Another Archaeology Question -- For Old Hands at AwesomeDude

[Rutabaga]

As part of living up to our nerd tendencies, John and I receive reports from Google as to what it finds when it tries to index the AwesomeDude site in its current form.  One result of this is that this morning I fixed a number of broken links Google reported on the "Drawn from Life" page.  I'm not sure if anyone looks at that -- no one was complaining about the broken links.  But they work now.

A more intriguing mystery comes from Google's report that it could not find a directory called "wbms" on our server.  Google is correct:  there is no such directory.  I looked over at Codey's World and nothing there seemed likely either.

Using the Wayback Machine web archive service, I found a snapshot from 2013 of this directory:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131111124013/https://awesomedude.com/wbms/

There was no trace of it after that.  Most of the earlier snapshots that included this directory were from the 2002-2006 time frame, so this goes back quite a few years.

It turns out this directory belonged to an author called "Write By Myself."  There are a number of stories listed under the archive page above.  I have not read any of them, and I don't know if they're any good or suitable for this site.

Does anyone recall this author?  Any idea why they once were hosted here and then disappeared a decade ago?  I can't find any trace of this author on the current internet or other likely story sites.  Any reason to pursue resurrecting this author, or should we just leave sleeping dogs lie?

(Another mystery I will probably never be able to solve:  Google would never even have gone looking for this directory unless there was a link somewhere in the 1.7 gigabytes of AwesomeDude content pointing there.  Talk about your needle in a haystack.)  

R

[Cole Parker]

I believe Write By Myself was the author MIke called Wibby.  He has his own forum directory listed as the Raccoon.  We haven't heard from him for years.  He was actually the one who wrote me after reading something of mine on Nifty and invited me to come to AD.  But as I say, it was years ago.

C 

[Merkin]

Our forum titled 'The Raccoon's Den" was started by Wibby and when he was active here it was noted for his sly humor and sharp wit.  

[Rutabaga]

That helps clear things up.

I found this post from @Tanuki Racoon that pretty clearly establishes that he is the aforementioned Wibby.   His last visit to the forum is shown as happening in 2010.

His personal page on Tripod (remember that platform?  It too is archived on the Wayback Machine) mentions his stories being hosted by Dabeagle, Nifty, and AwesomeDude.  I have checked all of those places with all variations of these names, and come up empty.

The obvious inference is that Wibby took steps around 2013 (or earlier) to scrub his work from all the platforms where it appeared.  Given that, my inclination is to leave it scrubbed.  If anyone feels differently, please speak up.  

R

[TomC]

Chapters 1-4 of Another Day in Paradise are still posted on Nifty here.  I remember seeing his name, but do not remember ever reading his stories.  He also edited for others (Love in a Chair by Altimexis for one).

Tom

[Altimexis]

Yes, WBMS was one of my editors and a rather opinionated one at that. He was a bit strange and didn’t want me to call him Wibby, for some reason. He was a very private person and didn’t hesitate to say things with shock value. The first time I sent him a chapter of LiaC to edit, he replied to me with my real name and pointed out that that and more could be gleaned from opening the MS Word file in a text editor. Subsequently, Microsoft caught a lot of flak over their inclusion of random pieces of one’s hard drive in Word files.

I was a regular reader and contributor to The Raccoon’s Den. I remember that he thought that Driver was the best gay author on the Net, and that Cole Parker’s story Duck Duck Goose was the best story on AD.

WBMS had major health problems and was in constant pain. He often threatened to simply disappear and when I asked if by that he meant suicide, he assured me he didn’t mean that. Then one day he really did disappear without a trace. His entire presence was removed from AD, including his forum, and he didn’t respond to my emails. Mike undoubtedly played a role in removing all of the content, but the rest of us will never know what happened or of WBMS is even still alive.

WBMS undoubtedly had his reasons for ghosting us. My vote would be to honor his wishes by leaving his residual content alone.

[Cole Parker]

Of course, no mattter what else he might have written or said, he was right on the money with saying DDG was the best story on the site.  No one could dispute that!   😁

C

 

[Altimexis]

1 hour ago, Cole Parker said:

Of course, no mattter what else he might have written or said, he was right on the money with saying DDG was the best story on the site.  No one could dispute that!   😁

 

Actually, I think Distorted Perspectives is even better, but then it came later. 😃

[Cole Parker]

The only other person who absolutely adored Distorter Perspectives that I was aware of was Gordon Klopfenstein.  He even wrote senveral additional chapters to it.  He wanted more about the yonger brother.  Otherwise, I think the story went rather unnoticed.  It was a very difficult story to write, but I think it made the point I was trying to make.  Thanks, Steve.

[Merkin]

Duck, Duck, Goose would have been my choice for #1, too, except When He Was Five was the first of Cole's stories I ever read and it broke my heart.  It's still my #1.

[Altimexis]

When He Was Five brings me to tears every damn time I read it. I first read it on Nifty and I think that was the first time I ever wrote to Cole. I insisted that it deserved to be posted on a better site.