Recent troubles in the Horror Drive-In forums have caused me to wistfully think back to a long time ago. The turn of the twenty-first century, in fact. Back to the very best days I've had as a moderator of message boards.

People think it's easy. They'll stand there and go on and on about how someone should run his or her own website. It's no better than someone arguing about how a homeowner should run a party at their own house.

The bad part it, when things go awry, as they will do, there is usually no action whatsoever that will appease everyone. No action at all has generally been the wisest course for me, and things generally wind down on their own. The government that governs the least, and all that jazz.

What it boils down to is, at any given time there are individuals who think you are an asshole.

It wasn't always like that.

Back in 1999, I was given the job of moderating a forum dedicated to fiction and books at a site called Horror.net. I had been involved in internet bulletin boards before, but this was my first full-fledged moderator gig.

I was mostly alone at first, so I just started threads about writers like Richard Matheson, Chet Williamson, Harlan Ellison, Thomas F. Monteleone, Edward Lee, and on and on.

It was a different time. There were still plenty of sites dedicated to horror, but nothing like today. So readers were likely to find their way there by searching for horror fiction or particular writers.

A core group began to call the Horror.net Book Forum their home. At the risk of eliminating treasured names of members, due to my faulty memory, here are some of the best people there.

Brad Vautrinot
Larry Torreggiani
Suzanne Donahue
Steve Savile
Mark "Hoke" Tyree
James "wolfchild" Newman
Donn "Diablo" Gash
Brad Gullickson
Valarie Thorpe
Deena (Holland) Warner
Jonathan Amsbary
Tessie Caggegi
Mikael Sovijarvi
Allen Richards

There were more, I know. If anyone is reading this and was left out, please send me an email.

We all loved horror, and--dare I say it? We loved one another.

People were ridiculously generous to each other. We got along all the time. It was perfect.

Did we agree on everything? What do you think? No, but no one attacked other members, and no one took offense at the opinions of others. It seemed to be instinctual.

There was a collaborative round robin chapbook called Fallen Angel Blues. That might have been the very high point of the Horror.net days.

It was a great period of my life. I got married in the earliest days of the community, and everything was so bright. I was on top of the world.

The genre was in a great place, too. The small press was smaller, and there were not thousands of new "writers" self publishing. Limited editions were almost always deserving books. A lot of amazingly talented veterans of the field were still alive.

I guess it was too good to last. A nifty domain like Horror.net had to be a money-making endeavor. The site was taken from us with no warning whatsoever.

We found another home at Gorezone, and things were amazing for a while. It got ridiculously popular and things eventually got ugly. That's what people do: They fuck things up. And the worst part is, every single one of the culprits is too clueless to even realize that they are doing something wrong.

I came very close to closing the doors at the Horror Drive-In forums in the last month or two. There was dissent, never-ending arguments, and endless complaints. I had to resort to an unpleasant action that pissed off a few people, but made many more heave a sigh of relief.

I'm not shutting things down. Not yet, anyway. I think there still might be life in the old message board world. Despite the words of Facebook devotees these days.

I want to thank everyone who ever came along and participated in the various forums I've been involved with: Horror.net, Gorezone, Shocklines, and Horror Drive-In. No offense to those who came later, many of whom have become beloved friends, but most of my thanks and affection today go to the ragtag bunch at the old Horror.net Book Forum. You guys and girls are all jewels.

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