Kitchen Table Bulletin Board

Forum · Message Board
Name:	Kitchen Table Bulletin Board
Date(s):	1998 to December 15, 2004
Moderated:
Type:
Fandom:	Dragonriders of Pern
URL:
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Kitchen Table Bulletin Board was a Dragonriders of Pern message board that was hosted at Anne McCaffrey's official website from 1998 until the end of 2004.

It appears to have been replaced with The New Kitchen Table in late 2005.

In 2001, the forum allowed the posting of fanfiction. A fan recalls "the original Kitchen Table messageboards circa 2001 - when we were allowed to publish Pern fan fiction semi-publicly (on a subforum that you needed a password to view) for the first time. The intention was to explore scenarios and characters that were hinted at but not touched on in the books - the politics of an Interval Weyr, blue and green riders as significant players, Weyrleaders not in love, and so on. A slightly harder-edged take on Pern, you might say."

This forum had a direct effect on alt.fan.pern. A fan wrote in about 2003/3004: "The group has been largely dead since the advent of Anne McCaffrey's own message board. With the upcoming closure of that board (Dec 15, 2004), alt.fan.pern may become active again."

As Much About Communication As Enforcement

From a letter by Todd McCaffrey, Anne's son:

What’s KT? KT is the abbreviation to Kitchen Table also known as Kitchen Table Live, or Kitchen Table Bulletin Board. The Kitchen Table was part of Mum’s website when it seemed a requirement to keep strict control on anything related to Pern — or lose any chance of possibly seeing a Pern film. Fortunately, particularly when looking at Harry Potter fandom, it’s become clear that such strict policing isn’t necessary and we’ve relaxed such tight controls. Nowadays there are several websites devoted to discussing Mum’s various works.

Its Creation, and Mentions of Older Boards

Nope, the old old board that is meant can't be anything else than the old UBB board we used on woam before we switched to VirtualBulletin board. Maybe you remember that? A rather spartan board, not much bells and whistles :)

There was no bulletin board prior to Alec setting up the site including the UBB in september 2000. We switched boards a few months after starting, I think it was december 2000; so that makes KT running on VB for four years in december 2004 and on an older board (but same site) for the few months prior to that.

Before Alec started it all however, some of the early members, among them Cheryl, Anneli and myself, were users of a UseNet Newsgroup called alt.fan.pern, which still exist but has nearly died since peeps are not used to newsgroups anymore... :( It is still in operation though with maybe two post a week and if anybody cares: it could do with some traffic!

The same fan adds this a day later:

It turns out we changed from UBB to VB much, much later than I thought! The change was on 24 Januari 2003! So we used UBB from the start in september 2000 until january 2003... gosh... bad memory....

I was alerted to a new Anne McCaffrey site made by her son Alec in July 2000 by Cheryl who heard from Becky, who was in email contact with Anne at the time since she ran one of the major online book discussion clubs. Cheryl mailed me on July 19, 2000:

Becky just pointed out Anne McCaffrey's new website, finally finished by Alec! It'll take a while to fully peruse, which is nice...That was when the site went public, not the bulletin board :)

I have all the records and webfiles of woam and the respective bulletin boards. The first batch of chatters on the then new UBB board registered on September 22, 2000. Cheryl alerted me to the existence later than week and I registered on September 29. I was nominated as host right that first week but did not become it until December 20, 2000. 121 persons registered in September 2000 :)

Now there could have been a fandom related bulletin board earlier (maybe ex host Erin of Archives of Pern would know) or maybe there was a board related to an RPG club, but had there been a real McCaffrey BB I would probably have know it because I was already active, with my friends, on the usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pern, the place for Pern discussion at the time :)

Closure

In November 2004, at the same time rules regarding Pern fanworks were relaxed, McCaffrey announced she was closing the "Kitchen Table Bulletin Board" down due to increased costs:

The recent upgrades to the website and changes to the administration of Anne's business affairs have made it necessary to review some expenses. While we have been wonderfully pleased to offer the Kitchen Table Bulletin Board (KTBB) and the Kitchen Table Live (KTL) to Anne's fans, the fact is that they're becoming cost prohibitive, especially in the attempts to keep them updated and current with today's technology. After a great deal of contemplation and discussion, it has been decided to phase out the KTBB and KTL.

A large part of this, as well, is that we've been anxious to internationalize the website. When we looked more carefully at what this would require, we realized that administering an international KTBB and KTL would be impossibly expensive, and hardly fair to insist on an English-only community. Because we can't quite handle a multi-lingual KT, we feel the time has come to relinquish such things back to the care of Anne's fans.

Because so many of us have contacts and memories attached to these areas, the closing of the boards is being postponed for one month to give everyone a chance to save any posts, addresses or information that they would rather not lose. So mark your calendars - you have until December 15th, 2004 to save any information you hold near and dear.

In conjunction with the end of this particular era, we would like to mention how much we have appreciated the hosts and administrators of the KTBB and KTL. They have given unselfishly of their time and care, helping to create a community that has reached out to so many. Thank you.

Here are some changes worth cheering about: We'd like to faciliate the close relationship between Anne and her fans with the addition of a blog to Anne's website. It will allow her to keep in touch and give her fans a chance to read the inside scoop on upcoming books, events and personal information as well as give Anne a place respond to selected emails. This will be a wonderful opportunity to experience the wit and whimsy that is Anne.