Maidens of the Kaleidoscope - A Timeline

[Seventh Holy Scripture]

It's New Year's Day in Gensokyo, an apropos date for a bit of reminiscing. The Maidens of the Kaleidoscope forum has been in existence for nearly seven years, minus the occasional month or two when has been knocked offline by technical problems. It's a long and storied history for a website - a history that ought to be told.

We've noticed that in the "Ask a Staffer" series, people have been full of questions about the origins of the forum, questions that our more recent staff members - through no fault of their own - are ill equipped to answer. And so we've put together a timeline of the major events in Maidens of the Kaleidoscope's past, so that those who haven't been here from the start can learn a bit about where this forum came from.

Take dates with a grain of salt, as most of the primeval existences that helped write this have horrible memories for them.

Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

• April 2004: Maidens of the Kaleidoscope comes into being, at the now defunct URL shrinemaiden.com as quite possibly the first Touhou fan site in English. Founded by Katchura, a charming British fellow with a noteworthy fondness for gothic lolitas, it had a front page containing a biography of ZUN and an overview of the two Windows Touhou games that had been released at the time, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and Perfect Chery Blossom.
  The first incarnation of the forums and the official IRC channel, #shrinemaiden, were created at around the same time - the latter on a small IRC network, Pyoko, which also hosted the Beast's Lair IRC channel and a few Something Awful-related channels.
• May 2005: pooshlmer, the first Touhou imageboard, joins the WAKAchan network, a conglomeration of independently hosted imageboards. The importance of this is that as it is by being a regular patron of WAKAchan that Seventh Holy Scripture discovered Touhou and, a few months later, found his way to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope and to #shrinemaiden - at that time a quiet, cozy IRC channel with about twenty users. He proceeds to introduce various friends, among them TheStupidOne, to Touhou and Maidens of the Kaleidoscope.
• 2006: A hacker exploits a vulnerability in the forum software, an outdated version of the notoriously insecure phpBB, to destroy the forum database. With the assistance of Seventh Holy Scripture and TheStupidOne, Katchura sets up a new forum running the SMF software.
• June 2006: Seventh Holy Scripture attempted to hold the first Touhou Seimoe competition, a bracket in which Touhou characters battled it out to determine who is the most popular among the Western fanbase. The contest was completely unsecured against cheating and proxy usage, as demonstrated when Medicine Melancholy received over five thousand votes after a low-triple-digit turnout in earlier rounds, and was soon canceled.
• April 2007: Katchura's webhosting unexpectedly expires, and shrinemaiden.com is taken offline without warning. His webhost, Globat, demands the exorbitant price of $99 for another year of hosting before they will relinquish the website data or domain name. Rather than cave to such extortion, Seventh Holy Scripture registers the current domain - shrinemaiden.org - and sets up yet another new forum with the assistance of TheStupidOne, while Katchura recuses himself from running the website.
  The main page offering an introduction to Touhou was a casualty of the complete website data loss, and the front page of of shrinemaiden.org has since endured a pitiful existence as a feed from the news subforum, various bad jokes, and most recently a redirect straight to the forums. But there may yet be hope for a brighter future...
• October 2007: Through the efforts of a large allegiance of forum members, the second Touhou Seimoe competition was held with marginally greater success; Reimu Hakurei, a perennial failure in Japanese popularity polls, defeated Alice Margatroid to establish herself as the most popular character in the Western fandom. This contest escaped its predecessor's destruction by proxy only thanks to at first to the heroic work of many volunteers manually checking that every vote was legitimate, and later a script coded by TheStupidOne. It was determined that the next Seimoe needed better safeguards against proxy abuse, but due to the lack of technical expertise to accomplish this and other factors, Seimoe didn't happen again.
• March 2009: TheStupidOne has some fun in the "Everything Else" subforum (perhaps best considered as a predecessor of Renko's.) In her own words:
  

  I took the gimmick from FYAD of crowning an "Idiot King" (in our case, Idiot Maiden), a user who is given mod permissions over FYAD as a reward for some outlandish prank or gimmick contest.  The very first contest was about making a recipe for cooking their favorite touhou.
  

  However, Seventh Holy Scripture was apprehensive about giving users power in what was nominally a subforum with a purpose and created a new "Idiot Central" subforum in which anyone could post anything, so long as they didn't mind an Idiot Maiden having their way with it.
• April 2009: A major upgrade of SMF, version 2, enters public beta with the capability of using the superior PostgreSQL database. Rather than attempt the daunting task of migrating current posts and members over to the new database, TheStupidOne decides the forum population can endure another wipe. The old forum posts remain archived for several months, resulting in a much smoother transition than the previous accidents.
  Kilgamayan and Letty Whiterock, who assisted in setting up the new forum, take the liberty of giving several of the subforums more colorful names- previously, TARC was "Touhou Discussion", HME was "Guides / Tactics" and other such dreariness. Most notably, Idiot Central was renamed Cirno's Perfect Math Classroom, the current idiot hierarchy was established, and Kefit (using the Cirno account, naturally with a user ID of 9) supplied the first challenges by instructing her students to creatively solve two simple math problems.
• December 2009: The Great Winter Charity Drive takes place. In a grand occasion of much generosity, merriment, and karaoke, all of you amazing people raised over $1,800 in donations - over a dollar per registered forum member, and a lot more than that if you only count active members. Arashi Kurobara wins the Tou-ho-ho Songfest and chooses to donate 60% of the proceeds to RAINN, while the other two winners select Child's Play and the Heifer Foundation to receive the rest. Some months later, an extra $500 mysteriously turns up in the donation box and is also sent to Child's Play.
• February 2010: The forum is reorganized again. Most significantly, "Creative Fanworks" is split into two forums, Patchouli's Scarlet Library and Alice's Art Atelier, to better differentiate between the musicians / artists and the writers. The Librarian usergroup is created in order to organize the new PSL.
• April 2010: In an ill-thought-out April Fool's Day joke, orchestrated to 'explain' some necessary forum downtime in which SMF was to be upgraded, TheStupidOne claimed to be shutting down the forums and selling the domain name. This exploded into drama when staff, who had agreed to pretend that the incident was no joke, were faced with the obligation to lie to people extremely upset by the development- and various people were provoked into unloading their personal grievances against TSO and other staffers.
  A sorely trying time for staff and members alike, this resulted in the promotion of Edible, Kilgamayan and Sakura Rurouni to administrators when it seemed TSO would resign from being the public face of the forum over the personal attacks. Shortly afterwards, the 'Acolyte' system was set up in the hope of lessening the divide between members and staff, enabling good communication and preventing further misunderstandings.

#shrinemaiden / PPIrC

• September 2005: Originally, #shrinemaiden had no power structure, but for unknown reasons only channel operators (of which there were none) could change the topic. Seventh Holy Scripture asks Katchura to change it for him. After a struggle to remember the password granting channel operator access, Katchura decides to make Seventh Holy Scripture the first auto-operator instead.
• November 2005: The first version of Keine appears on IRC, so named as her original purpose was solely to log the channel happenings (and allow searching through them easily, but that function broke early on after the logs grew to a sizable length.) For historical interest, you can peruse the very first log Keine saved here.
• February 2006: Keine is upgraded from a crude skeleton hacked together by Seventh Holy Scripture in his free time to the feature-filled Supybot software. Among her new abilities is the dangerous command "@roulette", which has a one-in-six chance of kicking those who test their luck. Keine receives operator status in order to duly punish those fools who would gamble with their lives.
  #shrinemaiden is soon consumed by @roulette addiction. Entire days pass in which no words are spoken but "@roulette", "*click*" and "BANG!", whereas previously bored people on IRC were forced to talk and/or start a game on Lenna's trivia bot.
  TheStupidOne takes advantage of Keine being hosted on her server to make herself a de facto operator of #shrinemaiden as well. (The IRC hierarchy was not taken very seriously at this time, and temporary ops were frequently given to anyone who asked for them and many who did not.)
• November 2006: Pyoko begin to suffer from severe connectivity problems, and TSO suggests hosting her own IRC server as a home for #shrinemaiden. This is perceived as a power grab by some members of the channel, who fail to make their concerns well known until the day of the 'move', whereupon drama erupts - not helped by some early instability in the new server.
  #shrinemaiden remained somewhat split between the two networks for some time, with many members inhabiting both versions of the channel while others declared their allegiance and boycotted either the old channel or the new. Pyoko's ongoing connection issues, as well as the endorsement of the forum staff, eventually result in PPIrC's #shrinemaiden taking the lead.
• 2009ish: After some bouts of instability born of hosting servers on cheap VPSes, PPIrC switches to its current single-server setup. The one server, Cirno, is generously hosted by #shrinemaiden regular Suzuran and solid as an iceberg.

Mafia / RPG / #touhou-meido (by Pesco)

• April 2007: Mafia is first introduced. A thread asking for interest is made in the then-Akyu's and we get enough players. But we end up playing the game in TARC. It's a glorious trainwreck because a thread for the dead players to discuss the game is also in TARC. game gets ruined by scum deciding he wants to throw the game. bofh's lurker tendencies were already present as he was the Godfather and didn't bother to submit NK after the game ruining.
• May 2007: We have the second game of Fail-Mafia, also in TARC, no public discussion thread but players can freely communicate with each other. It was Imperishable Night flavoured. Scum derp it up with both of them fakeclaiming Sakuya, who happened to be a safe claim. Reisen takes the bullet by claiming cop, whom he had already found. In the process outing the real cop to get lynched or NK'd. I can't remember. Then we get the most faithful depiction of Touhou canon being carried out in the game. Kaguya spends every single night killing Mokou, who resurrects (self-protecting doc). In the end town lynches the doc.
• June 2007: The fad of Mafia is catching on and we get moved to a brand new subforum, "Unlimited GameWorks." Our own playground wheee! I play like a derptard and Kilga vigs me out of frustration. ##Yuyuko Doll: Pesco meme is born. It's the first game where LyLo of 3 players is reached. Kiro was at Comiket at the time and couldn't spare enough time to reread very deeply. bofh's status as best scum gets pretty solid.
• Dec-Jan 2007-2008: MotK mafia's first town win. FAV makes her debut and we all have high hopes of her. The game probably had the best player pool possible at the time.
• May 2008: Meido RPG gets introduced. Hype get and an ad-hoc IRC chan on dejatoons gets made to play it. Like with all shiny new things, there's good interest and more people start coming in. The chan picks up trolls like Seniwac, so we find a time when he's not there to reg and formulate some hierarchy.
• Dates start getting fuzzy for me from here on.
  I think Kilga and Benny were one of the first mods from the forum that rocked up. We start spending less time playing meido as new games made their own chans. Some of the mafia discussions get taken to IRC, after all it's a chat medium and great for scumplanning.
  In the 2008 wipe there was also the suggestion to move #meido to ppirc. It wasn't exactly at the time of the wipe, but it was around then. I personally felt it was acceptable as the the infrastructure would be great, but the general (vocal) opinion was indifference and refusal. Usually Dead and Mima were campers in #meido at the time and I recall UD being very strongly against letting #meido make the move. It was a pretty lame reason in retrospect, such that I can't even recall why I said we'd stay there.
  <population happens, Kilga joined by stalking someone to the chan, Hele appeared dunno how. the place has lots of people (about 20 or so) that I decide to entrust OPs to them>
  CPMC gets formed and #meido's popularity catches on for those people. I get assertive of #meido being UGW/RPG's chan before letting it cater to CPMC making a takeover.
• June 2009: Purvis joins the forums and establishes himself in CPMC. A derail of a thread by Trance becomes a text adventure. Purvis starts making these games popular in UGW/RPG.
• Dec 2009: Forum sections start getting renamed. I get my promotion to mod from Godmother and declare UGW to be named RPG to follow the theme.
• April 2010: April Fools Day joke oh boy . #meido becomes a temp hangout for the people that can't live without their CPMC. face it, the only people that bitched are the ones who don't go into any of the other forum areas and needed their daily fix of attentionwhoring and dramallama.
• September 2010: The question of why we don't move to ppirc is asked again. I have no idea why we're still on dejatoons. So I bet the outcome of a DotS game to decide it. Jerk headcrabs picks Nitori, who was pretty damn OP at the time and I lose the game. The move becomes official.

[Kips McKipzerson]

Long history.

So wait, the IRC moved because of a damned DotS game? Seems like an easy way to solve problems if you only pick nitori. >.>

[Solais]

I like the fact that headcrabs is historically a jerk. :V

Also, very good read, indeed, I was always curious about this. It's fun to remember some of this, and what part/side I was with. Except I don't really want to remember April Fool's... >.>

[Reddyne]

IS THAT SO.

No, really, that was quite interesting and I'm glad it's been posted! I had no idea the forums had been around for so long. I certainly hadn't heard anything about the creation of Pooshlmer and the like either.

I also find the transition #touhou-meido went through rather amusing. I never would have had any business being in it if I stumbled into it early on, but now it's turned into my primary IRC hangout spot. Minor references to it being an RP channel where always abound, but I didn't know specifics.

[Koakkuri]

This was an enlightening read. Thank you very much.

[trancehime]

Long history.

So wait, the IRC moved because of a damned DotS game? Seems like an easy way to solve problems if you only pick nitori. >.>

This was Pre-Nerf!Nitori, where she was at her most broken.

It was pretty clear that headcrabs wanted the move at the time, else he wouldn't have chosen her, I'm sure. I was on Pesco's team as well, so... >_>

Geez, speaking of Katchura, I wonder what the hell he's even doing right now >_o

[helvetica]

This was Pre-Nerf!Nitori, where she was at her most broken.

It was pretty clear that headcrabs wanted the move at the time, else he wouldn't have chosen her, I'm sure. I was on Pesco's team as well, so... >_>

Geez, speaking of Katchura, I wonder what the hell he's even doing right now >_o

Last thing I remember from him he was going to a green foam party.  To fuck 16 year old bitches and get EGL fashion tips.

[Edible]

I imagine he has a harem of gothlolis at this stage.

[Aisha]

Provided that I'm remembering correctly, it might be worth adding that MotK made two very significant contributions to the international Touhou community (aside from possibly being the only English site dedicated to Touhou at the time), in that projects started on those old forums gave rise to Touhou Wiki and the Pooshlmer image boards. One of them was a translated spellcard compendium for Touhou 6 through 8, complete with screenshots. It was started and maintained by Leviathean, I believe. The main site also had translations for those Touhou games, but aside from Touhou 6, they were pretty incomplete. Aona and a few others (?) started posting and translating the remaining scripts on the forums. Katchura might have stopped being active on the site by then, so its translations weren't kept up to date. But anyway, it was eventually decided to transfer the spellcard compendium and game translations to wiki format for ease of editing. The thing started to expand rapidly since then. I believe a member (J5983, I think), stepped up to create and host the wiki and the Pooshlmer image boards. If I had to place a date on all of this, it would probably be somewhere between late-2004 and early-mid 2005, but that seems a bit off to me for some reason.

Early patching efforts for Touhou 6 through 8 also began here, courtesy of game hacking by s", ssssz(?), and maybe a few others. These might have also contributed to the founding of the Touhou Wiki, but I'm less confident where that fits into the timeline. Early Touhou doujinshi scanlations also happened here before moving to Pooshlmer.


Prior to the hacking, the forums also decayed a bit because they were starting to become overrun with ad bots. If it weren't for the hacking these forums might have eventually faded away like the Eternal Romancia forums (if anyone remembers those; some old members also posted there).

[Seventh Holy Scripture]

I believe a member (I can't remember his name, but I believe it began with "J" and followed with four or five numbers), stepped up to create and host the wiki and the Pooshlmer image boards. If I had to place a date on all of this, it would probably be somewhere between late-2004 and early-mid 2005, but that seems a bit off to me for some reason.

Early patching efforts for Touhou 6 through 8 also began here, courtesy of game hacking by s", ssssz(?), and maybe a few others. These might have also contributed to the founding of the Touhou Wiki, but I'm less confident where that fits into the timeline. Early Touhou doujinshi scanlations also happened here before moving to Pooshlmer.

He goes by "J5983", I believe. Most interesting. I did not know he was ever a member here or that the idea for the wiki/imageboard were first floated on the forums, it was definitely before I arrived.

I do remember s" being the driving technical force behind the first few English patches. That was after we'd had the game scripts translated for a good long while and were just missing the hacking expertise to get them into the game, until he spontaneously showed up and provided it, so I don't think those events had anything to do with the founding of the Touhou Wiki - to my recollection that was already around and serving as a repository for the translations.

Thanks for your contribution! I'm impressed that even I had something to learn about our history.

[Edible]

I last saw J5 on the original iteration of the forums before the wipe in 2006.  I only remember this because he had his username upside-down.

[Aisha]

He goes by "J5983", I believe. Most interesting. I did not know he was ever a member here or that the idea for the wiki/imageboard were first floated on the forums, it was definitely before I arrived.

I do remember s" being the driving technical force behind the first few English patches. That was after we'd had the game scripts translated for a good long while and were just missing the hacking expertise to get them into the game, until he spontaneously showed up and provided it, so I don't think those events had anything to do with the founding of the Touhou Wiki - to my recollection that was already around and serving as a repository for the translations.

Thanks for your contribution! I'm impressed that even I had something to learn about our history.

Yeah, it was J5983. He made a thread, which was stickied in the ShrineMaiden Discussion subforum, announcing the Pooshlmer Image Board on February 19, 2005. On the second page of that subforum, he also created a thread called "Wiki", which is probably where they discussed creating it. I've seen the wiki mentioned as early as April 19, 2005 in ShrineMaiden Projects. For some reason, directly linking to snapshots of these pages just returns the squatter ad from the domain incident, but you can see them (and actually read the image board announcement one) if you manually go through the December 05, 2005 snapshot. I'm surprised such detailed snapshots of the old forums exist. Now I don't have to go entirely by memory.

You're right about the patching effort coming later. Seems like s" appeared in ShrineMaiden Projects with a WIP patch for PCB on June 15, 2005. I remember that being the first one.

[Conqueror]

Just popping in to say thanks all for the history lesson!  :3

[Whatthe]

Very interesting indeed. Thanks!

[Zengar Zombolt]

Well well. This is a very coo' idea, 7hs. Much thanks, just about all I wanted to know!

[noodles]

Wow. Forgive me, but I didn't realize this place was such a big deal o_o

Really, I was scared of touhou fan communities (thanks to 4chan /jp/) and if not for Trance linking me to this place one day, I probably would never have discovered it.

That's an impressive history.

[Yukarin]

Oh my. That's quite a history there. I now have more respect for you guys since you did make MoTK survive for 7 years.

Not many forums can do that.

[HakureiSM]

Whoa shit I felt really young through most of the story and then I hit the charity drive and Creative Fanworks split and was like holy shiiiiit
It feels so long ago.

Great post, btw. I learned a lot, filled a gray area in my brain.

Also this amused me:

[Momiji]

Also this amused me:

TSO is a 24-bit integer.

[Suikama]

Whoa shit I felt really young through most of the story and then I hit the charity drive and Creative Fanworks split and was like holy shiiiiit
It feels so long ago.

Great post, btw. I learned a lot, filled a gray area in my brain.

Also this amused me:

I remember when I had second place for a bit BV

[Firestorm29]

Pretty sweet thread. It's nice to see how the place has changed over the years. It's also got me trying to remember when I found these forums, I want to say it was around between the forum remake and the Seimoe thing. I didn't set-up an account at the time since I was out at sea during that timeframe.

[Failure McFailFace]

I noticed that this isn't locked. So, any updates to the forum since 2011?

(obviously the theme change a few months ago, but I don't exactly remember when that was)

[Delfigamer]

Edit: As of 9/30 I've also made color changes to the main theme, making it a bit more monochromatic with clearer divisions between content to compensate. Feedback for those changes can go here as well :3

[Kurzov]

I made an visual copy of the OP.