Straight Edge Online Site History

Straight Edge Online was first published to the internet way back in February of 2000, only months after the Y2K bug had decimated worldwide computer systems and reduced the human population to a roaming bunch of scavangers, all competing for the worlds very last tin of baked beans. The site was originally created because there was a real lack of straight edge information on the internet. There were a few "straight edge" sites, but most either lacked any information whatsoever, had already long since ceased being updated, or were staffed by crews of highly intelligent monkeys. Thus Straight Edge Online, or what would become Straight Edge Online, was born. Thankfully the original websites of Straight Edge Online are lost to history, but a little of that history is detailed below.

This site began around February of 2000 with a free domain name from NameZero. It got off to a good start: plagiarising all the assorted and uncredited straight-edge related articles from all over the internet, and then adding a few poorly written "User Comments" received in personal e-mails in an attempt to have some kind of original content. Whatever god-awful site design the site had, it is mercifully long gone.

StraightEdgeOnline.org

Because the free domain came up for renewal in 2001, Straight-Edge.org was shafted because NameZero had somewhat extravagent fees at the time. The unfortunate thing about this is that the only suitable domain name left by then was straightedgeonline.org, so that was registered, and the site has been stuck with that ever since, although most users do know the site by it's actual address of toefur.com/straightedge/.

The old design was replaced by something a little more bland, and some spiffy Ikonboard forums were set up. With the new site design came nothing else new. A drug effects section was added, and this was done solely because it seemed to help with the Google site ranking. This must have eventually paid off because the site went from a nobody site, to the main destination for straight edge internet searches in the entire world, probably the entire galaxy. There were always intentions of doing more work, adding more, making it the most awesome website in the world. Nothing ever came of that. So the site went without updates. For months. Many a month.

More (Of the Same) Straight Edge Online

The site design was again changed in November 2002, and that remained for the next three years. Nothing else changed for that entire time. The site had a few overhauls now and then. In 2003, the site was redesigned with the same design, but with some essentially useless usability tweaks, and some slightly more bearable colours. The same old content remained the same for those three years. E-mail addresses were defunct, so the thousands of e-mails sent asking for personal radio interviews, information for TV specials on straight edge, and temporary bank accounts for the ousted presidency of Nigeria all became, sadly, missed opportunities.

The forums/messageboards became quite successful, and peaked around the beginning of 2003 with literally hundreds of thousands of individual posts. However, quantity does not always mean quality so the forums and the very foundations of the internet were torn down to make way for new and more mature forums. Half of this endeavour became a roaring success, the other half was sadly found to not be possible on the internet.

The original site that existed between 2002-2005 is still available online for those who feel like gouging their eyes out.

2006 And Beyond...

Although having long ago lost interest in the divisions, anger, hate and machismo of the straight edge sceneand maintaining a straight edge website, it was decided in December 2005 that the because of hideously poor and outdated content, the website was a personal embarassment. Yet in seeing that it was such a useful resource and gathering place to the tens of thousands of like minded people who visited it every month it was decided that rather than leaving it as is, or simply tearing it down, that it would be a much better idea to, one last time, get rid of most of the embarassing stuff, make it a little more automatic, interactive, and easy on the eyes. This was done just in time for Christmas 2005, and just in time for it's 6th birthday celebrations in February 2006.

The future shall bring many positive things for this once grand and majestic website...