Most folks have already provided an admirable collection of the history of the Zone. Like all history, its often subject to interpretation.

The early internet featured chat rooms. AOL was notorious for these which were available as one logged on, and people communicated in real-time from all over. The experience was novel, but the problem with chat rooms however is the conversation level is not deep. Quick typing and a scrolling thread means most chat rooms are places where folks communicate in single sentences. It also attracted lots of filth and rudeness, because comments had no accountability. The plus side was instantaneous communication. But for folks not into instant gratification and wanted more meat brought about the popularity of 'bulletin boards' formats. MSNBC arrived (a joint interest of Microsoft and NBC news) and one of the unique attractions of their site was a set of opinion boards. This link shows MSNBC circa 1997.

These boards were derived from the letters to the editor found in the editorial section of most newspapers and were very popular because folks messages did not scroll away in ten seconds, lost forever. More substantive communication was established and the boards attracted folks with strongly opinionated views and often folks wishing to air unorthodox views.

So these boards naturally quickly evolved into a place where folks debated. The tone was one of an adversarial communication.
The Space Board was a unique one to MSNBC and attracted folks with unorthodox views on space, aliens, etcetera. When the MSNBC board seemed to be weighted in favor of 'anomalist participation' some participants with their own websites created an alternative to the space boards. This was coined to arody the 'face on mars' believers and was called "cydonuts" Note the various bulletin boards linked to the left. And this one from February 1, 2001 describes the Space Science BBS formed as an alternative to the MSNBC Space Science and also in a way describes the first definition of "Habitablezone" as it was later coined.

As the MSNBC boards grew in popularity they expanded. (As seen from 1999) More boards were set up to cover various topics. A "mysteries of the universe" board was created to accomodate the observed interest by readers in things unknown. The space BBS is where most folks hung their hat who are now long time regulars here. You can peruse these pages and while most posts don't come up, you can get a feel for the way things were.

So the Habitablezone, as originally conceived was an anti-anomalist bulletin board. MSNBC changed as a new set of editors arrived. The bulletin boards were shut down, which was a huge marketing mistake, because those boards generated tons of traffic to the site.

As of September 11, 2001 the space board was no more. Here is the message that accompanied the opinion boards:

Due to current news developments, several discussion boards are not taking posts. Those currently open for discussion are: Current News, International News, Politics, Opinions, Health, and The News with Brian Williams. All other boards will delete posts shortly after they are posted. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thus, without fanfare, the MSNBC Space Science BBS died and lots of posters were left "homeless". Several sites inherited regular MSNBC posters. Ken started a set of boards similar to the MSNBC boards and attracted many of the MOTU (Mysteries of the Universe) board posters. Alan Boyle, the Science/Space newsman from MSNBC endorsed the HZ with a link (look at the righthand column) from his cosmiclog. So HZ had a sort of unofficial MSNBC endorsement.

The Afterhours.cc which bore HabitableZone when AL Staley shut down the boards and Justin wanted to continue them. Participation in Al's boards was by invitation only, and folks had to vote as to whether your participation was acceptable. It was a private club of anti-anomalists.

During the crucial birthing months, Robert the ubermoderator here was accused of being an anomalist by Keith C, who runs yet another space related site and who dug around and noticed Robert had designed the boards for one of the anomalist sites and did image processing regarding Mars. The HZ was in danger of dying on the vine as being labeled an anomalist site was the kiss of death to most participants. I made a post defending Robert and alluded that such was a smear campaign designed to deny the Habitablezone participation and scare away posters. Whatever Robert did for anomalists during the 1990s was irrelevant to the HZ and Robert still owes me for that one. ;-) That, of course, didn't put Keith and Robert on very good terms and Keith has been an infrequent poster, and possible litigant ;-), all these years.

You still see here the strong anti-anomalist crowd who cringe everytime someone posts something unsubstantiated or UFO-related. The habitablezone has undergone a political shift, and has lost many posters for one reason or another. Most of us have left the zone for periods of time, for one reason or another. And the zone has never grown to the size of the MSNBC boards, and that is a bit of a problem, because it lacks fresh blood and conversations here have become almost ridiculously predictable. HZ members are like neighbors and you know which of your neighbors is badmouthing Bush, which is obsessed with his lawn, which neighbors go to church, and which don't. As a result one, for the sake of not riling one's neighbors, avoids certain threads and often avoids posting. This of course isn't good for board health, and many baords here are a shadow of the early days in terms of post frequency. Robert's addition of a line that demarcates posts with no activity for 24 hours has been creeping upwards year after year on most of the boards and now is never more than a few inches from the top.

Now that the zone appears verged to require registration, I can only wonder how that will influence the boards participation. However, the HZ has several types here and some folks like the predictable, exclusive poster group and others don't. Advertising the HZ seems out of the question, and space news just doesn't excite folks much these days and so participation is probably at an all time low.

The Zoners are also an aging group and I suspect the median age is about 50. Only a handful of zoners are in there 30s still and only the few children of Zoners who post, perhaps once a year or so, are actually younger than 25!

That was the plus side of a MSNBC, it attracted a few younger voices who mixed it up with the opinionated, set in their ways, oldsters.

Who are the old-timers and who has left would require a whole post by itself. Core membership I suspect hovers around forty members with twenty or so more prolific posters. Back around 2000 I suspect core membership was about double that, with 80 members or so. TB wins the award as the most prolific, hands down and Raoul as the most prolific space board poster.

The somewhat depressing thing about the HZ is that after all these years one realizes more folks dislike folks here than like them. Fox's outburst on flame where he suspects "no one gives..etc." what he thinks is probably all too common a mindset here. How many longtime posters are going around thinking exactly the same thing? It might be easier asking who doesn't hold a similar mindset?

Each poster here has about two or three fellow posters who like them somewhat and about ten to fifteen who can't stand them. Often one finds oneself posting to a very, very small appreciative audience, and the rest either don't care or are actively antagonistic. These days most posters don't bother with displeasure and just say as much by not commenting. There are a number here who limit their discourse and are noncommital enough not to attract to much ire or favor either way, which is of course not much better than being outspoken and disliked.

That's more than enough Zone history for a new arrival though, and again, the events are subject to interpretation.

Best wishes,

SDAI-Tech1