History of the TVCH...
TV ClubHouse: Archive: History of the TVCH...
Admin | Friday, May 31, 2002 - 07:59 am     ...and then someone said "Let there be color!" and then there was color. |
Wcv63 | Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 04:00 pm     I was addicted to BB1 and had the livefeeds on constantly as I worked. I was obsessed with finding information about the show. I "found" BBFC and started reading it fanatically. The angels kept me transfixed to my computer for hours as I waited for "up to the minute" reports. I couldn't join because I had a "banned" email server. Finally I sent Neil a long pleading email begging him to make an exception and let me join as I "needed" to post on this site. Besides there was talk of Game I and I had a burning need to be involved in discussions. I posted a lot. Too much some might say. I got burned out between Game I and Game II and took a breather but now I'm back. |
Ryn | Friday, July 05, 2002 - 05:42 pm     This was in the archives, but I am digging it back up since there are a lot of new faces coming to the board and this thread provides a TON of info. |
Ryn | Wednesday, August 07, 2002 - 10:47 pm     FYI - today we passed 2000 registered members. Not bad considering we have had some glitches along the way!! Back in June we had 500 members, we have grown by 1500, and continue to add 20-50 members a day. Some folks never log in after regestering, and some fade away as soon as BB is over, so chances are our membership will drop down to some lower number as Gail cleans up un-used accounts. I think we went into BB II with 300 members, so if the trend continues we will have maybe 700-750 members when we get ready for BB IV.  |
Whit4you | Wednesday, August 14, 2002 - 01:10 am     2000 members eh? Gawd I'd hate to see how much bw this site uses daily lol. Those quick links do really help though... Do you remember what the record # of reg users was last year...? Curious if we will beat that this year.... |
Kearie | Wednesday, August 14, 2002 - 02:22 am     From the depths of BB1 comes MEEE!!! I guess I'm an "Oldbie" I very much agree with you Whit. And I am grateful that I had the experience of "The Game" Sure, it was frustrating and at times it was hurtful...but isn't Big Brother? We had hopes of recreating the experiences of the HG's. Other than a few "problems" I can say we, "The Players", probably went through a broad range of emotions and experiences similar to the HG's on the show. It was incredible and felt very real. Thanks Admin...I'm glad I've been a part of TVCH and "The Game" |
Whit4you | Wednesday, August 14, 2002 - 02:26 am     LOL ya well this year's BB is definately alot more like "The game" then either of the other BB's were... cept we the 'audience' are a bit more calmer re this years BB then we were during BB II or "The game" Good to see you back Kearie! Whit |
Wiseolowl | Wednesday, August 14, 2002 - 08:07 am     Last year I was only a lurker and felt guilty about it but did often click the "Boomis" icon to help support. This year I joined hoping that an increase in numbers would help the cite continue. Just a few questions? How does membership compare with last year? Can you measure the number of hits you get and does it mean anything and finally how does the cite survive without advert popups etc. that so many cites have? By the way, don't post often but have enjoyed doing so when the urge arises as well as exploring the other threads of the Clubhouse. |
Ryn | Wednesday, August 14, 2002 - 11:26 am     Straight numbers I think we are less than last year, I THINK we had 3000 members at one point, but seems to me we are just as busy on the site so who knows. We are just shy of 2300 members at the moment, I approved 14 accounts this AM. Then again we have been adding 30-50 members a day so we could top 3,000 by the end of this month. But to be honest, a lot of those people never post, so its hard to get a handle on a real #, we will delete people that have never logged in this month or next month and then we will have a true sense of membership. Still for every person that 'joins' there are a lot that just lurk and never join, they just like to read. And there is no way to count them. In the BB TEchnical area Neil answered a question about statistics. A couple weeks ago the site was serving about 200,000 pages a day (page - loads), hard to get a real meaning out of how many people that is, if each person loaded 100 pages a day that would be 2,000 people, I have a feeling its a few more people than that How can we survive? Good question. Bomis is just NICE, ads don't generate much $$, but if Bomis ever said they wanted to put up banner ads to keep us here we would most likely put them up because we sure would never find any other place to host the site for free! We just lucked out having a member like Bomis (the owner of Bomis is a member too). |
Whit4you | Friday, August 16, 2002 - 11:25 pm     Ya and you know we usually hear from him about this time..haven't heard from him yet this season...someone wanna give him a yoohooo and ask him to drop in and post something...? |
Whit4you | Saturday, September 07, 2002 - 05:36 pm     Ryn curious if we have more TVCH reg users this year then last year.. do you know? |
Gail | Saturday, September 07, 2002 - 05:47 pm     We are about even with last year but it is hard to tell. When the board started crashing through out July til Aug 8th when we changed servers, we lost probably close to 500 accounts. We went over 3,000 this morning. |
Ryn | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 12:18 pm     3092 now.... But, there are many who haven't used their account (if ever) in ages, we (actually Gail probably as she is the wizzard of this stuff) will be cleaning up the old/unused account as soon was we (ok ok GAIL) has time ;) |
Ryn | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 12:29 pm     Re-posting this for the newer folks wandering in, I originally posted this in April (edited & updated it a bit): The original board was located here: http://boards.eesite.com/board.cgi?boardset=enbcom (the link will just take you to an error though eesite still exists). That board was fine when it was small, Neil had about 5 topics it seems and they were each a "thread" - one thread was something like "News" where Neil asked folks to post whats happening NOW - when I happened across the site there might be one or two posts a day in that area, then others started posting more and more updates (myself included). Problem was after like 20 posts, the thread would die (crash) and another would have to be started. Neil (and Lisa I assume) were the only ones with any moderating ability. I basically hung out in what had slowly become the "Live Feeds" area and would try to keep the things runing smoothly. One day Neil asked me to drop him an e-mail and suddenly I found myself the 1st "Moderator" - soon after a couple others Joined the ranks including Gail (who works a MILLION times harder than me on the board). I stuck with the live feeds for the most part and let the other mods keep the rest of the board in order. Then we hit a wall, the original site had some limit - maybe 1000 posts, then it would start dumping the old ones (which is why we lost the 1st few weeks of the original BB from the archives). Neil went off and coughed up some $$ for a hosted site, and got the new software as well (the softwared used for the BBoard). I think we lasted a week on the "new" hosted site and they basically told Neil they were shutting him down, just WAY too much traffic. Along came Jim from "Bomis," a member of BBFC who volunteered to host BBFC. And its where we have been ever since. Now, the Live feeds....... What more to say about those? They were not the only ones during BB I - but of course I think they were the best. Jokers site was probably the 1st, or at least the most detailed early on, of course the format was completely different from BBFC. I was one of the main live feed posters at the beginning, much to the detriment of my "real life" lol. Those of you only here for the end of BB I or just BB II might think I didn't post much on the live feeds but trust me I did. There were times in the beginning when I was the only poster and would go for 3 or 4 hours straight, and thats when we had the "Quad Cam" - not just 2 basic feeds. Being as I was sorta "in charge" of that area I guess I kinda shaped the way it developed, we adopted "BB Time" as the standard time (it just kinda happeend I think), and Neil eventually got the whole board to reflect BB time (it used to show his local time). The majority of the posters at the time really wanted to be accurate, and keep personal opinions out of the live feeds as much as possible and for the most part we succeded. Some folks did leave the site because they didn't like the way the live feeds was run, sux to lose good posters, really does. But those things happen and you will never please everyone all of the time. BB II was pretty much like BB I, except people were ready and the posting was hot and heavy from the get go! I posted very very little in the live feeds this past BB, but mainly because we had so many great posters, and my duties of moderating and keeping things organized were much more involved. (adding a bit more now) Thus BB III came upon us and the posting was again fast and furious, alas the old server we were on at Bomis started giving us fits and for a few weeks it was going down every other day. Once again Jim (and Jason!) at Bomis to the rescue and they moved us to a new server the 1st week of August. Unlucky for us the move also came at the same time as the changing of the set up, we moved from http://www.bomis.com/tvclubhouse/ to http://tvclubhouse.bomis.com/ seems minor but it gave us (and a lot of you) fits because, as it turns out, an OLD provider of Bomis still listed itself as the system to contact for Bomis urls and it did not update itself. So many proplr from AOL and RoadRunner (and a few others) had nightmares reaching the site. Thankfully Jason finally got ahold of the old provider (thanks to all the faithful members helping him troubleshoot it) and FINALLY everyone could again reach the site We are in the last few weeks of BB III, membership is again over 3000, and with the ratings of BB this year I am sure there will be a BB IV - until then hang out with everyone and discuss all the other Reality shows of just life in general BTW, the other moderators work a ton harder than me, and I am proud to have worked with every one of them past & present. This board is what it is because of everyone involved. |
Meggieprice | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 05:06 pm     I have just loved reading this entire thread and fondly remembering! I came to BBFC early in BB1 because I just hated not knowing what went on while I slept and I just knew someone somewhere was keeping track. There sure was! I was a bit confused when it switched from BBFC to TVC but kept going with it and quickly spent hours every morning checking up on the LFP and on what was being said about it. I got addicted IMMEDIATELY. For BB1 and BB2 I was zachysmom but I only came to the site for BB. All of a sudden during this past Survivor the proverbial lightbulb went off in my head and I checked-sure enough this site was just as lively...and I ventured further and found the General Discussion right about the time that BB3 started. My old username was not recognized, and I had always been confused with zachsmom anyway- so I changed my username, also to recognize and celebrate my new marriage to my soul mate for all time. (Among his many attributes he is totally tolerant of my addiction to BB and to this site!) So we were off and running again- until August 17th when I was struck down and bedridden with what has become a gnarly disc problem. Well, let me tell you, I do not know what I would have done without this site and all of you. Through long nights of debilitating pain, through long long hours of absolute catatonic boredom- I have had the live feeds to listen to and you all to dish about it with. I have started in over in GD and I know I'll be here year round now (though, pray pray, I hope not from bed!) I truly do consider you part of my family. Oh! One wonderful note about that is that in early August I was in San Diego and Costacat invited me to meet her at her neighborhood street fair- we had a great time and I just loved meeting someone whose posts I had admired. Thanks, Sue! You're a sweetheart! (My darling husband-caring for me, our son, the cats, the house, and our business, btw, was very grateful when Roddy left because our house became a much happier place! LOL!) |
Ger | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 07:14 pm     I don't post much but I am here every day reading everything about BB3. Did I read correctly that I could lose my membership by not posting? Well, here is my post, don't shut me out. I love this place!! |
Pamy | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 07:34 pm     In order to not lose your membership, you must post a Thank You to the Live feed posters, isn't that right Mods????? Can you add the link to where they should post to make it easier for them? Thanks!!
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Ryn | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 09:31 pm     Lol Pamy, all that is done is that the user log is looked at and every once in a while users that have not logged in in more than 90 days are removed from the system. You do not have to post to show as having "logged in" - I think visiting the "members area" also will get your name on the active list. but if all you do is view the non members area of the board then you don't need a membership anyways, we have, I am sure, thousands of visitors who have never bothered to register as they prefer to "lurk" fear not, if you ever "lose" your membership all you have to do is re-register, you can even use the same Nickname as long as someone else has not grabbed it. |
Admin | Friday, September 13, 2002 - 10:50 am     I still have the emails from 'Lexiconn' about the amount of traffic we were generating... "You did 10+ gigs thru 10 days so you were averaging over 1 gig per day. It appears your transfers are much higher now. It is causing further difficulties. The discus board must be removed by Sunday night at the latest or we will have to disable the entire account. The board traffic is much too high. If we have any server difficulty before that time we may have to disable it as well. Please note, each gig over 4 gigs is billed at $10 per gig and these traffic fees will still apply after the board is disabled. Its does appear you are over 4 gigs for the last couple days." It was scary! FYI: we're averging much higher traffic nowadays! |
Ryn | Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 11:48 am     Heheh - you were in a panic - I remember!! fyi 3429 Members at the moment, though that number will go down a lot when we remove unused accounts and accounts that have not been used for a couple months. But we were at less than 500 members in June - so not a bad increase. I am guessing we will be back down to maybe 700 before the next BB. |
Grannygrunt | Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 02:30 pm     I never knew all of that stuff. Thanks, Ryn for posting and updating. Really makes you appreciate Bomis all the more. A great bunch of guys and gals. Thanks to all who make this site happen. |
Fabnsab | Friday, September 27, 2002 - 02:28 am     It has been a treat to read through this thread and learn some history of my fave place that I didn't know. I think I found it by playing online one night early into BB1 and typing in "bigbrotherfanclub.com" on a whim. That was the beginning of the end for me. I have been here ever since, sometimes posting alot, sometimes not so much but it always feel like home here. Thanks again to everyone who makes this board possible. |
Ryn | Friday, September 27, 2002 - 01:05 pm     we veered way off topic so now that its cleared up here the thread is again |
Itsallgood | Monday, September 30, 2002 - 06:55 am     Admin wrote: Saturday, April 27, 2002 - 04:16 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What if BB III does not bring a whole lot of new faces? I think about that sometimes." I had to start off with the above quote from "Admin", which I think is Neil or Lisa, the ones that started this site. (Ty so much if that is in fact the truth!) Wonderful Site!!!! So with that I will start my "history". Itsallgood was in one of her online favorite places and a friend told her she was checking out a "site" about Big Brother. (this was after BBIII started) Well, being a Big Time BB Fan I asked her quickly to give me the website address of where she was. (at this time I didn't have the Live Feeds and she told me they post them there) I quickly typed the address in and it brought me here.....I had my favorite HG already so I was looking for anything written about her. Well, when posters started trashing her.....I became and decided it was time for me to get a name and start defending my favorite gal! I did and am here and obviously haven't stopped posting yet! The LF Posters had me so hooked, but I still felt something was missing sooooooo....I got the Live Feeds so I could experience this for myself. When I couldn't be here for the LF's I would go to where they were posted and see what I had missed. Well, the rest is history and I have had a wonderful time on this site during BB3 and look forward to BB4. Thank you to all the Mods and LF posters. You do an excellent job! I also plan to surf the other things offered on this site....that is what brought me to this thread and I'm glad it did. I was wondering how it started and found my answer reading this. Thank you all for making me feel so welcome! I guess I'm not a "newbie" anymore!  |
Ryn | Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 06:30 pm     Neil and Lisa are married, I THINK Neil started the initial discussion board but I know Lisa helped out a lot to start, she did show summaries all by her lonesome the 1st year (still located in the archive as I recall) and remember the show was on 5 nights a week back then!!! |
Marej | Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 08:11 am     I found the board around the final days of BB2 and lurked for a while, before joining. It is the best. Keep up the good work. |
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