The History of Xena: Warrior Princess
Like Xena Online Resources, this site started out as a news group article which was periodically updated with episode summaries. The original article was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek treatment of the subject matter, and it was only after Michael realized just how many people were relying upon the History of Xena to keep the unfolding story straight that he revised it extensively to be a more thorough, more respectful survey of the episodes and characters.
When Xenite.Org was created in March 1997, The History of Xena: Warrior Princess became one of the four principal content areas. As the years passed, the site was expanded with genealogical information about the most important character families on the show. Several fans joined in to help write and edit the summaries. Repeated server crashes took their toll on our archive. The current version is based on a 2001 archive copy, and about half of the last season is missing.
The Witch World Message Board
Now renamed The Andre Norton Forum as part of the SF-FANDOM discussion groups, the Witch World Message Board was the first message board created for Xenite.Org. Launched in March 1997, the board slowly acquired a small group of regular visitors, some of whom continue to participate in ongoing discussions today. Many fans of science fiction and fantasy fondly remember discovering Norton's books years, even decades ago. There is a strong sentimental attachment to Ms. Norton in the fandom community. She is one of the oldest living authors in the world, perhaps the oldest living author of science fiction and fantasy, and she was one of the first women to successfully launch a career as a writer of science fiction and fantasy.
The original message board was created in conjunction with The Witch World Page, a site devoted to the series of books which chronicle the unfolding history of an imaginary world far from Earth where magic and science come together in a war-ravaged, mystical landscape. The Witch World is one of the most detailed literary creations in science fiction and fantasy, unparalleled by most other attempts to define imaginary worlds.
The Lord of the Rings movie news site
Originally called The Lord of the Rings movie fact/rumor roundup, this site started out as a brief message in a news group in January 1998. Rumors were flooding the Internet about a possible movie based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. No one really knew for sure what was happening, but Michael collected everything he could glean from several sources and compiled a quick little FAQ. The documented started to grow quickly as Peter Jackson's name begand circulating in fan circles, and by February the first full Lord of the Rings movie news site had become a reality.
Michael continued to document news and rumors, occasionally breaking major stories ahead of other sites (including the announcement that Peter had signed with New Line Cinema). But the overwhelming volumes of news and discussion which the project generated proved to be too much for a generalist Webmaster to handle. So many sites were reporting the same news that Michael at first began linking to sites with original news stories. But when that became too tedious, he arranged to carry headlines from other sites. Today, Xenite.Org partners with TheOneRing.Net, TolkienOnline.Com, and WaroftheRing.Net to carry their frequently updated news headlines. Xenite.Org also carries news headlines from other sources in the Lord of the Rings movie news tour.
Xenite.Org continues to provide the most complete, comprehensive, and up-to-date coverage of all news relating to the movies -- now thanks, largely, to the efforts of other great sites.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Forums at SF-FANDOM
Xenite.Org began expanding its message boards in late 1997 as flame wars -- intense arguments between people -- began to afflict many news groups. Michael, admittedly, participated in some of the flame wars, but he wanted to share a flame-free environment where people would feel comfortable if they disagreed with anyone for any reason. So, he began adding message boards to Xenite.Org, including The White Council, now renamed The Tolkien and Inklings Forum at SF-FANDOM. The Tolkien-related discussions were regarded as some of the best on the World Wide Web by many people, and for several years Xenite.Org's Tolkien forum was the premier Tolkien forum on the Web.
However, the early forums required tedious editing of message trees because the pages became corrupt after about 200 messages were posted. Michael did his best to update the forums as soon as was necessary, but when it became an almost daily task, he and Dixie decided to implement professional forum scripts. They first tried out Ultimate Bulletin Board, which worked well for a while but as traffic grew its performance subsided. Eventually, Xenite.Org switched over to VBulletin, which is powered by MySQL and PHP.
In late 2000 Michael realized there was a significant demand for many new forums on Xenite.Org. He recruited a small staff of volunteers to act as forum moderators and the forums were eventually moved to the new SF-FANDOM domain. SF-FANDOM's primary focus is to serve as a home for the large community of science fiction and fantasy fans who have discovered Xenite.Org and its sister sites through the years. Chief responsibility for administering the forum policies and leading the volunteer moderators was turned over to Stripe and RobRoy.
As interest in SF-FANDOM continues to grow, special homepages are being created for the forums. The homepages include information about the moderators and the subjects to which the forums are dedicated.
