee and flashing text that were available at the very start but got turned off pretty fast. I believe there was also one that could be used to insert a dynamically-calculated time in the post or title, so you could say "I have a secret and I will reveal it in this thread at ([time]+12)’ - something like that, making the reveal time perpetually 12 hours in the future. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/35 "2023-07-27T21:01:42Z")
We had our own native stuff that had to be turned off in ubb when we first came over. Originally you could enter HTML code as part of your post and it would be parsed and interpreted. Naturally some people couldn’t leave that opportunity alone without seeing what mischief they could do with it… > [@WARNING: Don't Open Satan's Evil Thread!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warning-dont-open-satans-evil-thread/9253/18): > > I have to agree with AHunter…Satan’s thread showed some html code in Opera and did nothing. It showed the code and opened a very skippy wav file in Netscape. In IE it took a few seconds longer and the displayed the code and played the wav file as it downloaded. In Linux it worked up to the point where Netscape needed a plugin that hadn’t been released for Linux yet…but it didn’t show the html code either. > [@Fun with HTML (tutoral): The \*Fixed\* Sequel](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fun-with-html-tutoral-the-fixed-sequel/507): > > Before you read the tutoral, make sure to read the UBB codes page below for more tricks. [Click here to see all the UBB codes.](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/ubbcode.html) UBB emoticons: : + ) = slight_smile : + ( = frowning : + D = smiley ; + ) = wink : + o = :o \ Here’s a reference to do all the neat things you can do with HTML. Just copy how the code is done and that’s all. \ \Part I - The Basics\ Bolding: words in bold words in bold Italics: words in ita… ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/36 "2023-07-27T21:21:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If you’re drinking your whiskey 12 ounces at a time, that might explain some things… Is there any other way to drink it? I don’t have all day to be sipping whiskey! > [@AHunter3](#): > > Naturally some people couldn’t leave that opportunity alone without seeing what mischief they could do with it… @Satan and @WallyM7 both in that thread plus people using their real names. How times have changed. > [@Fun with HTML (tutoral): The \*Fixed\* Sequel](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fun-with-html-tutoral-the-fixed-sequel/507/1): > > Before you read the tutoral, make sure to read the UBB codes That’s one thing I like about old threads, @Louie was here for 10 years and had over 1000 posts and I don’t remember him at all. > [@hajario](#): > > I recall that we had to mind our language a bit because the new place had stricter rules and needed to be family friendly. Way back during Smashy? I don’t remember that. This old age is hard. Smashy was really popular tho. Lots of folks were upset when he went away. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/37 "2023-07-27T22:56:22Z")
I don’t remember Smashy either. However, I do remember the putz smilie. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/38 "2023-07-27T23:01:53Z")
Smashy was on the temporary board. Putz was made to honor that dickhead Wally who faked his death before the hoax was out. It was custom and at some point it didn’t make it through an update and no one cared to remake it. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/39 "2023-07-28T17:55:27Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Putz was made to honor that dickhead Wally who faked his death before the hoax was out I still can’t believe how many people bought into that. It was contentious enough that mods would shut down threads about him, not wanting it dragged up again. He had the most top secret death ever, despite it being a very public death. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483/40 "2023-07-28T18:03:10Z")
It was just before my time but was still talked about. In retrospect it should have been blatantly obvious but it was a more innocent time I guess. If anyone wants to know why the original snark board took off it was because it was place where speculation about Wally was allowed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-help-from-99ers-needed-about-ubb/987483.md?page=3)