Well as the saying goes…all good things must come to an end. And so it is with this iteration of ExtremeTech and with my involvement with the site. It’s been a fantastic 8 years (wow! 8 years? unreal!) and we’ve all come a long, long way.
If you weren’t already aware, changes are afoot here at ExtremeTech. The site is going to change in the near future. I’ll leave the details of that transformation for others to share though as I’d like to concentrate on where the forum has been rather than where it will go in the days ahead.
Those of us who worked on the current version of the site are riding off into the sunset to do some different things. But, before signing off for the final time, I wanted to take the time to say some thanks and some goodbyes.
To All ExtremeTech Forum Members
It has been my privilege and my pleasure to serve you as Community Manager for the last 8 years. Thank you so much for all of your participation in the forum over the years. There has been so much good technical advice and information sharing here on ET that it makes me tremendously proud to have been a part of it.
Many, many folks have been able to come to the ExtremeTech forum and ask whatever questions they wanted knowing that somebody would be happy to help them and would probably have a great answer to their question. As a Community Manager I couldn’t have asked for a better community to care for over the years.
A huge thank you to all of the forum members who took the time to post answers to questions over the years. You may or may not have gotten a thank you from the person who posted the question but please accept my personal thanks.
Without contributors like you the ExtremeTech forum would never have been what it was. You added so much value and provided so much terrific advice for people who really needed it, that it made the ET forum one of the best places on the Internet to get tech help.
I’m very proud of all of you and very grateful for your excellent contributions. Thanks so much!
Launching the ExtremeTech Forum
When we first launched the forum there were no posts by anybody and I remember wondering exactly how things would go once we launched the site. Would people warm up to us? Would they join our community and stay with us?
I’m happy to report that it all turned out well. The forum—even after undergoing a somewhat traumatic software change that angered some longtime forum members—topped out at more than 18,396 users, 156,922 threads and 800,637 posts as of the writing of this column. Not too bad for a little place that started out with just a few “welcome to the forum” posts.
Not bad at all!
I could never forget some of the wonderful folks who have been part of the ET community over the years. Evers310, the lovable, redneck Linux dork. Wrburns, the hormone-crazed teeny bopper who grew up into a fine young man. Brian Masinick one of our resident Linux gurus who has always had a kind word and sound advice for anybody wanting to use Linux.
And then there was Fixrman, Evers’ crabby but lovable moderator rival over at The Collective. And who could forget Grumpy9117, one of our most helpful posters who was a bit…er…grumpy but always gave his best. And John Fish, a devoted Linux guru who never tired of sharing his love of Linux with those new to that operating system. And, of course, Nate who did the borg graphic for the Collective forum and who was always a voice of reason and intelligence in the ET forum. Thanks Nate!
And of, of course, KGWagner, one of our most prolific posters back in the day, who never lost his love for frames-based forum software or his ability to nag me about the ET forum ultimately lacking them. And I certainly will never forget Zoltan, who struck fear into the hearts of his political opponents in the Pub and in the Religion and Politics section. Nor could I ever forget Talon8Ya, my NASCAR buddy, who helped me out on the now defunct NASCAR Fury forum. Thanks Talon!
Last but certainly not least is Btrax. Btrax was the Godzilla of the ET forum in his day. You never knew when he was going to show up and when he did he sent shock waves through the forum. It was a titanic battle to the death between him and Zoltan in the politics section. When they went at it it was like King Kong Versus Godzilla. Btrax hasn’t been seen in the ET forum in a while but you never know when he might show up. He has been seen over at TC occasionally though.
There are so many, many more characters that were and are part of the ET forum. A column like this can’t do them justice at all. Suffice to say though that the ExtremeTech forum never lacked for tech savvy, creative, intelligent people with a lovable personality quirk or two.
And thank goodness for that! It made my job so much more fun, interesting and, on some days, very challenging! Heh, heh.
Much Ado About…Nothing
Finally, who will ever forget the mighty Thread About Absolutely Nothing. Spanning nearly 10,000 pages and more than 92,000 posts it rolled on and on and over everything in its path. No one has ever made it through Nothing in one sitting. Ever.
It never made any particular sense nor did we ever want it to. Like Mount Everest, it was simply there and—as long as the forum itself is alive—there it shall stay.
Hail Nothing!
Death and Loss
As with any other online community, we at ExtremeTech have lost some people during the life of our community. Time goes by and people pass on. It’s just how life is and it’s a sadness we all have to bear.
Brownie, Ralph Glanz, and the others who have passed away over the years graced us with their presence and made the forum a more fun, informative, friendly, and warm place to be than it would have been otherwise.
God rest all of your souls and thank you all so much for being part of our community. It would not have been the same without you. We will never forget you.
Rest in peace.
To Loyd, Jason, Joel, Jeremy, Mikey, Bill, Mark, Dave, Nick, Roy, and Every Other ET Team Member
I’ve been blessed to work with some truly great people over the last 8 years. Some are still here at ET and others have moved on to do other things. I consider myself fortunate to have worked with all of them and I couldn’t have asked for better colleagues.
Loyd has been an awesome editor and I had a hell of a lot of fun going back and forth with him in my columns over the years. His commentary in some of my columns was priceless and his technical knowledge and writing prowess are second to none. He did a great job at the helm of ExtremeTech and I’ll miss working with him immensely.
Jason is a very talented analyst and always provided helpful and illuminating editorial feedback…particularly when I went off the deep-end in a column or two. Heh, thanks Jason. And Joel’s columns have always been a genuine pleasure to read even when I found myself vehemently disagreeing here or there about a particular topic. Mark has been an excellent news editor for ET and I always enjoyed the forum threads his stories spawned.
Jeremy and Mike have been terrific and very creative producers. They made some of my columns and reviews seem much better than they might have been otherwise. Thanks for all your hard work guys! It was noticed and very much appreciated!
One person who none of you forum members probably know is Charmaine. Charmaine is one of our IT folks and has been so amazingly helpful over the years. Whenever somebody had a problem with their newsletters, account, or other problem that I couldn’t deal with directly, Charmaine was always there for me. And she always got it fixed. Thanks for all your help, Charmaine. You made a lot of ET forum members a lot happier over the years by getting their problems fixed so quickly.
And last but most definitely not least a shout out across the years to Robyn, Nick, Dave, Roy, and especially Bill Machrone (without whom there would never have been an ExtremeTech in the first place) who were all here when ExtremeTech launched. You were never forgotten and ET would never have been what it was all these years without you.
And a very special thank you to Michael Miller who was the one who let me know about the re-launch of Ziff’s online properties back around 2000. Without him I would never have gotten the Community Manager job in the first place. Thanks, Michael!
Thanks to Lance and Vicki over on PCMag.com too. While my main focus was ExtremeTech, I was also the Community Manager for PCMag as well. Thanks for everything guys, we had a lot of fun in the PCMag forum over the years too.
And if there’s anybody I missed in this list please accept apologies and my thanks for putting up with me over the years. I’m a bit emotional now so it’s hard to focus and not get caught up in a few tears.
Since this is the Internet none of us actually has to say goodbye, thankfully. Anybody who wants to stay in touch can always reach me via email.
And if anybody out there just happens to know somebody who could use a Community Manager, Writer, Editor, or Producer for their site, please send them to me. I’m up for any good full-time or freelance gigs they can send my way. And thanks for the reference!
And since I’ve been telecommuting for Ziff for the last 8 years, location doesn’t matter to me at all and hopefully it won’t to you either. What a lot of people don’t know is that I’ve never actually met some of my ExtremeTech colleagues in person. We did everything via email, conference call, IM, etc and it worked out very well for all of us. Stuff got done for 8 years, on time and with extreme reliability. We were an awesome team!
Editors who want to hire a good freelance writer can always check out some of my writing clips on my clips site. And I have a tech commentary blog.
I recently reopened my iPhone App Reviews Blog. I’ll be adding much more content to it in the days ahead so be sure to bookmark it or subscribe to it. I just put up a review of the iPhone OS 3.0 update last week. If you’re an iPhone app developer you’ll want to stay tuned because you may soon be able to buy advertising spots on the iPhone App Reviews Blog.
I’ll probably do at least one distro a week plus maybe a few Linux apps here and there. And you can even leave a suggestion on the Request A Review page and I will try to add it to my list. Hope you like the new blog!
Hey, the bills still have to be paid right? 😉
Happy Trails To You!
One of my all time favorite songs was Van Halen’s version of…you guessed it…Happy Trails.
Good luck to all of you and thank you all so much for being part of the ExtremeTech community for the last 8 years. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Writing for you and managing the ExtremeTech forum wasn’t just a job for me…it was a hell of a lot of fun! And I enjoyed every minute of it.
If I could do it all over again, I would and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Thanks!
Mmmnnnnmmmmmm dup dup mmmnnnnmmmmm
Bom-ba-dee-da-Bom-ba-dee-da
Happy Trails to you,
Until we meet again,
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling on til then
Who (Oooh) cares about the clouds when we’re together
Just (Aaah) sing a song an’ think bout sunny weather
…two…three
Happy Trails to you,
Til we meet again
Did you enjoy this post? If so, you are welcome to buy me a coffee. I thank you in advance for your kindness and support.
Jim Lynch 
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