January-May 2003: This is the year that I started to carve a name for myself on the internet, starting out with the famous, or infamous, Middle-Earth Total Conversion project at HeavenGames. I would soon after, in an unexpected move, be promoted to Cherub at HG, a rank I hold to this day. This helped me to keep an online presence, a factor that has been invaluable to my webdesign efforts. In these months, I also registered with iPowerweb and designed a website for the first Spire Labs, which included a small community. Between this and my HG duties, I soon became experienced enough in the managing and building of small communities to warrant a try at build my own. The Spire Labs site and forums though would disappear due to some fatal glitch. All of the data was lost forever, along with whatever hopes this first website had.
June-December 2003: This is the year that I spent designing the overall concept and software for a personal site, which at that point remained nameless. Many of the concepts I would end up integrating into the present version came about later. This year really only helped me to get my feet wet trying to build a serious website on a pay server. This first version was going to be more of a blog where I would spiel on about the news of the day. This was back when I cared a wit about the news. I later came to realize that there were countless such sites already in existence. My aim is to always be different, so much of this site was scrapped, though the core coding remains to this day.
January 2004: On New Year's Eve, the first version of Whisper is uploaded and launched. In all, it attracted about nine visitors, the promotional campaign failing. The coding and design was subpar compared to now, though it would provide the basis for all later versions.
Spring-Summer 2004: The second version of Whisper is launched, along with new forums and a slicker design. The site was still overcrowded and bloated however, and the forums again went down due to design flaws. The strides made in the design however created many valuable resources for later versions.
Fall-Winter 2004: I decided to take a long break from building Whisper, and decided to rethink my concepts. At the end of this period, a new resolution and concept was firmly in my mind, and I was ready to begin a new push.
January 2005: A third version of Whisper is launched, along with robust new software and an efficient new design. While the promotional concepts were still failing and there was no clear focus or reason for being, the site was finally where I wanted it. It was just a matter of inserting content from there.
Spring-Summer 2005: Major design work is completed, including the construction of an advanced community, the efficient grouping of different content, and some new promotional plans.
Fall 2005: A fourth version of Whisper is ready to launch, which is just the third version with actual content included. The launch date though has been changed three times, from October 1st to October 31st, to November 24th.
Winter 2005: The date for opening was change once again, more fittingly, to New Years Eve 2006. This will not only mark the opening of the site, but it's second birthday as well. Several little tweaks were made in preparation for a promotional blitz lasting through the entire month of December.
January 2006: On the first of the month, the site finally opens to the public. First responses and activity on the forums are good. The community moves along as a flow of discussion is slowly established. FD2's mafia game is the initial draw for people to show up, however writing discussions ends up with the most activity and the response is surprisingly good.
February 2006: Activity dies down, so Haven Casino is launched to keep the community from dying. The operation is a success while many bugs are fixed and Whisper 2.0 begins development.
March-April 2006: The community picks up in activity and traffic. The first short story contest is held on the forums and survives from start to finish, sealing the deal for many more larger, more successful ones to come. Whisper 2.0 also nears completion, which is the same coding with a different layout, all of the changes purely visual, though somewhat navigational.
May 2006: Whisper 2.0 continues development.
June 2006: Whisper 2.0 is launched in a gradual rollout over the course of half a month to much apathetic excitement.
July 2006: WRadio finally gets through all of its bugs and begins broadcasting a steady stream. The official launch date of September 11th 2006 is chosen.
August 2006: Shortstory Contest 2.0 is such a raging success that 3.0 follows hours after it finishes. The WRadio launch date is changed to October 31st, 2006 and announced in the newsletter to much apathy.
September 2006: A lot of site design and promotional prep is done for the 31st. Not much to tell.
October 2006: A huge buildup to the 31st is made. This could only end in failure and disappointment save for a miracle.
October 31st 2006: Miracles do happen. In an excellent turnout WSPR is blitzed with listeners and the elections go over extremely well, with Crimson Knight and Arcania replacing FlyingMonkey and Parrotman respectively. Watchwood becomes the new Gatekeeper. The three day forum party spills into November.
November 2006: Nothing happens save for a huge increase in activity and a Thanksgiving forum party.
December 2006: The Holiday spirit is in the air and noone anywhere seems to care. Shadowflare takes off during the Christmas week and discovers that the site survives just fine in his abscence.
January 1st 2007: Whisper's first anniversary as a community is heralded in with much apathy.
January 2007: Several major content creation projects are announced, including a gaming clan, wiki, and something ominously named 'Project Mafia'.
February 2007: Countless site glitches are fixed, the site is converted to CSS and AJAX and the iframes are eliminated. Silk's World of Darkness Mafia becomes our biggest mafia game and one of the most fun any of us have ever played.
Spring 2007: More people sign up, more mafia is played and the forums get really busy.
Summer 2007: Traffic steadily approaches 100k hits and over 2 million pageviews.
Fall 2007: The site gets glitchy again and the server plays merry bells with the forums. Shadowflare swiftly kicks Whisper's provider in the ass.
Winter 2007: Things are slow over the holiday but a concerted effort is made to fix things up and get activity flowing.
December 31, 2007: A hacker attack on Whisper's DNS crashed the site for 3 days, leaving our many members to wander aimlessly and sit sobbing at their PCs frantically hitting the refresh button.
January 3, 2008: The site goes back up. There is much rejoicing. Activity spikes and almost crashes the server again. Scribe is blamed.
January 2008: The first annual Whisper Awards are held.
February 2008: Anonymous launches its war against the Church of Scientology. As a result, several Whisper members throw their support behind Anonymous. Perhaps coincidentally, the site's host comes under heavy attack following the February 10th CoS protests by Anon and the site, specifically the forums, are crashed for days at a time. Shadowflare panics. It is assumed there is much community apathy, but no one knows for sure since no one can post anyway.
March 2008: Just before April Fool's Day, Scribe is declared the winner of Indecision 2008 and takes over the forum. Lulz, spam, and political killings reign supreme. Shadowflare is imprisoned and all is in chaos before Silk swoops in and restored order. Whisper crashes again, though this time we all expected it as our heathen host finally moves the site to a new platform that is supposed to have less bugs. There is great skepticism and much boredom.
April 2008: Starting on the first, Whisper is DDoSed, hacked and ultimately destroyed over the course of three days. While it is initially thought to be the result of Scribe's reign of terror, the Church of Scientology is ultimately blamed.
May 2008: Whisper slowly recovers from the attacks. Scifags are still blamed.
June 2008: PARTAY!!! lololol
July 2008: A new version of Idiots Anonymous is launched within Randomosity. Somewhere a gangbanger is shot in Compton, yo.
August 2008: Not too much happens outside of the daily spam.
September 2008: General lunacy. Activity picks up.
October 2008: Whisper is assaulted again and while the databases aren't destroyed this time, the attack leaves the site crippled for over a week.
November 2008: It is announced that after yet another service outage, Whisper will be moving to a new home. There is much eye-rolling and shoulder shrugging.
December 2008: Silk and Shadowflare build the new Whisper using dark magicks, Linux and a stapler.
January 1, 2009: Whisper is reborn on a new server with a new look and CMS software. Thus dawns a new golden age of spam, lulz and general pointlessness.
Summer 2009: Whisper is further integrated and upgraded and features such as microblogging, a news-centered front page, sleeker forum, new staff members and many other sweeping changes are made to remake the face and focus of the site.
September 4, 2009: Whisper is reborn once again, on the same server with a renewed focus. Many invites go out across the internet to bring various groups and people together.
January 1, 2010: Whisper activity flags and several technical issues with the server plagues the site.
April 2010: Whisper closes its doors in its current form for good, due to a lack of activity, interest, and server issues. A major revamp begins where the old forums are entirely archived, much of site's content and many features are deleted or scaled back. Whisper basically becomes a blank slate waiting for a community to move in.
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