| FORA AUGUSTA |
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| FORA HISTORY 1) FOUNDING The Fora Augusta was founded on May 19, 2002 by a 17-year-old in Maryland screennamed Princeps Augustus. The name, simply the Latin translation of "Augustus' Forums," was chosen because these were effectively his personal boards. Having been banned from Goth.net and the New Gothic Message Boards over a theology debate, he wished to keep in touch with some of his comrades from those places. So the Fora Augusta was founded initially as a "Christian Gothic philosophy" forum, although discussion certainly wasn't limited to those topics. It was established with three forums: Areopagus, where all politics, philosophy and theology was to be discussed; Agora, a general topics forum; and Lyceum, the music/creativity forum. At first, the main posters were Princeps Augustus, sistersandy, and some other posters from Goth.net-namely Archannus, Misantropica, and Nyarlethotep. xpacifistx, another early poster, came from the Payable On Death boards, where Princeps was then a member. The Fora was largely peaceful, although some vitriol remained from the Goth.net/NGMB feud. While there were no active flamewars between the boards, both sides did their share of smearing the other. An incident involving Archannus' repeated banning from the NGMB provided the occasion for fences to finally be mended. 2) THE FALL OF STRUCKMUTE The Fora was still not truly defined as such. While it was already more than just a hangout for NGMB exiles, its existence as a separate, distinct entity still hadn't been carved out for good. If the NGMB had reversed their banning, for example, it's quite possible that the Fora could have ended right then and there. However, the hostilities continued as another tragic event occurred. Struckmute.com was a Christian-based print magazine released quarterly. It had poetry, stories, opinion pieces, you name it. It also had quite lively message boards, and one of its boardies was that same Princeps Augustus. When the magazine went under, the Struckmuters were left without a home... so Princeps volunteered the Fora. A new forum was set up, "Kyriakos", that was meant to be a direct replacement of the Struckmute boards. The forum's color and image scheme was as identical to the Struckmute boards as it could have possibly been on an Ezboard, to boot. Nevertheless, the magic seemed to have died with the magazine-Kyriakos didn't become the savior of the community that Princeps had hoped it would. Most of the Struckmuters went away after a while... although one of them, Undragoned1, sticks around to this day while others swing by once in a blue moon. After about a year, Princeps finally reorganized the forums to recognize the reality of Struckmute's death-and Kyriakos became the new religion forum, receiving Areopagus' theology topics and retaining the prayer requests from the post-Struckmute era. The Struckmute era was important insofar as it gave the Fora a distinct identity. It was more than an NGMB exile board, more than a Struckmute refugee camp. The two combined into something new-the Classical Fora. 3) THE CLASSIC AGE OF THE FORA After the Struckmuters got settled in, a new dynamic emerged. The gothic element and the Christian rock element entered a sort of dialogue-not one borne out of disrespect or anger, but of mutual curiosity. Cthulhu jokes were explained alongside the role of Satan in Christian theology. There was plenty of debate but no division to be had. The board wasn't the liveliest ever, but it had a regular, reliable post count complete with intelligent discussion and friendly relations among all. Princeps, sistersandy and Archannus were the core around which the Classical Fora developed. They drove the board, and kept it lively. |
| Newcomers to the Fora in those days chanced upon it for one big, accidental reason-a single post made by Princeps describing his less-than-sterling experiences with Accelerated Christian Education, Inc. brought in others who did a search for a comic book character. This happened twice-bringing in a Navy wife stationed in Italy and a highschool girl from Montana screennamed Sola Peregrina. The only incidents of note in the Classic Age were minor porn spamming efforts and a concerted wasting of board bandwidth by a self-proclaimed Messiah with visions of covering DC and London in thermonuclear blazes. Other than that, this was one of the best times to be a member of the Fora Augusta. 4) FALL AND PILLARIZATION The Fora slowly declined in importance as Princeps spent more and more time on the Pillar boards, though-the Fora's Classic Age didn't go out with a bang, but a whimper. A lack of new posting caused boardies to move on to other forums, and check back once in a long while-including Princeps himself. Princeps' time on the Pillar boards led sistersandy to follow him there, and her signature and his profile linked many Pillarites back to the Fora. They didn't say much, but they helped keep things going on an otherwise quiet forum. While the Fora was slowly decaying, the events at the Pillar boards would prove important to the future. Princeps was making friendships at those boards, as well as at the Godscare boards. He also became a prominent protestor against abuses at both places, gaining support and respect from the boardies at both places. He also helped Nostalgia (now Meliorative) set up Dreamsforsale.net, becoming one of the main posters at that site. It would be all of these contacts that would enable what was to come next. 5) VOTING WITH THEIR FEET There was already a history of Fora involvement in Pillar's protests. When a Moderators Only forum was crafted on the Pillar boards, Last Free Voices was created to counter it-and anyone who wasn't a Pillar mod could join. When Pillar decided to ban flaming on their message boards, though, that was the last straw for the bulk of the oldschoolers there. Princeps left the Pillar boards, and through IM encouraged others to do the same. His initial intended destination for the Pillarites was DFS, but one of the departees, kohlee03, decided to start things up at the Fora instead. Others followed suit, and within a week the Fora Augusta was alive again, eclipsing the Pillar boards. At about the same time, Godscare erupted in riots against blatant discrimination. Princeps, Bloodlustgoddess, sistersandy and comingfrom decided to leave, and they came to the Fora. With them, they brought other Godscarers-Nyssa the Hobbit, Serenade7, Louder Mantra-and comingfrom generously decided to donate $30 to the Fora, enabling it to gain Gold Community status. This eased the transition of the Pillarites, and the Fora gained a significant new feature to boot-a chatroom, which became a common meeting place for the Forites, usually late at night. Many Pillar traditions were grafted onto the Fora, such as the Pillarese-English Dictionary, but by and large it was a distinct community. Devoid of the riots they had on their old boards, fraternity blossomed. Once again, competing dynamics crafted something new. The remnants of the old Fora blended with the Pillar refugees, who blended with the Godscare refugees, who also blended with newcomers from Princeps' college. All of this has created a distinctive board, the Fora Augusta, with three years of traditions and an active membership. The common experience of refuge from discrimination and censorship has forged a libertarian streak, where problems are solved by consensus instead of thread closing and everyone's free to speak their mind. It happily continues to this day-won't you become a part of our future chapters? |