Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group A Short History of KickAS (Remembered)

Hi everyone.
Reading all the threads in the "Reminiscing" post, 22/06/05 by Painindaas, I was reminded of a post that I made several years ago, titled "A Short History of KickAS", so I tried to find it, without much luck. All I could find was the first paragraph, hidden deep in the bowels of my PC. Then I remembered that Tony (Hobbit) had posted it in the Forum about a year later and added his own memories of those earlier days. I searched the Old Site and found the following Post by Tony:

Date: 8/11/01
"Rick sent me this a long time ago and I dug it up to try and clear up some of the Hobbit-lure that has been said". (I don't recall what this was about......Rick)

A short history of KICK AS:

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER:
A few years ago when I was just a beginner at the net thing and having fun with search engines, I though maybe there is something here on this crappy Ankyosing Spondylitis thing that I have. So I went to Search and entered it. Yep, there were a few places. One was called The Anklyosing spondylitis Site (or something similar) and owned by Brian Harris, a fellow sufferer of A.S.

Brian's site was quite large, about 25 pages, full of AS facts, AS reading materials, medications, so much information I couldn't believe what I had found. There were also a few stories from people with AS, including Brian's story. I read everything, and I signed Bryan's Guest Book, as I recall, number 87, and thanked him for giving us ASers a place to be.

At that time, the message board was not operating, or I just didn't try at the correct times. My work began to take up much of my time and moving my family from SC to NY, so it was a few months before I got back to Brian's site.

THE MESSAGE BOARD:
When I returned to the site, the message board was working fine, and there were about 10 or 15 people posting messages. I read all the posts and posted a few of my own. I couldn't believe I was talking to others like me. I had never met anyone else with AS and now I knew people who could relate to my condition.

I began to meet the people and found a guy that lived in Chihuahua, Mexico. His name was Pete, and because I had been in Chihuahua a few months before on business, we had a little something in common in addition to AS. Back in those days there were just a handful of people using the board and it wasn't unusual for the board to go 1 or 2 days without a new message. So I began to meet ASers from all over, Teddi from Oklahoma,
James in Texas, aka, Billy Bob James, Christina from California, John L. in East Texas, Dave the master chef, Jade from Cannada, Pete aka Dakoda Dan, John in Cailf., Fairy Sue and Sue in OZ, (I need some help with more names guys) and of course Brian, who would post from time to time. The board started picking up new members and we began to grow as a group (sort of a spontaneous organizing of people with the same concerns and pains).

Someone, I don't remember who (help me guys) suggested that it would be nice if we had a place on the site to post pictures of ourselves. As I recall, Brian said that he had though about it, but hadn't found the time to generate anything.

Unfortunately Brian's health was deteriorating at this time, due to AS ,and keeping up the site maintenance was about all he could do.

Then our old friend from Chihuahua stepped in, and even though he didn't have much web page experience, he began building a place for us to post photos. (PETE, PLEASE HELP ME HERE WITH MORE DETAILS) The page had a great picture of a mule kicking its hind legs up, as in Kicking AS. Now there was a place for posting pics of ourselves and families. Back in those days, only a couple of years ago, access to a scanner or digital camera
weren't always available to everyone, so, if I'm not mistaken it was Christina that volunteered to scan photos that anyone wanted to send her, and get it posted in KickAS. And then we started to see some of the people who had become so dear to us. Although it took me a over a year to get my own photo posted. (I do procrastinate sometimes).

At some point during this time a fellow named Tony joined the board, he was from Baltimore Md. and, a Web Master. Tony gave Pete pointers on how to improve the photo site, and began to help Brian to maintain the message board. (I'm going to leave the details to Tony and Pete) Also around this time Pete moved from Chihuahua to El Paso Tx. and we had new members from the UK, Africa, Europe, Israel, Pacific Rim and additions from OZ and Canada.

By this time Brian's message board had become "HUGE" sometimes it would take 3 to 5 mins. for my computer to load the board. Back then the board was only one page that got larger and larger with every post. Finally it got so big that some, in our family couldn't load the board on their machines.

Brians condition had worsened, and we were in danger of losing members, or possibly crashing the board completely. I believe it was about this time that Tony and Pete contacted Brian to offer their assistance in an attempt to save the message board that had now become an everyday part of our lives.

(Back to Tony)
All of the above was from Rick, and I will try to add to it as I remember correctly........

I had written Brian back and forth a few times, but his email had become less and less to the point where we were all really worried about him. The message board was growing so big that many people couldn't load it all since most people were on 28k modems, and loading a 1/2mb file took forever. That presented a major problem sice the form to post new
messages was at the bottom, or end of the page!

So I used some of my personal webspace on another website I was running and placed the posting portion of the message board on it. The website I used was actually used for a program I had written called Quake Name Maker, which allowed people to easily make fancy names for use in a online-shooter game called Quake.

Pete continued to add new content to his Geocities website, adding pictures of AS Kickers and updating his AS Bits pages (short stories or uplifting text). He was using the Geocities programs to make the pages and it was making a real mess of the page (as far as HTML goes). I saw the mess it was making of the pages and offered to help Pete out.

Now at this point we had 3 websites with AS info. Brians site, my site, and Petes. I recieved a grave email from Brian asking me to fix the message board and he gave me total access to the ASWeb site. Brian just couldnt do it anymore. His hopes and dreams of developing the site were crushed, and I felt really bad for him, and offered whatever I could to help him out.

I added lots more content to my site and it became ASKAW, or AS Kickers Assistance Web. I posted content that I had gotten from people, improved on Pete's foundation, and the group continued to get bigger and bigger! The message board was really cooking now, and I did my best to keep it running, but the web server that hosted Brians site just couldn't cut it. It kept crashing and losing posts and such. I contacted them quite often and found out that Brians site was being hosted out of kindness. It kind of scared me to think that the entire time the message board was on a borrowed server, so me and Pete put our heads together and had a
dream!

KickAS.org was born. We started up our new site with this fancy message board (WWWThreads), and did our best to honor Brian who is really the father of us AS Kickers. On one hand we felt bad that Brian was not able to be a part of our group anymore, but on the other hand we did not want to lose anything that we already had. We added more and more features to the site, like the database that holds all of the personal information, a links section, tons more pictures, and lots of stories.

More and more content was rolling in everyday, and it was a major chore for anyone to keep up with. I tried to school my friend Pete in the ways of webmstering, but eventually it got to the point where I was making so many changes to the site that I left Pete in the dust. Me and Pete had quite a few "confrontations" about the amount of work I was doing, and Pete wanted me to document and instruct him on how to do the tons of things I was doing, but it just became so much work for me that my health deteriated, and I needed a much needed break.


I think that pretty much covers it. I know there is a lot I left out, but this should give everyone a good idea of where we were and how far we have came.

Where once we were few, now we are 100's!

CONTINUING ON:
This is me (Rick) again. I'm hoping we can continue this story and bring it up to date. Could anyone who remembers any more, or who can help to bring this "Short History" up to more current times, please add to the story. (Pete-Dakotadan, Christina_in_Ca, John-Dragonslayer, Chris-fyrfyt187, Sue in OZ, Littlesis, Lord Simpo, Linc, Strutsy, Old George, Stevec, Lon and anyone else, old or new)After all, we are not 100's anymore, were 1,000's

Maybe Chapter 2 of the Story should start off with:

Then came Loz............(Take it from here)

Stay Well Ya'll

Richard, aka, Rick S.

what a great story....love it .......

WOW!! i'm with you... if you haven't noticed i've been trying to put all this history stuff together. what a huge treat to here about so much of it. i know you must have taken a lot of time to put it together... THANK YOU!!

i do remember the kicking mule!!

i'll do my best to conjer up my memories soon... for now i'll simply say "i love you" and i can't see how i would have survived with out you all. thanks!

many gentle hugs to all,
teddi

I remember becky's posts the most, a lovely lady who always talked about her critters, wish she would come back, she added a certain unclinical out look on life.
If ya still out there Beck give us a holler.
Penguin

Richard, thank-you so much for posting this. I've made the post sticky and will work it into the main page when I get half a chance.

Ian

Richard

I've enjoyed reading the history of our site. I will be keeping an eye out for any additions to your story.
Thanks Ray

Rick,
Hi! It seems stange to me to be a long timer with a group. Most of my life I have moved and jump started groups and when they were going good, I would move on. Thanks for the reminder. It was good to read.

Hi Rick, Great post! I'll try to add what I can.

Quote:

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Someone, I don't remember who (help me guys) suggested that it would be nice if we had a place on the site to post pictures of ourselves. As I recall, Brian said that he had though about it, but hadn't found the time to generate anything.

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Don't recall if there was any one person asking for it but we all wanted it once the subject came up. If I had to guess who it was, I'd say it was Cristina or Teddi. Cristina did scan some pictures but getting them posted was a different story. Cristina and I talked about it but nothing came to mind...until I learned that there were sites that offered free space to make a personal web site. I went to Geocities, signed up and started in. I knew nothing but with those sites you didn't need to know anything...just push buttons and make it happen. This was in early January, 1999...I had been with the group just a little over two months.

The "AS Kicker's Playground" (not Pete's Playground as some called it) looked like a cartune. I found I could get free .gif files from hundreds of sites, so I did...everything moved, flashed or changed colors. It was ugly but fun. Every member who sent in a picture got his or her own page, each with a special border and Gif's that reflected their personality. Tim, the firefighter, was engulfed in flames, Fairy Sue had, what else, fairies, etc.

Quote:

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KickAS.org was born. We started up our new site with this fancy message board (WWWThreads), and did our best to honor Brian who is really the father of us AS Kickers. On one hand we felt bad that Brian was not able to be a part of our group anymore, but on the other hand we did not want to lose anything that we already had.

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It was very dificult for us to take the group from Brian's site but there was no other way to keep the group together. I look at it this way, Kickas.org is the home of the #1 AS web support group in the world and that support group was founded by Brian Harris.

Quote:

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Maybe Chapter 2 of the Story should start off with:

Then came Loz............(

---

I found this in my files...a member asked about the history...

Quote:

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In the summer of '2000, Tony quit and I carried on by myself praying all long that there would be no technical problems as I don't know squat about the innards of a the web. Then I met Timo, asked him to become our Webmaster and things calmed down. But I soon decided I wanted to step down Chief Administrator...partly because I was getting tired but mainly I wanted it known that KA "belongs" to the members. I firmly believe that a lot of the success of KA is due to the fact that we are owned, operated and controlled by AS sufferers, and we are beholding to nobody outside the group. We don't visit KA...we come home to KA and that makes all the difference in the world.


Choosing someone to take over was really hard so when Timo and I decided to give KA a face lift, I got a great idea... turn the facelift over to a team of designers made up of any member who felt qualified. I believed that the cream would rise to the top...and it did. The original administrative team was made up mostly of those who did the facelift...Loz was the best of the best and I was thrilled to hand him the keys because I knew KA would be well taken care of. I was right...he's been at the helm since Jan 1, 2001 and we have seen KA grow into the most popular AS Support group in the world!

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I hesitate to list all those Administrators and Moderators involved in the operation and upkeep of KA all these years because my memory is failing at a frightening rate and I'd hate to leave anyone out. Needless to say, I love you all!

I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all who were involved in the founding, the dreaming, the making into a reality, and the growth of this site. I very much appreciate it! I feel that it is a home. Frankly, this is a pretty weird disease that is difficult to explain to people -- it's an arthritic condition, but the eyes can become inflamed or you can have ear problems or you can have a bowel disease or any number of other autoimmune related diseases along with it . . . and it moves around . . . today it may be my heels bothering me, but next month (or week or even tomorrow or even later in the day!) it might be my wrists or my shoulders or my cervical spine or my SI joints . . . ). Trying to explain it all is a mouth full, and while I have many dear concerned and understanding friends and family members, who can understand better than the people here at this site who also face the mryiad faces of AS?

Thanks, again, to everyone who has worked to develop KickAS, and to those who continue to develop and maintain it. Many hugs!

Paula

ah....those were the days. I remember searching one day, and found Brians' "ASWEB". It had tons of material and even several Dr.s links,if I remember right. They also had a ASWEB_friends, ASWEB_Support and ASWEB E-mail forwarding service. That service is what saved my life! One of the people on there, posted a message about an urgent health warning from the FDA regarding the drug Propulsid. Not even my own Dr. knew about it!
We tried to resurect the old site, ASWEB, but atlas, ASWEB can also stand for Asian Web and now they want only about $5000.00 for the name. ah...the good old days.