Wow! Hello @HarryNugz and @kaka. Glad to see so many new old members. Ha! Ha! The more the merrier.
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good to see you still around nl420!
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Sure glad to be a part of this forum again. I posted a lot back then, but times change and just now more comfortable and getting back into it.
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This is the only forum i talk on. The vibe is nice and a lot of info getting passed around. It is nice watching it grow and evolve.
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1998 the planning was still going on. I am almost 100% certain the forums went live in July of 1999. I remember going on summer vacation and coming home and overgrow was up.
nl420 and b420 can probably nail down went og went up.
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Hey kaka good to hear from you again. I think your timeline is right, 1998 was a lot of planning. Shabang was running the Weedbase site, and building OG. Flick recruited me from the USENET group alt.drugs.pot.cultivation (adpc for us elder grow-geeks) after I posted a few strain reports I was collecting in response to others’ questions. OG really came together from the communities of Weedbase and adpc, with a sprinkling of folks from cannabis.com (always the unruly stepchild of the online mj community) and the 77, an invite-only forum.
Flick brought the political bent to the OG vision that attracted me. Remember, this was just a couple of years after California passed Prop 215 for medical MJ, Dennis Peron was still going to jail trying to serve AIDs patients in SF, and the Internet seemed like a frigging Jedi light saber ready to cut through all the bullshit and put grow tech knowledge directly in the hands of patients and their caregivers. Throw Dennis in jail for growing 500 plants for 1000 patients? Fine. How about throwing 1000 patients in jail for each growing 5 plants?
We were out to overthrow the old regime by outgrowing them…Overgrow.
I miss Flick, who was always bit too paranoid (depending on your involvement, with less than 10 years after Operation Green Merchant, it was hard to be too paranoid back then) and left right after OG.com launched. He is an overlooked founder in OG’s history and contributed a lot to its original vision. I still remember his railing against job-related drug testing, and calling for a “Boston Pee Party” where we’d all meet to pour our urine in Boston harbor. 
Hope he’s doing well.
By second half of 99 things were moving fast - below is the original StrainBase launch announcement I made at ADPC in Nov 99:
From: “Baudelaire” b420@nowhere.com
Subject: StrainBase Online at Overgrow.com
Date: 1999/11/09
Message-ID: zlKV3.6252$L5.123456@c01read02-admin.service.talkway.com#1/1
Followup-To: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation
X-Client-NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup-12345678.SanFrancisco1.Level3.net/123454678
X-Trace: c01read02-admin.service.talkway.com 942109151 12345678 (Mon, 08 Nov 1999 16:59:11 PST)
Organization: Talkway, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 16:59:11 PST
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation
Just a short message to let everyone know that StrainBase v.1.1, a
compendium of Cannabis varieties, is now online at
http://www.overgrow.com. Click on the strainbase link at the top of
the page. Search for your favorite strain characteristics using the
search engines, or just rummage around a while. More than 800 pages of
information on 200 cannabis strains.
While you’re there, join us at Overgrow for high quality discussions on
cannabis cultivation and breeding, online security, and MJ politics.
Come on, pH, pull up a stool at my favorite local. I still owe you a
beer…
b420
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Thats right on the money Baud.
Flick pulled you, foolgirl, shiva, myself from adpc. I had also started using weedbase for a short time also, with some time spent in the ** also. How I knew so many rad people I’ll never know…
While we’re at it, for anyone who’s ever wondered who invented Scrog… well go look up our old friend pH from adpc.
I wish we had access to the old database.
Subcool was mentioning the other night we’ve lost some of the old crew. Walking Dude, Skoosh, STP. Lighting one up for 'em.
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Remember OKL? Ole ketchup lungs? His grow report system for production/watt got me going on StrainBase. Would love to see him and pH back in the forums. When I started, I sat at the feet of pH, taking in everything he offered. Skunk 1, chicken wire and T12 flouros, hehe…
The thing was, back then it took a bit of technical smarts to find and participate in these forums - even more so to do so anonymously - so the folks who found their way to them often were pretty smart dudes and dudettes… The level of discourse, and degree of informed curiosity was often very high.
-b420
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The thing was, back then it took a bit of technical smarts to find and participate in these forums - even more so to do so anonymously - so the folks who found their way to them often were pretty smart dudes and dudettes… The level of discourse, and degree of informed curiosity was often very high.
This is what I miss about that era! The first few years of OG were the best, as the internet went mainstream there was a mass invasion of 14-year old wannabes into OG.
It’s not just cannabis, the late 90’s were a great time on the internet in a couple other hobbies I do as well. I never thought of Usenet groups for cannabis, I didn’t get into growing until '99. The timing was perfect as spam pretty much killed Usenet around '99-00. (btw I believe most old Usenet content is available and searchable through google)
So easy to forget the times before instant access to knowledge! The first couple times I tried growing, I think '91, I didn’t know about the 12-hour light cycle. It just wasn’t widely known at that time. Years later I bought a Jorge Cervantes book at Tower Records and learned all the important stuff. It was difficult to even find books on cannabis growing in 1990.
We should not discount the importance of Overgrow.com! I became an activist around that time, due to my excitement about growing cannabis and the medical effect it had on my body. Not only did I learn from expert growers there but it also encouraged my activist work, which combined with others to eventually lead to legalization. Cannabisnews.com was another rallying point for me…it still exists as well.
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I swear it was the Maxim article in 2000. OG was rolling for sure by then, but traffic, and the fools/thousand ratio, shot through the roof after that. It was the cause of much of what came after, with server costs mounting, no economic model, despite obvious commercial value to certain seed mongers, which caught the attention of the govt drug mafias…
-b420
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Thanks for the timeline on the inception of OG. I knew when I joined, but didn’t remember whether it was 2 months or two years prior to my joining. Remember well the karma wars going on. Had a well known breeder solicit karma from me! Wasn’t Subcool, cause I didn’t know him back then. Knowing Sub, he coulda care less about karma points anyway.
On a sad note, Mr Stinky an Old Timer passed away a few years back. He was a combat veteran and a hell of a nice guy!
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I was here heavy in aéro 2001 2005
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Woohoo! Overgrow is back!
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Heard from a friend, he heard from a friend OG was back online a bit ago. I was around back before OG was around but came online whenever we heard about it on the Newsgroups.
I was out in Colorado last year visiting my brothers DD and Mr Soul, and I know DD is still in touch with Pigfarmer who I am sure many of you know as well.
I see a few familiar faces, but I can assure you I may have smoked a bowl or two since our last visit and the old mind isn’t quite what it used to be.
Hello World
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Welcome and i hope to hear some of the old tales you might be privy to.
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Argo430 then Argo930 now ha ha came on in 2001 first place that told me ed and george needed new info sad to see it go. Lets see how this goes…
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I remember the first OG but was still in school and not yet a grower, would read stories about the strains I loved so much and met many people who I still talk to today. Thanks for bringing it back, just heard about it from Sub, Good to be back!
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