I miss the good old days with Spike. Crazy as that sounds. ;)

I was a monitor of 4 of the Women.com boards.
Pre-that, CompuServe.
Women.com was fun. I was a paid monitor for the Good Housekeeping and Redbook Etiquette boards, and volunteer for the Yoga and Domestic Violence boards.

iVillage is so devoted to advertizing dollars that I resigned within the 1st 6 months. They were more concerned with monthly reports than they were with member activity and responses. Now, years later, I have no idea how they do it, but I can tell you their focus on advertizing doesn't seem to have changed.

Gardenweb was very different before the iVillage conquest.

Go figure.

I am with you breezy. Spike would actually read threads and keep things orderly.

Somewhere in that timeline it was bought by Hearst who then flipped it to NBC/Uni.

Me too, Breezy. Not that people here now aren't good people. I remember spike. Didn't he pass away? I have a horrible memory and can't remember the names of the old timers. If you think of any more....please post them.

I used to post a lot more in the early years. There are a lot more people on here now to give advice. Plus, the advice people are asking about, seeems to me, to be less of what I would reply to. I rarely post on layout feedback.

"Not sure if this wiki article is 100% accurate, but thought I'd share."

This part makes me chuckle...my dd2 back in high school found a lake with our last name somewhere in Europe. She added to the Wiki definition of the lake that it was named after "Princess dd2's full name". It's still there. If you google my dd2's name, this article comes up. How funny.

I wonder if Candice really did start this? Where is she now on this forum? I could really use her help. Maybe she uses one of our popular handles and we don't know it's her....buehl? rhome? boxer? marcolo? Candice, is that YOU?

I gotta tell you how much I dislike/resent/am disgusted by anything wiki.

My entire website is copied to a wiki page, including my typos. Credit? No. Plagerism? Yes. Copyright infringement? Yes, since I got permission to use everything on my site. Wiki did not.

It really gives weight to the sarcasm, "I read it on the internet. It must be true."

Garden web was founded separately from iVillage ... we were aghast when Spike sold it and they merged the two sites.

I miss getting sent to Disneyland.

I don't recall that Spike passed. Thought he just took the $$ and ran.

There are several old timers still around -- paulines, pirula and of course kompy.

>Thought he just took the $$ and ran.

If he did (I wasn't around in those days), he's a sensible man. I've seen on other boards what happens when the original staff try to keep on after the corporate overlords take over. It's not pretty.

Remember Jason. He had a thing for Baby from Dirty Dancing. The conversations side was Very active. I often think of Hollybolly. Do any of you remember her?

I had a different name then too. Maybe I'm Candace ;-)

red_lover, NO WAY you're Candace, ever see much red in her design? Well, of course, you could be using that handle to throw us all off?
Have to say though, I've seen some advice from certain people who follow her design style almost to the T. When I see posts from them, my eyes and ears take note!
And, yes, you may be one of them!!!!

None of you are Candice....it's me because I spell it right! LOL, sorry couldn't help myself!

I sure wish we could search back to the old posts, pre-2007! I would love to reminisce....see old members names. See how views and trends have changed.

I've found some very old posts via google. Linked you to the way back machine which might be able to turn up some. Problem used to be that at 100 posts they discontinued and they only kept a certain number of pages.

Anyone remember Fairegold? Hasn't been around in years but she was the sage when I came along. Had slate counters I remember. There was one very nice poster with a white kitchen -- one of the first with Oriental rugs -- in Mass. She had the first built in Miele espresso machine I saw.

Some of them may still be around in the Cooking forum -- used to be where people went when they graduated their kitchens LOL.

When NBC reno'd the site a few years back they killed a lot of old threads. No idea how the victims were chosen but I suppose the metrics were used to judge most popular.

Used to be that if someone didn't play nicely with others, or advertised a business they got up to 3 friendly reminders and then got sent to Disney. No discussion. It happened to Renee for selling coffee. Lots of references to the "teacups" back then.

If that were still the case there wouldn't be anyone on our favorite cranky forum because they'd all be wokking on the jungle river cruise in Adventureland.

Here is a link that might be useful: Way back machine

I was here back in the days of Spike sending people off to the teacups as well. We learned a lot during our first kitchen remodel back then. This time around we're much more knowledgeable, but still learning from GW!

rococogurl, Thanks for that link. I was able to go back as far as 2001 on that site but not all posts were archived. But I did get a chance to see post topics and names.

It's somewhat odd to see posts about biscuit appliances, Pergo, Moenstone... We don't see discussion on these much anymore.

Some familiar names I saw: Celeste, totallyconfused, poohbear, kitchencrazed, weed30, gellchom, fairegold, maxwell, kitchenwitch, jeannie, kathie and compumom.

I also noticed that most people just used their first names for the log in names.

I did find a 2004 prediction by Bill V that glass tile was a quick fad that would be completely outdated by 2009.

My favorite discovery was something from around '02 asking if there were any timeless backslashes other than tumbled marble.

I remember Spike who was nice enough to help create a new Asian vegetables forum. I worked with a startup where one my gigs was to work with Ellen Pack the founder of woman.com on defining the software requirements for an online community. Thought remodeling kitchens was for the post IPO people :)

I hadn't thought about people's names. I used to use Christine, too. I see absolutely no trouble with that (other than them being taken) but people are so insane about anonymity that doesn't happen much anymore. My "handle" has always been my name. My married name of 18 years and returning to my maiden name a year or so ago

I also remember Spike, but it was from the other boards. I only got brave here a couple years ago when I started finding these fabulous, inspirational pictures!

Still not fond of iVillage or Wiki. C'est la vie!

I joined in 2006/07. Spike was either still around and left shortly after, or had recently left (I'm thinking the former?). Either way, I remember all of the Disney and teacup "threats!" LOL

I joined because many Google searches for this or that; kitchen/appliance queries, kept leading me to the Kitchen forum or the Appliance forum. I lurked for a short time (during which, I figured out how to navigate GW!), and finally joined so I could post my own threads, and to post questions on others' threads. One of the best kitchen-reno decisions I made!

HUGE shout-out and continued thanks to my friend rococogurl!!! Without her clear-headed advice, support, virtual hand-holding, and even, prodding, we never would have had the confidence (guts!) to push for a buy-back of the crappy (and expensive!) new range we had purchased for/during our reno. That alone was worth the "price of admission!"

My favorite thing (besides the camaraderie, and advice), is seeing the pics everyone has posted of their reno's--love seeing what everyone has done from low-high budget, tiny to large spaces, sleek and simple to over-the-top opulence; I love it all. I share in everyone's joys (and the sorrows) along the way, and often wish I could visit so many of the kitchens, and their wonderful owners!

Happy weekend GW!!!

Goodness catmom. Thanks for the shout out. I was just paying it forward with you. It was your tact and no-drama skill that got that exchange. We've seen the debris when that sort of thing is not handled in the right way.

The shout-out and thanks are much deserved roc! You really convinced us that it could be done and that we really should pursue it. Hooray for your help and your friendship!