A Brief History of Quizbowl Communication on the Internet

A brief summary of the changing modes of communication on the Internet. For an overview of quizbowl's history more generally, see the Timeline of Quizbowl History.

As of 2021, HSQB remains the main internet forum for quizbowl discussion, though not necessarily the most popular. Much discourse, especially in the high school community, has moved onto a variety of Discord servers. Several Facebook groups continue as social spaces, but ILQBM has lost much of the momentum from its peak.

Early Modern Era

ca. 1993:

The newsgroup alt.college.college-bowl was created on Usenet. For the next five years or so it would function as the principal organ of mass communication for the quizbowl community, until it was functionally destroyed largely due to the actions of Matt Bruce (see below). The newsgroup served much the same purpose that the modern fora serve: it was here that announcements and results were posted, elements of quizbowl style and philosophy were debated, and heated arguments which swiftly degenerated into "ad hominem" mudslinging were started, usually over whether ACF or CBI was the superior format (as if there should have been any question). Mainstays of alt.college.college-bowl were such self-styled "flame-warriors" as Maryland's Matt Colvin and Vishnu Jejjala, along with Georgia Tech's Shaun Askew, who were often ranged against such CBI partisans as Mike Obstgarten and Joe Wright.

1996:

Meow. "alt.college.college-bowl...was reduced to a smoldering crater".

1997:

In the summer following the end of the 1996-1997 school year, direct legal action threatened by College Bowl against the Academic Competition Foundation and specifically members Carol Guthrie, Don Windham, and Jim Dendy causes the organization to disband, later to be revived as the Academic Competition Federation. In the attempt to keep the format alive a rudimentary mailing list is to include a number of known ACF partisans and well-wishers, coinciding with the high-water mark of the "meow meow" phenomena on a.c.c.b. This would later provide the nucleus for the construction by former Iowa State player and rumored android R. Hentzel of the qb@iastate mailing list (see below).

1998:

Newsgroup falls out of use due to overwhelming spam

1998?:

qb@iastate.edu direct mailing list created

December: Yahoo quizbowl group created

2001?:

Fall?: Last post to qb@iastate.edu

Fall: Rudimentary HTML message board added to hsquizbowl.org

2003

April: Hsquizbowl.org message boards updated to phpBB2

May: Hsquizbowl.org message boards add collegiate section

2004

Fall?: Collegequizbowl.org opens message board

2005

Winter?: Collegequizbowl.org message board disabled

2008

Fall: Effective demise of the Yahoo group

Modern Era

2017?

Quizbowl Discords rise in popularity