So who is this FallingAlice? A brief history of the Planet

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Chiefsplanet is my home...... but it's great to see another awesome site be developed as well. Congrats to FallingAlice for being such a great motivator and example for the Pat fans.:thumb:
 
When I first posted (under a different username that was lost when Milloy was sent to Buffalo) I had never posted on any MB in my life. I'm a backwoods hick that loves the Pats, but knows very little about cyberspace. From my first post I was welcomed by most posters, but none more than F-Allice , Hawg, and Pookie. I just want to say thanks to all of them for making my transition so easy and keeping my posts alive though they probably shouldn't have been.

It was a very hard time when F-Allice left not only because her insight was missed, but I was generally worried about her. Thanks to Hawg, Pookie. Anni, UT and the rest of the 25 mods who have kept this sight running, and it is great to hear from Allice. LONG LIVE THE PLANET!!!!!!!!
 
I was wondering if Falling Alice was still around. When I first registered here I remember how welcoming she was to the newbies. But at the time I was pretty involved in KFFL and it was one of the most active Pats message boards. Some of the luster seems to have come off that place these days and I made my way back here. I think I have found a new home.
 
Thank you FA and all. As a recent member here, and mostly a visitor, I missed the wars you went through. But as a member of Patsfans, and the recent troubles there, it strikes me that they are going through their dark times now, though the worst seems behind them.

I'll be hanging around from time to time here, sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong, and trying to get to know you all. Its a neat little community, and being new, a bit intimidating to try to fit in.

Being an old school kinda guy, I am gonna have to learn to get embedded images to post correctly, get the right avatar, etc. These new TV typewriters are a wonder, aren't they?:)

Thanks for the perspective. It gives hope to those of us who now wander due to the hell over there.:)
 
SamBam39 on 11-23-2006 at 06:30 AM said:
I was wondering if Falling Alice was still around. When I first registered here I remember how welcoming she was to the newbies. But at the time I was pretty involved in KFFL and it was one of the most active Pats message boards. Some of the luster seems to have come off that place these days and I made my way back here. I think I have found a new home.
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Alice comes back from time to time on a very infrequent basis. She's busy with her sister (and new job probably). She probably lurks more than she posts.
 
Wow, after being a member here for over 2 years I am just now reading this thread. I suppose for the time I've been one of the more concrete members, but to know how it all started y'all are like Rock Stars to me now!!! I had no clue it started out like this, wild wild stuff.

I think I may just be star struck next time any of you fine folks talk to me wuv.

I love this place. This is a place for friends. I find myself wanting to go to draft parties and home games just to meet some of you. And I would think it was money well spent. I suppose "getting" this place means we all have the somewhat same personalities. I rarely find people that I really dig- you know when you leave that person's presence just warm with that feeling of meeting someone from your own wavelength? We got lots of folks that make me feel that way here. I am amazed at how much this place and you all mean to me. One big crazy family. :thumb:

I believe Alice was just leaving as I was coming, shame that I missed out.
 
WOW, as a long time member for over 3 years now, I have never read this thread. Excellent stuff. To read about how this place was formed, developed, started from nothing, and all the people who made it possible is just mind blowing. Then, being the long time member that I am and seeing the new people who have joined since then is just fantastic. Now, with the recent upgrade and new features, it's better than ever. I feel as though I am in debt to those who worked hard to make this happen, but do know that it's more than appreciated by Patriots4ever.

Without getting into too much detail, I posted on Steeler boards since 2001 (namely amwreck's and still do) because there was no "Patriot message board" out there. When I 1st found the Planet, I had similar thoughts to those of Road Grader in "hard core - X's and O's break downs and whatnot. Not only do we have a good group of people who are fans of other teams, but we have a ton of great Patriots fans who share the same passion and concerns about our football team that I have. It was refreshing at the time when I was looking desperately for a Pats message board, and there's not 1 day that goes by where I don't appreciate this place, because I couldn't imagine life without it.

I know I don't really post a lot in OT stuff and I don't have as many posts as folks who have joined in well after I did, but I do care about this place and love checking in everyday just to see what's going on. Before I found the Planet, I used to have to scour the internet looking for Patriots articles and information. That is no longer a problem, and I have the Planet to thank. Similarly, I have met many people who post here in a social situation whether it be at a Draft Day Party, for business, or at an actual Patriots game and tailgating. If it weren't for the Planet, I never would have been introduced to our good friends over at UKPatriots either - a great group of Patriots fans that I have a great deal of respect for, and even got to meet them last season. They even invited me to a game, and if it weren't for them, I would never have been afforded the opportunity to meet 2 Patriot HOF legends in John Hannah and Andre Tippett.

I whole-heartedly thank everyone here for making this a positive experience and allowing me to be with them, when the situation warranted itself, where without this place, could not and would never have happened. Thank you 1000 times. :thumb:

:bow:
 
Annihilus said:
Alice comes back from time to time on a very infrequent basis. She's busy with her sister (and new job probably). She probably lurks more than she posts.
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Does she still check in from time to time? Does anyone here have any contact with her? I'm just curious if all is well with her.

I'd love to know the story behind her departure, as I cannot imagine leaving this place and never coming back, but...

I just hope she is well.
 
cka203 said:
Does she still check in from time to time? Does anyone here have any contact with her? I'm just curious if all is well with her.

I'd love to know the story behind her departure, as I cannot imagine leaving this place and never coming back, but...

I just hope she is well.
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The truth is the last time I heard from Alice was when she sent a brief request to delete her account and all of her posts. She provided no explanation whatsoever and I could only speculate on why she chose to ask that. Nobody really knows what was going on other than she had relocated to take care of her sister who was very ill.

I refused to have anything to do with honoring those particular wishes and hope instead that someday she decides to come back.
 
Hawg73 said:
(Since it came up on the Well,well, well thread and I would guess that some of the members that joined in the last year or so might still be curious about the FallingAlice phenomena, then here is a little story that I wrote that gives a little background on her and on the site.

It was written with the understanding that she would not be returning and we (the 25 mods) wanted her to know that she was not forgotten, but had not put the story on the main page yet.

Now she returns and screws up my maudlin attempt at a tribute. Nevertheless, here it is. )

Gisoolg is the Great Spirit Creator who is the one who made everything. The word Gisoolg in Mik'Maq means " you have been created ". It also means " the one credited for your existence".

The word does not imply gender. Gisoolg is not a He or a She, it is not important whether the Great Spirit is a He or a She.

The Mik'Maq people do not explain how the Great Spirit came into existence only that Gisoolg is responsible for everything being where it is today. Gisoolg made everything.
----- taken from a Micmac indian creation myth


In the beginning there was only Patriots.com and the technologically primitive message board there. That was the starting point.

At some point during the 2001 season I became aware of a new member there who went by the handle of Puckstopper. He was apparently a goalie on some kind of hockey team and I was drawn to his posts/thoughts because of their style, insight and crackling intelligence.

Soon it became apparent that Puckstopper was actually a woman, not that it mattered that much. In addition to her gender, several other things about her became known:

1) She is a former midwesterner who had adopted the Patriots as her team and was passionate in her support of them.

2) She is an excellent writer, with a breezy, converstational style and had a knack for knowing what kind of topics would be interesting and generate a lot of response.

3) She hated the format of that board and wanted to do something about it.

Of course, we all hated it. It was the digital equivalent of sharp sticks and mud tablets, but we didn't really have much of an alternative and had by this time had formed a loosely-knit cirle of people who enjoyed mixing it up with each other despite the inherent difficulties in doing so. It was the message, not the medium that was most important, but still.....it wasn't easy.

So, one day I was surfing that forum and saw a thread that she had started that said something like "What if I had a new message board created with all the bells and whistles? Would anyone join me over there? It took me about two seconds to say "Yes". I was not the only one.

She went on to explain that she loved the forum at www.Chiefsplanet.com and had been in touch with some people there about creating a board that would emulate Chiefsplanet. I logged on over there and was pretty impressed with the large and active membership, the ease and capability of their software and especially the humor and intelligence that seemed characteristic of so many of their members. Sports was supposed to be entertaining and fun and they seemed to have a kind of "virtual sports bar" philosophy.

I was immediately jealous. She was onto something there.

She then indicated that she would be working to make this board happen and pretty much disappeared from Patriots.com for a period of months. Then, just about when we had given up hope that a new board would happen, she reappeared under a new name: FallingAlice. This name was taken from the story of Alice in Wonderland and reflected Alice's fateful fall down a rabbit hole and into a strange new world. The choice of name was both ironic (one of her trademarks) and humorous.

She had some exciting news for us. Somehow she was able to convince the gurus at Chiefsplanet to create a board for us using their own server space and completely free of charge. I'm not sure who did what, but a guy who is known as Austin/Kyle did at least some of it and we were also introduced to Phobia who was a mover and shaker at that outstanding community.

We were in without having to invest a dime. Alice was nothing if not persuasive and I'm sure turned on some potent midwestern charm to con these guys into creating Patriotsplanet, which they graciously did.

And so the planet was zapped into existence and a small group of refugees arrived on its not-yet-teeming shores to kick the tires and experiment with it's full complement of features, which many of us had never used. We furiously tried to find snappy avatars and attached pictures to our posts with a fervor-- similar in a way to a bunch of farm-raised immigrants from the old country who couldn't get over the fact that they now had electric lights and indoor plumbing in the New World.

Alice was, of course, a major presence here and continued being her always amusing self and lent her substantial influence to the site in many ways. It began as an empty shell and soon began to fill up with the old crew from Patriots.com and gradually some new voices who seemed to "get" the community here were added to the mix and decided to stick around and hang out with us.

As a moderator she liked to practice what she termed "benign neglect" and that lent itself to our practice of letting people behave like adults and taking action in only extreme cases. She also had a knack for making people feel at home here and was quite encouraging and friendly to newbies, in direct contrast to the style of many similar sites. I would describe that as a form of maternal instinct, but she would probably get upset at me for suggesting it.

In general, she was into being relaxed and having fun with football, sports and the world outside of the arena and that is another example of her influence that still reverberates in the site today. People can discuss whatever they feel like discussing, and that seems to work out well for the most part. The members are trusted to behave themselves, and whattaya know? They do.

This site began early in the 2002 season and after some slow growth and some rocky times her little pipedream has found it's niche on the web and has made some major strides. Strides that I'm sure she finds amusing.

Unfortunately, for those newer members that may not know the story she is unable to participate in the site for personal reasons that I will not get into here, but suffice it to say it was not her wish to leave. Nor was it ours.

We won't go into all the gory details. It boiled down to a whole
lot of schadenfreude emanating from her doppelganger. It was a dark time. It's over now. She remains with us in spirit.

So if you enjoy the Planet and like hanging out here for whatever reason, whether you are a lurker or a badly addicted poster, you should know that this site will always remain FallingAlice's legacy and a small testament to people that aren't happy with the status quo so they get off their butts and do something about it.

I think she might like that.

Thank you, Alice.
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Incredible


Shirt thanks for bumping the thread
 
First time that I have read the entire thread. Fascinating story that will cause me to dig deeper into the archives.:bow:
 
FallingAlice, if you ever happen to read this thread, please know that I am grateful that you allowed me to be a part of your community despite my many character flaws.

I thank you with complete sincerity for the creation of this board.
 
Just started participating to this forum.

What a great story.....I can tell that I am going to like it here.
 
Thanks to Alice, and to all the Planet forefathers and foremothers who had the foresight and fortitude to forge one of the best forums ever! :celebrate:

As we move forward, may our team be fortified with the force and fortune to forestall any foreign competition, and foremost, to secure and enact a winning formula to achieve the formidable goal of championship #4.
 
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