Hello Allspark Community

[Kalidor]

I know it's been a while since I've ever really posted anything to address the community at large. So much has changed in the past few years in both my life and just life in general.

To be honest I haven't felt connected to much of anything lately. The community, the hobby, anything. I'm still taking the hack/data loss pretty hard. I did so much to try to save it and I just couldn't. And I feel like that's a metaphor for my whole life right now.

There aren't as many people here as there used to be. I'm actually surprised so many people still are. Over the past 20+ years lots of folks have come and gone. There "new generation" Allspark is over on discord and I feel less connected there than I even do here.

I don't know what the point of posting this is. I just thought I wanted to get it out there. I'm not in a good place emotionally. I know people have said "take all the time you need" but I often wonder if any amount of time would be enough.

My life has been on a downward spiral since 2018 and each following year has been worse than the one before it. I guess I'm probably not the only one who has had bad stuff happen to them. I just wish something wonderful would happen again, at least once.

Anyway, I guess I don't really have much else to say.

 

[Sabrblade]

Sometimes, having really nothing to say is when you can truly say what you feel you need to say. Getting something like this out in the open and off your chest can be both cathartic and therapeutic.

Sometimes, one can find great comfort in simply being in the moment, surrounded by a community that you know you feel safe and welcome in. And that's all that it may take.

A wise Tom Hanks once said, "Sometimes... there just aren't enough rocks."

 

[Daith]

I wasn't aware of how things were going for you Kal. What can we say, a lot has been messed up in recent years. The boards are pretty anemic in users these days like you said and it seems like a lot of the old guard has moved on for many reasons. And the New Generation on Discord.... I can't entirely relate to a lot of them either. Not sure I ever will.

What I do know is the Allspark has been my home community for nearly two decades now. I may not know many of the people here IRL and have only gotten to meet a couple over all, but this is still a community I value and I've been thankful for that. I've said it before but you all kept me sane while I was overseas during OIF during my two tours. And I've always tried to support the boards best I could when needed. But your well being comes before the boards over all. I don't know what the story being the hacks were about and I don't need to, but whatever happened seemed to hit you hard. And whatever else is going on, maybe it's time to look out for you and get yourself where you want to be. It might be time to see if you can trust someone to handle the responsibility here and focus on what you need.

I know I feel like I'm mostly repeating the take all the time thing, but Kal do you feel like you need to be on the top man here? Is there is anyone else here that you could trust to could keep the place running both here and the discord. And would the freeness from the responsibility help you? You've been the pillar keeping the Spark running for so long but you gotta keep yourself held up before you need to worry about the rest of us.

I may be off base, but you've still got people here if you need.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

I don't really have any helpful words to offer at this precise moment in time, I'm afraid, other than to concur with much of what Daith and Sabrblade have said, but I just want to show my support.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I've only been part of the club for ten years (April 27, 2012), but I have a pretty deep emotional connection to this place. I've been through a lot in that time and am still going through some heavy stuff, and this place has given me a feeling of continuity while seemingly everything else is in turmoil. This is where I know I can talk about it. No matter what else is going on, I check in to Allspark. I haven't missed a day in the whole ten years. Not one. If aliens land tomorrow and my internet still works, I will be right here asking if you guys are okay. I will be here before I call my mother.

Those of us who are still here are here because this is more than just a place to talk about Transformers and small horses. I could be on Facebook all day and bounce around between dozens of groups for every little thing I want to talk about, or be on Reddit and join lots of little subreddits for this and that. But I don't care about those people. It's a different group of people in every Facebook group or subreddit. It's not the same. I don't just want to talk about my interests with other people who share those interests. I want to talk about things I'm interested in with people I'm interested in. That's what Allspark is. This is the crew I would go on a wacky roadtrip with. That's something a data loss doesn't affect at all.

So I don't know what to say except, thanks for doing what you do, building this place and bringing this bunch of people together. We're here if it's your turn to need us.

 

[Caldwin]

Not sure what to say here: "things will get better," "every cloud has a silver lining," "hug your empty platitudes that don't mean shit to me?"

I don't remember 2018 too much. Corona, server crash and general country going to hell in a hand basket crap the past couple years really has shade a lot in life.

I will say I was part of a bulletin board few a few years before this one and it really sucked when it went away.

But I've been here for decades. I don't think I could take losing it permanently (and believe me, there were times I tried). It's been here for so many seasons of my life: college, freelancing to get a resume, small town station to get experience, finally moving back to my hometown and now I'm in my middle aged years.

This community has been with me through it all.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess just..,okay, sure the community has shrunk. And I really miss a lot of the people who aren't here anymore. But as small as it may have become, I think it shows just how truly important it is to those of us who are still here.

 

[Dake]

You've given a significant chunk of your lifetime to this community and I know I'm thankful for your time. That being said, if you need to step back or away completely, that's not a failure or a betrayal, nor does it mean that time spent was wasted even if it might feel that way sometimes. Especially please do not give that asshole of a hacker any more bandwidth than you have already.

We're with you.

 

[Kup]

I can relate to the sense of sadness. Discord, the always online Generation is something I thought I would embrace. As I’m now middle aged, I prefer old school forums and I’m sad to see them fall by the wayside. That’s why I’ve been on the Allspark since…1998, 1999 maybe. Been here since the BotTalk migration EZBoard days, the split, and beyond. Hang in there. I think our generation had a lot on our shoulders and it’s definitely hard to sort through it all.

 

[Ungnome]

The always online part I'm fine with,(heck, even in the late 90's I was online almost constantly). The issue I have is the compartmentalization of the old internet has been obliterated by modern social media. Everything is so interconnected that my emulation stuff is connected with my mmo stuff is connected with my stuff about 80's robot toys, etc. I think it's the main reason I stopped using Facebook, Twitter and the like. Discord is basically IRC with less anonymity and much more centralized.(heck, even it's underlying protocol is VERY similar to IRC). I'd probably go back to IRC, actually, if everyone didn't insist on using Discord(though I will admit the voice-chat functionality of Discord IS nice).

 

[Kalidor]

I find discord frustrating because even though we're "renting" the space, we really have very little control over administration over the user base and features.

 

[Cybersnark]

As others have said, this place is still a community, and we all owe you everything we have. Wherever the road takes us, we'll be here for you.

 

[Sunstorm]

Sometimes, when things are bad, it's easy to lose sight of all the good. I imagine the melancholy is multiplied considerably when so much of the good seems gone forever...but it's not.
No hacker can erase the memories everyone here has of this place. And just like the members, the experiences are all unique...small fragments that make up the "One" that we all are. In the grand scheme of this fandom, there quite simply, is no place like the AllSpark.
Personally, the day I created my first AllSpark account was the beginning of an era...that has yet to end.
I'll never forget the way everyone came together on 9/11, regardless of our differences, my excitement the day Mouth leaked Armada, or getting to meet you and others in person at TFCC in Louisville and getting that awesome rubber ducky from you with the AllSpark tramp stamp. I display it proudly above my desk to this day.
(My wife even commented on how nice you were afterwards).
Likewise, no hacker can ever remove the many Bea Arthur posts you made, now seared into my memory...I'll never be able to "un-Bea" those posts, nor will I ever be able to stop yelling "MA!", whenever my wife puts on her Golden Girls pajamas...so thanks especially for that.
I have seen this board go from being a source for G1 nostalgia in an era of beasts, to my main source for news, and review about new releases in a golden age of Transformer collecting. You and the staff created a phenom so powerful that Hasbro centered an entire movie franchise around the concept of the AllSpark.
I'm not a turbo revvin' young punk...I don't do Discord...
most of the time I stick to the AllSpark Facebook page, and flitter in and out of these forums more like Starscream's ghost than his clone. However, the 'spark never truly leaves me, and I never will willingly leave it.

I'll end with one last thought; when Prime cured the hate plague, he opened the Matrix and emptied all that wisdom upon the world, curing an angry and hateful world seemingly at the expense of all that data....

HOT ROD​

The wisdom of the ages! It's lost!​

OPTIMUS PRIME​

No, not lost. We're all a little wiser now.​

HOT ROD​

But the Matrix is empty!​

OPTIMUS PRIME​

It's up to all of us to fill it again. With the wisdom we accumulate from this moment on. Autobots, transform and roll out!​

 

[Donocropolis]

I definitely appreciate the community that you've created and maintained over all these years. This is still, by far, my favorite place on the internet. The user base here might not be as large as it once was, but I feel that the quality of discussions and the closeness of the community is fantastic here, and that's what's important to me and what keeps me coming back.

Like others have said, when this board was down for a couple of long stretches a while back, I dipped my toes into the Discord version of the site, but I guess maybe I'm too old and set in my ways as well, because I just couldn't get into it like I can on the old message board format.

So, basically, I guess I'm just saying thanks, Kal, for everything you've created here and I'm happy to be part of it and hope to continue to be for as long as it's around.

 

[PiratedTVPro]

I still feel like this is my home on the Internet, and I appreciate you @Kalidor, for keeping that running for ~23 years now.