The Old Ezboard days of the fandom

PRangerX · 11/17/14, 11:24 PM

Archiving the old PRC Message Board has me thinking about the old ezboard days of the fandom.

It was a different time for the fandom. The old Newsgroup was still the hub. This was circa 2000-2001. PRC and PRO both had emerging coolboards. But Coolboards was starting to have server issues. So first PRO moved over. Followed by PRC. Both boards seemed to thrive but PRC really seemed to take off. Which led to the creation of many other smaller ezboards by fans.

This era of the fandom was the equilivant of the wild west. As you can probably see from the PRO and the beginning of the PRC archives, there was a ton of spam and all kinds of fights. PRC Ezboard didn't even have any mods at first. PRO was slightly less chaotic and had mods but there was still some crazyniess. Still their was some good PR topics discussed.

These boards were able to grow quickly since this was the aol age when the internet was growing quickly. All kinds of PR fans would flood in and join. PRO stalled when PRO Founder Mike Wayne went MIA. The PRO site eventually was shut down leaving a just the ezboard. With no admin and only a handful of mods the board slowly began to die out.

In Contrast PRC had gotten so big and Crazy its founder (Ray Calderon) finally put together a mod staff and added numerous forums he was hesitant to add in the beginning. PRC Ezboard was fueled by the PRC Website, which was the number 1 fansite by this point.

There were a few other Ezboards that were of note for a time. One was the NowPlayingBoards. But there were also many other smaller ezboards that never really caught on.

By this point PRC Board had begun to outgrow Ezboard. The fandom itself kinda did, as other message board services were more advanced. Zyuray moved his forum to Vbulletin after PowerAnimals pulled a hacking prank. From their the Vbulletin grew and eventually became the Rangerboard that it is today. Marking the end of the ezboard era for all intents and purposes.

Sure some small ezboards were still around. But even the fans who had free boards had moved on to services like invisionfree or proboards. PRO forum slowly lost all its members. By the time I took over in 2004, ezboard had become and antiquated concept. And I was never able to fully rebuild the ezboard beyond a small group of posters. At this time there were plenty of other Vbulletins like PRN and PRE to compliment Rangerboard.

11/17/14, 11:24 PM	#1
PRangerX Administrator Join Date: 12/04/00 Posts: 4,004	The Old Ezboard days of the fandom Archiving the old PRC Message Board has me thinking about the old ezboard days of the fandom. It was a different time for the fandom. The old Newsgroup was still the hub. This was circa 2000-2001. PRC and PRO both had emerging coolboards. But Coolboards was starting to have server issues. So first PRO moved over. Followed by PRC. Both boards seemed to thrive but PRC really seemed to take off. Which led to the creation of many other smaller ezboards by fans. This era of the fandom was the equilivant of the wild west. As you can probably see from the PRO and the beginning of the PRC archives, there was a ton of spam and all kinds of fights. PRC Ezboard didn't even have any mods at first. PRO was slightly less chaotic and had mods but there was still some crazyniess. Still their was some good PR topics discussed. These boards were able to grow quickly since this was the aol age when the internet was growing quickly. All kinds of PR fans would flood in and join. PRO stalled when PRO Founder Mike Wayne went MIA. The PRO site eventually was shut down leaving a just the ezboard. With no admin and only a handful of mods the board slowly began to die out. In Contrast PRC had gotten so big and Crazy its founder (Ray Calderon) finally put together a mod staff and added numerous forums he was hesitant to add in the beginning. PRC Ezboard was fueled by the PRC Website, which was the number 1 fansite by this point. There were a few other Ezboards that were of note for a time. One was the NowPlayingBoards. But there were also many other smaller ezboards that never really caught on. By this point PRC Board had begun to outgrow Ezboard. The fandom itself kinda did, as other message board services were more advanced. Zyuray moved his forum to Vbulletin after PowerAnimals pulled a hacking prank. From their the Vbulletin grew and eventually became the Rangerboard that it is today. Marking the end of the ezboard era for all intents and purposes. Sure some small ezboards were still around. But even the fans who had free boards had moved on to services like invisionfree or proboards. PRO forum slowly lost all its members. By the time I took over in 2004, ezboard had become and antiquated concept. And I was never able to fully rebuild the ezboard beyond a small group of posters. At this time there were plenty of other Vbulletins like PRN and PRE to compliment Rangerboard.