Temple burning

[mbanu]

Did anyone notice that the zipfile archives of the first 13500 messges are gone as well? So how much is 10 years worth of posts in internet time?

 

I doubt we'll get any of the archives back. Anyone ever bother to save copies of any posts on their computers? I'm curious to see how much can be reconstructed.

 

The wiki is in interesting waters now, though. It's like one of those ancient Chinese texts that takes quotes from all these works that no longer exist, leaving people to puzzle out their contexts.

[mbanu]

Did anyone notice that the zipfile archives of the first 13500 messges are gone as well? So how much is 10 years worth of posts in internet time?

 

I doubt we'll get any of the archives back. Anyone ever bother to save copies of any posts on their computers? I'm curious to see how much can be reconstructed.

 

The wiki is in interesting waters now, though. It's like one of those ancient Chinese texts that takes quotes from all these works that no longer exist, leaving people to puzzle out their contexts.

 

It's been a few years, let's give the post a bump up and see if anyone still around can help.

 

Edit: For those wondering about what the hell i'm talking about. A bit of backstory:

 

Back in the ancient mists of time (also known as the 1990s to some), there existed a board, a poorly-moderated Taoist board with a crappy search function, that dealt with sexual alchemy in the West. It was known as the Healing Tao forum. Being one of the few boards of its kind at the time, it attracted the best/brightest/most stoned/creepiest from all corners of the land of Internet. In the process of their studies they spewed a truly enormous amount of text into the world, mostly worthless crap, in which were hidden several gems of priceless value.

 

Later on. the owner of the board and his minion webmaster, who had been deep in slumber for the millenia (or perhaps off selling instructional seminars in the distant land of "Real World") awoke, and discovered the tone and content of his ancient board were not to his liking, having drifted strictly from the Healing Tao, as well as becoming quite absurdist and mysoginistic, due to the shining light of some of its fucked-up-but-brilliant star posters. Stricter moderation was enforced, and a schism ensued, leading to the birth of this board. (The leading edge of crazies schismed again into TaoBum.com, and were lost in the sands.) A wiki was started by sifu Pietro, in an attempt to categorize the massive ball of crap that had been formed over the years over at HT, and perhaps mine the jewels from its depths and bring them to the surface.

 

Next, disaster. A hack of the ancient board, or perhaps a computer failure (my knowledge of details is fuzzy) caused a collapse and destruction of the archives. Almost everything was lost, and the board was started anew, new messages re-writing on the archived copies of what little was left. The wiki fell soon after.

 

I, being the self-centered, egoistic, and extremely forgetful person I was/am, was in the habit at the time of saving copies of posts that seemed helpful to me, or that I had written myself (such that I could marvel in the awesomeness of things that I had said ), and had a decent bunkered stockpile of crap. However, a couple years ago, a hard drive failure destroyed my copies, and a misplaced something-or-other scratched the backup CD.

 

So I figured I'd see if anyone else still had any posts floating around somewhere.

Edited January 21, 2007 by mbanu

[thelerner]

Mbanu's right. In the early 90's the HTUSA discussion board run casually by Michael Winn was the wild west of taoist discussion. It drew the best, brightest and craziest to it. The well written thoughts of long time practitioners mixed with crazed rants.

 

Flame wars that make the Seandenty threads look like a love fest, broke out monthly and raged for weeks. Some culminating in death threats(by katana duels) and curses(mostly satanic). Some posters became certified HT teachers and one HT teacher became certifiable.

 

It was always interesting and when it was good, it was a world class exchange of ideas. In the past there were more teachers active and more people posting.

 

This board under Seans design and guidance has created a wonderful community and its great to see it growing. My thanks to everyone who contributes and most especially to the System Operator Sean. Keep it up and keep it backed up.

 

 

Yours

Michael