A heartfelt salute to Wittenberg XI

[GV]

But for Ben Madison, the ever-so-slight possibility exists the Kingdom of Talossa might still at this momrnt be running on MPF's Wittenberg X.  It was Ben's vendetta against Kane Gruber that provoked the start of the Republic and the ill-advised suspension of far too many accounts on Witt XI.  My only regret with all that is that on 1 June 2004 innocent bystanders were caught in the middle, and for that, I am profoundly sorry.

During the spring of 2004, no-one in the Kingdom of Talossa was thinking straight.

Because of all that, on or about 2 June 2004, Pete H. on his own intiative sought out a forum option for the Kingdom that could be made active immediately.  Hence, what is now talossa.proboards.com.

It turns out in terms of long-term stability, lack of outages, etc., Pete when he needed something in a great hurry chose well.  The Kingdom was able to start posting immediately, and fourteen years later, this forum is still going without a hitch, at this writing the most-stable and longest running Wittenberg incarnation in Talossan history with almost 14,000 threads and possibly a quarter of a million posts - a forum that saw the Kingdom through post-apcalyptic weeks after 1 June 2004, the end of Ben's time with us, the Kingdom's part in the Talossan Cold War, Reunision, and the coming-together over the years since spring 2004 of the modern Kingdom of Talossa and the modern Talossan diaspora.

In 2018-2019, however, it became apparent talossa.proboards.com was inherently unstable in two respect, in my mind: it was free-of-charge with ProBoards able to, at any time, put all of our data behind a paywall or shut the site down altogether.  Add to that the demise of native archival functionality during this time, and the urgency for a move to a new Wittenberg forum was readily apparent.

The numbering of Wittenberg incarnations is a bit of a controversial issue, imho.  This is the last Witt in which the exact sequential number-ordering for Wittenberg forums is objective.  On 1 June 2004, half of Talossa lost its accounts in Witt X, and the Kingdom put together Witt XI that week: talossa.proboards.com

Witt X as the forum-organ of the 2004-2012 Republic continued to be active for about two-to-four years after 1 June 2004.  I'll need to check the extant record for the precise date.  After Witt X, we had Witts XII and XIIb, the existence of the Kingdom's Witt being fully-recognized in our nomenclature.  I am not sure why MPF named it XIIb and not 'XIII'.  Of course with Reunision, Witt XIIb went offline while We Who Came Back went straight to this Wittenberg XI, the first time Talossans left a newer Wittenberg for an older one.

This Wittenberg perfected (or perhaps began) the now-taken-for-granted multiple Witt forum-boards for everything from the Cosâ to the provinces.  It was also perhaps as smart-looking a Witt UI as we've ever seen.  The nested-board-message visual structure and UI that ended in Witt X is much-missed, and I hope future iterations of our online discussion forum will be able to bring that back in a way that is stable and sustainable while being fully-archivable.

Witt X did not have native archival functionality, but MPF made it possible to render entire threads and more onto a single web page, thereby making what is now the Lytheria Codex possible.  The new Witt at wittenberg.talossa.com does not have native archival functionality, either, but it gives the Kingdom back something it has not had since Witt X: an internet discussion forum, the innards and code of which are fully under the control of the board-owner(s). 

The underlying code of our new 'Wittenberg XIV' is customizable, and Lüc da Schir is doing stunning work in make our new Witt come truly alive, and perhaps even in a way the venerable Witt XI never was and never really could have been, even as robust as it was.

And finally, this is a milestone in Talossan history: the first Wittenberg put together by a Kingdom of Talossa, a single Talossan community, and a unified Talossan community since the coming of Witt X on 20 February 2003.

A thousand thanks to everyone who did the work in making wittenberg.talossa.com possible, and in the spirit of KonMari, I say to you, Wittenberg XI, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Gödefrïeu Válcadác'h
Senator - Fiôva
Royal Archivist, Scribe of Abbavilla, and former Kingdom and Republic Senescháis
Wittenberg XIV: wittenberg.talossa.com
Wittenberg XI: talossa.proboards.com

[Sir Lüc]

Look at this beauty. Temporary Wittenberg! Hah, if only Q knew...

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Look at this beauty. Temporary Wittenberg! Hah, if only Q knew...

Yeesh. That aged like milk.

[GV]

Look at this beauty. Temporary Wittenberg! Hah, if only Q knew...

Yeesh. That aged like milk.

http://talossa.proboards32.com/ was Witt XI's original main URL.  Sometime between 2004 and now, ProBoards did a major revamp, which made talossa.proboards.com the current URL. 

There was never a temp-Witt in 2004.  Pete H. set up the http://talossa.proboards32.com/ which later became talossa.proboards.com

[Quedéir Castiglhâ]

Look at this beauty. Temporary Wittenberg! Hah, if only Q knew...

Holy dog poo. Well, at the time, it was meant to be temporary. The intervening months saw nobody step forward with a real plan, but I don't think any of us foresaw it lasting as long as it did, especially after Reunision.

So, farewell to ProBoards Witt. Thankful for the people who have invested time and energy into bringing NewWitt to life!

Q