Original Post: Ember, November 26, 2017
Hello everyone! I hope you’ve had a restful November. Here on the site, it’s been pretty busy: the clans were forced to work together to chase off a mother cougar and her cubs. In the process, both EarthClan and EclipseClan gained the respect of the other clans and the war has come to a close. Presently, the leaders are meeting at the Moonstone to discuss the recognition of EarthClan and EclipseClan as official clans, as well as changes in territories to return balance to the clans. There is currently no plan for the plot beyond this point, but it’s safe to say the next few weeks will be spent settling into the new clans. Currently, MoonClan has 149 characters, SunClan has 129, EarthClan has 126, and EclipseClan has 38. Ideally, we will be able to even the clans out before our next major plot, or EclipseClan will be at a serious disadvantage. Out of character, I just finished converting the pages to include EarthClan and EclipseClan. If you spot anything I’ve overlooked, please message me.
This month I am debuting a new section to the Monthly Meow: Community Building Tips. This will usually take the form of a short paragraph encouraging members to participate in an easy activity that helps the website become closer knit and promotes activity, such as welcoming new members on their profiles or posting on others’ art. If you have any ideas for what would make a good Community Building Tip, or a less lame title for this segment, please post below or message me. For this month, I would like everyone to make an effort to post more frequently on others’ artwork. It’s always encouraging to see comments on your art, and there’s no need to worry that you don’t know what to say. Even simple comments like “this is so cool!” or “I love the color scheme!” are welcome.
For this Monthly Meow I will go through a handful of archived versions of this website on The WayBack Machine. The WayBack Machine is a digital archive of the internet, which takes periodic screenshots of websites that can be viewed later on. Unfortunately, these captures are not perfect and much of the formatting of the website has been lost to time. Here I have chosen only a handful of captures to talk about, each spaced out by a year or two, and I invite you to open them up alongside this entry and to check out the other captures I didn’t discuss here for the sake of brevity. Each home page is fascinating in its own way and speaks to what the website was going through at the time, even without the context of the rest of the website.
The site’s first entry on the WayBack Machine is on December 19, 2011 under the address WarriorCatsOfTheForests.webs.com. Unfortunately, the formatting was not captured so only the text is available and all of the hyperlinks and images are broken. However, the text itself is interesting enough—in that I’m already blushing with embarrassment and we’re only in the first real paragraph of this monthly meow. Firstly, the title. “Warrior Cats Role Play!!” That’s right. Two exclamation marks. It becomes clear looking over the rest of the home page that I was rather fond of those.
The pages are very similar to what we have now, with the exception that the news page was labeled “Leaders Den,” the Character Updates Page was still called the “Guestbook” and there are no direct links to the art or video pages, nor is there is a history, information, or help page. While MoonClan is listed, so is the now-defunct StormClan and Nightclan, and there are pages for loners and a list of dead characters under “StarClan/The Dark Forest.” The website was very simple at this point, with only the first beginnings of a recorded history or any real organization with the Monthly Meow.
The introduction at the top of the home page lasted until just a few years ago, when it was expanded and rewritten into what we have on the Home Page today. All the bones are still there, though: a lost cat is approached by Moonstar and given the option to choose the life of a warrior.
There is also an entirely separate section for creating a character that lists the format members should post their characters in. It looks fairly similar to the one we know today, but with the fields in a different order and description and history listed separately. As well, at that time we included pictures beside each cat’s description. While this was very popular, we eventually had to change to text-only character pages to conserve bandwidth.
The rules are much shorter than they are today, with only 11 in total. All of these rules exist in some form today- a ban on foul language, a character limit, banning godmodding and powerplaying, a time limit on double posting, no obnoxious signatures, guidelines on naming, etc- but they have mostly been changed in one way or another.
The Recent Forum Posts area is interesting, as our threads follow the same general pattern now, with the exception that landmarks such as Origam’s Palace would have been listed within their general area, such as NightClan’s territory, and not as a separate thread. The blog entry section is particularly intriguing, though. What first caught my eye was Monthly Meow III, which has since been lost to time, and a blog entry called “Failed Plans” that I don’t remember at all. The bottom two entries appear to just be forum games, which I used to post occasionally in the hopes of attracting more activity to the website.
While most of the images from the Recent Photos section are still on the website (check the early pages of Sunken and Waterdrop’s albums), all of the videos have since been deleted. To my memory, these were all fairly silly, short animations.
Moving onto the next Wayback Machine snapshot from July 12, 2017, the site looks mostly the same as it had two years previous. Thankfully the exclamation points have been dropped from the title and some unnecessary spaces were removed from the intro, but as the formatting is still removed I can’t comment on that with too much certainty. The pages are starting to look more like what we have today, with MoonClan, NightClan, and DawnClan, a History Page and an Information Page. Funnily enough, all of the clans have a space in their name, as I didn’t realize that was improper notation at the time.
While the rules had expanded since 2011 and become more professional, they remain pretty scant. Most of the rules are unsurprising- no multi-accounting or godmodding, for instance- others give a bit of insight into what the website was facing at that time. For instance, that rule against multi-accounting is fairly new, and we had several multi-accounting cases around that time. The character limit was raised since the last snapshot, but there are now rules that don’t currently exist on the website about how members should roleplay (without too much focus on mates) and what constitutes an inappropriate name (“Deathkit”;).
The Recent Forum Posts looks similar to how it does today, as does the Recent Blog Entries that announce my short hiatus, a Monthly Meow, a new page, and –shockingly- webs glitches. Most of the art pieces listed are up on the website, and the “This is War” video can still be seen in my video album.
Here I had to move to the current website address, WarriorCatsOfTheForest.com, and there were no captures from 2014. A whole bunch of captures were taken in 2015, however, and I chose the entry from July 25th at random. This account of the website is almost identical to what we have today, from its simple title to the introduction, to the format of the rules. At this time we had an affiliates section as well as two separate chatboxes for advertisement and Off-topic chatting on the home page, while only one chatbox remains today. The Recent Forum Posts shows a bunch of threads that look identical to our current threads and even include a post by Blossom. The Recent News section lists a gathering blog entry, a Monthly Meow, a Plot Planning page and a rule change—all of which are familiar sights on the website today.
The next entry, from August 30th of 2016, is not particularly interesting. The only real change from the 2015 capture or even the website today lies in the rules and in the change from NightClan and DawnClan to EarthClan and EclipseClan. For example, the current character transfer system had just been implemented. However, just a month later Webs moved this website to Site Builder 3 and forced in a number of changes seen in the next capture on January 1, 2017.
That 2017 capture- the last we will examine in this blog entry- is the only one to contain some formatting from the actual website, including the header and the sidebar. Here, the pages have been moved around to account for the differently spaced navigation bar with each individual clan listed under a general “The Clans” tab, which has absorbed the former Information Page, and direct links to the art and video pages. Unlike the website today, the Affiliates section remains, and MoonClan, NightClan, DawnClan and SunClan are all listed as this was before the EarthClan merge. The day before this capture was taken was the website’s eighth anniversary, so there is an anniversary blog entry open.
This past month has been a big change for the website, as it’s been years since a new clan was added and it’s likely a few more years will pass before we feel the need to shake things up again. Hopefully this blog entry is interesting for both new members who don’t know much about the history of the website and us nostalgic oldies. I’m sure I’ve overlooked something that you find fascinating, so please speak up with whatever you find interesting in the comments. As well, if anyone knows of any other archiving services that may have more complete versions of this website saved, please show them to me.
MoonClan
Apprentices:
Owlkit, Gingerkit, Pearkit, Applekit, Sweetkit, Peachkit, Heatkit, Blazekit, Maplekit, Ebonykit: Mid December
Greykit, Pythonkit, Ravenkit, Tinykit: Late December
Warriors:
Daggerpaw, Fallowpaw, Laurelpaw, Riverpaw, Reedpaw, Maplepaw, Juniperpaw: Early December
Cariboupaw, Mulepaw, Dapplepaw: Mid December
Demisepaw, Wolfpaw, Blackpaw, Alluringpaw, Stormpaw, Cloverpaw, Bunnypaw, Mousepaw: Late December
Medicine Cat Apprentice: Mistypaw (Early December), Nutpaw (Late December)
Elders: Mossystar
SunClan
Apprentices:
Desertkit, Howlingkit, Honeykit, Midnightkit, Anat, Klorel, Storm Shatters, Heatherkit, Chestnutkit, Crosskit, Petalkit, Floodedkit, Stormkit, Ivykit, Rosekit, Honeykit, Flarekit, Thornkit, Carrotkit: Early December
Brownkit, Dapplekit: Mid December
Sunkit: Late December
Warriors:
Quailpaw, Mothpaw, Silverpaw, Badgerpaw: Early December
Spiderpaw, Littlepaw: Mid December
Hawkpaw, Russetpaw, Dreampaw, Ghostlypaw: Late December
Deaths: Desolatestar, Growlingbear
EarthClan
Apprentices:
Echokit, Dawnkit, Bloodkit, Shadekit, Runekit, Nightkit: Early December
Tinykit, Brook-kit, Sunkit, Namelesskit, Patchkit, Bluekit: Mid December
Tail of the Fox, Two Rivers Running, Eyes Like Lightning, Daughter of Stars: Late December
Warriors:
Irispaw, Pantherpaw, Midnightpaw, Brackenpaw, Stormpaw: Early December
Dapplepaw, Stormpaw: Mid December
Goldpaw, Sunpaw, Jasminepaw: Late December
Deaths: Candleheart
EclipseClan
Apprentices:
Snakekit, Kobrakit: Early December
Warriors:
Azurepaw, Skypaw: Early December
Stormpaw, Blackpaw: Mid December
Risingpaw, Mistypaw, Swiftpaw, Fallingpaw, Littlepaw: Late December
Elders: Eclipsestar
Deaths: Spidersong, Briarpath
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