The Internets

In Which the Alliterates Embark on Adventures on the Web

In 1998, Lester’s day job asked him to revamp the company Web site. When Les said, “Huh?” they handed him a credit card and said, “Take classes or something.” Using a mix of SAM’s Teach Yourself books and HWG online courses, Les quickly consumed an alphabet soup of HTML, CSS, Perl, ASP, CF, ETC., some navigation and interface design theory, and just enough graphics savvy to make him dangerous.

Les liked this strange new mix of languages, so like magic, so like poetry. He looked around for other projects to tackle. One night at an Alliterates meeting, he pitched the idea of building a group Web presence. There followed some debate about the who would answer the e-mail, but eventually everyone agreed that it sounded like a good idea. Steve Sullivan offered to create graphics, and Don Perrin volunteered to set up the domain name and hosting.

At the next meeting, Don announced that Alliterates.com was a reality. He had even put up a home page as a placeholder. Les and Sully heartlessly set to work replacing it with something different. While Les labored to build an expandable paper background (this being his “expandable page” period), Sully churned out various front-page graphics, and Don fended off questions from others about how much they should contribute for the hosting. (As it turns out, because our domain host was also the ISP for several members, he let us ride for free that first year.)

Soon, there were pages for individual bios, but no actual text or illos for most of them. Rob was recruited to twist some arms. As each new bio was delivered, the pressure on the remaining laggards increased proportionately, and soon all the member pages were filled—except for Dave Gross’s. The Web design team posted a mock bio to goad him into action. Dave, clever fellow that he is, changed a few phrases, then bragged that he had tricked them into doing his work for him.

With the site up and running, the group began considering ways to draw traffic. The idea of “inducting” “honorary” Alliterates was put forth, and Rob started with William Faulkner. Other faux inductees followed (including a spoof of J. R. R. Tolkien that offended some of his fans). Next, members experimented with posting free fiction, Rob and Sully each turning out a pretty kick-ass serial tale, Les and Tim each also providing a short story. After that, the Alliterates began work on a “recommended reading” list. In a group this size and this preoccupied with other deadlines, it took two years to complete! (It finally found a home on this newest incarnation of the Web site.)

Sully, Rob, and Les ran out of steam at about this point. Jeff and Thomas stepped up to the plate, Jeff reminding members periodically to send in their news, then compiling it and passing it to Thomas, who converted it to HTML and posted it on the home page. Things went on in this fashion for about a year.

Then the Web site entered a dark period Les would rather forget. Early in 2004, the site went offline for several months. While trying to move the domain hosting from Network Solutions to GoDaddy, Les had let the domain name lapse, intending to snap it up with the new service. Unfortunately, it drifted in DNS limbo all summer. Finally, in early fall, it cleared the system and GoDaddy’s automated service picked it up.

In the meantime, Jeff set up an Alliterates blog as a stopgap. The lack of a group Web site had convinced the members of one thing: They missed it. The shared Web space served as a virtual meeting table for the membership as a whole, something not foreseen in the original plan. So Les set about coding a new, PHP-driven site—where members could log in and update their own information. Sully created a new graphic layout, and Rob wrote up a history, with contributions from various other members. The result? You’re soaking in it.

Addendum 1: In October of 2006, the hand-coded site was imported into a Serendipity blog framework, for more advanced login, security, and maintenance capabilities. It was graphically redesigned with an aged-paper theme and brown illustrations from Don Quixote.

Addendum 2: In December of 2008, the site was again transported to a new blog application—WordPress. That’s what you’re soaking in now.