By jasonc_wtbr

Wow...hard to believe another year has passed by already! Today, March 18, 2003, marks WTB?R's 3rd anniversary. As I look back on the past three years, I find myself constantly amazed at how it has grown...both in popularity and in content. When I first set out to design the site, I wasn't sure how long it would last. My previous attempts at building web sites hadn't gone too well; mainly due to lack of updates and interest... But, three years after creating WTB?R, I can tell you in earnest that it's going to be around for a long time to come. The site has become very important to me... It's a part of my daily life! I always start my morning by sipping on a cup of coffee (or two) and catching up on the new posts at the forums.

The Who's the Boss? Resource opened to the public on March 18, 2000. In the beginning, people found WTB?R through the (now defunct) Megafan.net site and then by word of mouth. WTB?R started out small, averaging around 10 or so visitors each day in the first few weeks. But, as word spread about the site (and it slowly started showing up in search engines), so did its popularity. We are now an international community, with an average of 500 visitors a day from all around the globe... Today, I will be taking a look at some of the trials and tribulations that WTB?R has gone through.

WTB?R started out at http://members.xoom.com/jmcale. Xoom was a free host that offered "unlimited" storage space. The tradeoff was that they put a banner-ad at the top of the site. Not bad, though...compared to what you get for "free" these days. Shortly after opening the site, I introduced a new message forum, at the recommendation of several members. Click here to see the board's first post (by me).

Things were going well... The site and forums were becoming more popular by the day. But, as WTB?R and the Internet grew, I began to see that growth would present some challenges. In the fall, the site started experiencing frequent downtime. The reason was that, in September, Xoom.com had been bought out by NBC. Naivety made me think that would make things better; that everything would magically start running faster without downtime again. Unfortunately, things just got worse. After the buyout, their services became more unreliable. The site would go down for days at a time, sometimes as long as a week. To top it off, they started adding pop-up ads. I was getting frustrated, but didn't know what to do.

At the end of February, NBCi pulled the plug; both on WTB?R and their free hosting services. Although I wasn't ready for it, I was forced to find a new host... It immediately became obvious to me that I wasn't going to find another free one that offered what NBCi did. So, I set out to find a pay host that was affordable. I came upon one that was $10.00 a month. It offered "unlimited" bandwidth and storage. After signing up with them, I quickly uploaded everything to their servers. On March 6th, 2001 WTB?R re-opened...minus a very large section. I decided it would be best to remove the "Watch the Show" section until I received the proper permission from Columbia Tri-Star Television to host them. The recent Napster scandal had me on edge about the videos, and I decided that it would be best to remove them for the time being.

Things seemed to go well for the site for several months after reopening. The site ran faster with the new host and those pesky advertisements were gone. However, trouble lurked in the near future... In May, Coolboard, the company that hosted the original forums, announced that they wouldn't be offering their free services after June 29th. Thankfully, that left me with plenty of time to find a new message board for the site. I decided on "Aimoo", another free message board host.

Aimoo offered more features that Coolboard and it seemed much more intuitive. I created an account and set out to transfer the messages from the old forum. With well over 1,000 posts, that was easier said than done. After copying a dozen or so messages, I could see that wasn't going to work, and decided that there was no way I'd be able to move all those posts. Despite the setback, the newly renamed "WTB?R Forums" reopened to positive reviews.

The new WTB?R Forums were great, but it wouldn't be long before Aimoo announced that they would be becoming a premium service, for paid members only. Once again, I had to find a new message forum. Not seeing any free services that I really liked, I looked for an in-site solution, instead. I came across "IkonBoard" CGI forum software and decided that would suit the needs of WTB?R's visitors. However, I knew nothing about CGI, so installing the new software seemed daunting at first... But, everything turned out ok. There was no way I'd be able to transfer some 3,500+ messages; I'd already realized that. The only real challenge would be in moving the members' accounts. It took 2 or 3 days, but I managed to hand move all 150+ members' accounts. The forums reopened on Jan 3, 2002.

Following the trend that things can't go perfectly for long, new troubles started springing up. People were experiencing a strange problem with the site...other web sites would "bleed through" WTB?R. Downtime also seemed to be more frequent. I found out that the problem was that WTB?R was using too much bandwidth. In other words, the site had become too popular! So, yet again, I was forced to start looking for a new host. I found a great one, for the same price. While it had less storage space, it offered more bandwidth and a better downtime guarantee.

The move was completed on May 19th...along with another new message board. As my new host would not allow me to put CGI forums on the site, I had to use PHP software. Luckily, the creator of IkonBoard had recently started a new company, Invision Power Services, which offered a new PHP board, InvisionBoard. It promised to run several times faster than IkonBoard... Best of all, none of the messages from the old board would be lost.

Everything went smoothly until October, when my web host wanted all hosted sites to move to a new server. The process of transferring all the files to a new server was pretty painless, but the "DNS" for the wtbr.com domain would also need to be moved. That was the more difficult part, because people had problems accessing the site for over a week, while the changes took effect. With that out of the way, things have been smooth sailing (for the most part).

The forums are one of the most popular features of the site... Who would have thought that so many people from around the world would come together to discuss their favorite show? Even more amazing - I have never seen a message board where people are as nice to each other as they are here. With over 12,000 posts (and always growing!) exploring every aspect of the show, WTB?R Forums has become a staple of The Who's the Boss? Resource.

Of course, it goes without saying that, from time to time, an occasional problem will pop-up on the boards. One rather humorous incident (at least, looking back on it) was at the old Aimoo boards. On a certain evening, a troll decided to leave his mark on the site and posted somewhere around 100 trashy messages on the site. But, such things, while irritating, help me to improve WTB?R...

While I've encountered many troubles with the site, the problems always worked out to help me to improve things. As with our daily lives, WTB?R has had its ups and its downs... The site's members have shared three years of happy moments, sad moments...yes, we've even shared silly moments. But, most importantly, we've shared respect, support and friendship. As you look forward to the year ahead remember that, through it all, tooth-hurty (2:30) only comes twice a day.

Here's a look back at some of WTB?R's major achievements in the past year:

4/16/02 - WTB?R v5.0 is introduced.
5/3/02 - The WTB?R Online Store (hosted by Cafe Stores) opens... For each sale made, I earn $1 (which, in turn, is used for the site).
5/19/02 - WTB?R moves to a new server and the new WTB?R Forums are opened
6/1/02 - The WTB?R reunion petition reaches my goal of 500 signatures.
6/6/02 - On her official board, Judith Light praises me for my efforts with WTB?R: "...A very special thank you to Jason at wtbr.com and also to the entire team at safesearching.com for all of your wonderful hard work."
Dean Ollins, producer of E! Entertainment Television's TV Tales series joins the forums. He said that he was recommended to the site by Judith Light, but that he had actually already seen it before that... For several months, Dean kept us up to date on the upcoming TV Tales: Who's the Boss? documentary and solved several WTB? mysteries. He also told WTB? creator Martin Cohan about the site.
8/27/02 - E! Online's TV Tales web site reviews WTB?R.
9/1/02 - The WTB?R reunion petition reaches 1,000 signatures.
9/12/02 - WTB?R's counter reaches 200,000
9/23/02 - WTB?R Forums member chris posts the 10,000th message.
10/17/02 - WTB?R's move to a new server is completed.
11/28/02 - The newly-redesigned Show Pictures section is opened.
1/2/03 - After a sixth month absence from the site, the WTB?R Chat Room is reopened. Also, WTB?R's counter reaches 250,000 visitors.
2/6/03 - WTB?R v6.0 is introduced.
3/1/03 - WTB?R's counter reaches 275,000 visitors

Finally, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to everybody who has visited and contributed to the site... You've helped to make WTB?R what it is today! I'd especially like to thank the following people for their contributions and help with the site in the past year (in no particular order - listed by WTB?R Forums screen name): ReJoys2, taxifan, supastah, madewy, folle, chris, BrandNewLife, Lossano, Audrey, anna-marie, Corrina, she'stheboss, Skylar and Dean.

Happy Anniversary, WTB?R! Here's to many more great years!