(originally posted here∞)

Ok, time to give my answers. Maybe some will dispute them, but I believe them to be correct.

General methodology: I tried to balance out questions that conscientious people could easily remember, questions that were not common knowledge but could be looked up, and really hard questions. My predictions were mostly accurate, but some people's skills were very impressive. I make note as appropriate.

Scoring: 1 point to the first person to post each correct answer. Multi-answer questions get divided into N parts, approximately (geeky math to follow, no doubt.) Also, no points when the answer involves the person directly. Edit: don't even attempt to apply geeky math. My whimsy is all that counts.

Ars Technica

Claude = Damage. Point to FreeRadical*.
Hellazon = Hannibal. Point to Rold Gold.
Playing pool. Point to Catfish.
Dr. Damage, johnnyace, Ator, Zorro, Bates, Yaz. 1/3 point to clm100
Torque, Carl, Yaz, johnnyace, Panders, Will Ryu, Loki, Octane, a-dOgG, Dr. Evil. 2/3 point to FreeRadical*
[John Siracusa, WyldKard, Geon, Fakir, sheared, Rat Bastard, kerfishe, and Riskable didn't have news rights; Ator [barely], Kurt, Stone, H@, Semi On, and andyfatbastard posted within 3 months of asking]
MS FrontPage. Point to Ian the Mad.

Dates

August 8, 1998 (as best as I can tell). No points. Remember to scroll down, FreeRadical*.
December 7, 2003. No points. FreeRadical* gave the date of the UBB.X switch...almost :)
February 19, 1999. Point to FreeRadical*.
April 20, 2000. Point to FreeRadical*.
I don't have this answer, embarrassingly enough. May 2000, give or take. No points.
I was looking for the day that the Lounge became subscriptor-only -- July 18, 2001 -- because it required a bit of creativity to find (i.e. not just the first post in the service forum). Since this wasn't clear enough, however, I will give FreeRadical* a 1/2 point for giving the date Caesar began processing subscriptions.
December 23, 1998. Another question requiring both memory and Zathrasing. Well-deserved point to FreeRadical*.

Former names, before "formerly ___" custom titles made it easy.

GatewayTech. Point to Bolero.
GoofBall. Point to gumbo.
CAD Consultant from Hell. Point to FreeRadical*.
JRock, Arse, Arsinius Maximus. 3/4 point to Rold Gold.
The 4th one was intentionally tricky: he wanted his JRock registration date to be reflected in his final Arsinius Maximus name, so what Caesar did was copy the current AM to a temporary account, then rename JRock to AM. The temporary account is named "(I Was) Arsinius Maximus."
BloodSkier. Point to Dust.
SarahT. I'm giving the point to leech for the benefit of the doubt of actually knowing it, and because FR* doesn't deserve it anyway :p
Raveus. No points to Hanser as she'd already posted several times.
Given that the association to Raveus was out in the open, I'm surprised nobody remembered the second name: SoulMonger. "They" were probably the only person in Ars history to successfully maintain two >1K-posting personas simultaneously.

Forums

Lounge, Hardware. 2/3 point to clm100.
The Battlefront was the third original forum. No points. I'll grant that these were hard, since you can't browse the early parts of the OpenTopic/UBB.X database reliably. Given the range of answers given, I think people will be surprised at the actual data: Hardware, Battlefront, Lounge, Linux, NT, CPU, Gaming, CCF, in that precise order. That only brings us up to summer '99. Next were the Soapbox, Agora, and Software Colloquium (ditto order). Even that only brings us up to early '00. I can tell I'm not the only one who considers the latter two to be new forums -- doesn't the Agora still say it's a provisional test somewhere?!
Writer's Block, [missing], Programmer Symposium. 2/3 point to clm100.
Ars Emporium goes between those. Some people named it, but no points since the orders were way off. Subscription Service, Mac Ach, and Velvet Room are the next oldest FWIW.
Linux Kung-Fu. No points. Tough question, as noted above.
Ars Senatorium. Point to hanser.

OpenForum rankings

Arsificial Intelligentsia. Point to Bolero.
One of Much Smack-Fu. Point to Gandalf007.
StoneTable, Caesar. 1/2 point to clm100.
Kurt. 1/4 point to Xevion.
Yaz. 1/4 point to hanswer.
I don't believe Hannibal, Ator, etc. have admin status.
Leavitron. 1/6 point to fresno_smooth.
jemfinch, zathras2. 1/3 point to clm100
Deedlit, underthumb. 1/3 point to Xevion.
chrisale. 1/6 point to hanser.
CADdie. Point to Oblisk.
I should clarify that this is limited to non-staff members, else the list would go on & on.
Hanser. 1/8 point to gumbo.
FreeRadical*, clint@purdue, Scott Tarr, Rold Gold, Kurt. 2/3 point to Aeirould.
PeterB. 1/8 point to spryde.
Some others not mentioned or that don't count: zAmboni, Whisper (Ars Centurion who is mean to Caesar).
zAmboni, Richard Berg, WyldKard. No points since the question was primarily about order, and zAm doesn't count. GwT and Semi were the next two.
Another question about order, but I'll be more lenient since it's much tougher. Hanser gets 1/2 point for an honest effort.
Actual answers: the first 3 were Tao of Me, CADdie, and Newbie. The next batch saw GatewayTech and Richard Berg promoted in summer '00. Semi On, mudboy, and JB followed later that fall. For those keeping score at home, XaiaX and continuum caught the 4th round, and Rold Gold the 5th.

Post counts

Continuum is a tempting answer, but PeterB is actually the only one over the mark. Point to Tegid.
Now we get to real brain-crunchers. PeterB or Tarrbot? In short, the latter. Point to Lilarav. FWIW, Peter's STR was about 0.8 at the time, though you'd never know from Scott's much-proned postcount.
I didn't expect anyone to get this, but I'm surprised noone even tried. There was a time early in the forum when STRs exceeded 1 for brief periods. In the case of this milestone, the crown goes to MrMills.
Alex, TSG, JJCoolJ. 1/2 point to gumbo.
Dotorg. 1/4 point to Brian.
AS/400. 1/4 point to Xevion.
Lethal[X]. 1/4 point to hanser.
My list stretched back in time a bit more, unsurprisingly. JRock/Arse/etc., falconplatium (sic), Muskoka/jayburner/etc., WhiteGoblin, plus most of the above.

Lounge Acronyms

Frank (the spank). Point to Oblisk.
The Misanthropic Meanie. Close, gumbo, but I'm giving the point to Rold Gold.
Scott Tarr Ratio. Point to Ian the Mad.
I didn't expect anyone to know the inventor, and sure enough didn't field as much as a guess. The answer is Whisper.

Lounge Personalities

DiePilot and wynk. 1/3 point to MacAddict.
Diabolical and SexyBiatch. 1/3 point to MenaceKiller.
The other one on my mind was Deleterious, but I could be wrong about that, and I believe there's another on top of him.
DeathPickle. No points, since he posted before the answer was given by others.
Chaos99. No points.
The unnamed character in the Lounge's ongoing story project. No points. To help jog your memory, the first thread that survived the purges is named "Our Hero does [something something]" and the second "Adam Curry's eyes, the then-MTV VJ" or something like that. The former took shape in fall '99, the latter resuming after the OpenTopic upgrade (UBB would break on long threads, remember?).
Verboten. No points. This is pretty early history -- around the time of GwT's first stories (e.g. cockroach) but not oft retold -- so I'm not surprised nobody remembered.
BrianVan. No points. C'mon, I expected someone to get this; in early '00 the guy talked about nothing else, writing pages and pages of fantasy into random pre-VR threads. In the words of a newbie P2K (aka poptones), "son, you need to get laid. now."
SMASHED. No points. Not too distant past (turn of the millenium or thereabouts), but very tough I'll admit.

Tech Journalism

The Tech Report. Point to gumbo.
I misplaced my list, dammit. Nobody else tried, so no loss.
CD-ROM Today. No points. For shame, Scott!
Scott Tarr, MaxPC. Point to ffifield.
MrBlack? I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Stygianwyvern.
My list included Spiv's small publication in MaxPC, ou2mame's Reader of the Month in the same, and a Maximum Linux personality about whom I'm sworn to secrecy. I'm sure there are a few more, though note that by print media I was trying to imply tech print media; your graduate theses in sociology don't count :)
I intended to relisten to these clips when I got back to my apartment and deduce the answer. However, I seem to have misplaced the mp3s in my vast web of media. Someone hook me up! Oh yeah, no points.

Truly Trivial

PeterB's self-inflicted misfortunes. Point to Ian the Mad. I expected this to be tough -- I barely remembered the NTFS thing myself -- but you guys did well.
June 13th. Point to Bolero.
Ringwraith. No points, since I posted the answer. I expected this to be very hard -- AFAIK the only source for the answer is his ICQ handle -- but at least one person knew it.
FreeRadical*. Point to Oblisk.


Final scores (accurate enough, and only so):
FreeRadical* - 6
Oblisk - 3
Rold Gold - 2.75
gumbo - 2.5
clm100 - 2.5
Hanser - 2

---

-who was 1st in topics posted, according to the unofficial spider? dotorg
-2nd? I can't find the thread
-who authored the "IM me" animated gif? Thallium
-who bought a Civic Hybrid? FaceDown

For truly recent history, see the "best threads of 2003" thread a few days ago. On the uber-recent, remind me that "who owned Moe?" will make a great question in a couple years.

And some tidbits for other forums:
A/V: who had the digital cable hookup we were all envious of? Antipodean
CCF: what was the first case BMF painted? LiteOn FS020
BF: name the principal characters in "N-way vs. SMP" RiscRocket, DigitalFury
DC: who started the first perpetual thread? I thought it was ColinT for some reason, but research reveals zAmboni
PS: where does ML lie on the lamba cube? Trick question, it's on the Curry-style cube
VR: my recent FAQ contributions make all the obvious questions moot, feh


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