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I remember a message board that had a lot of the founders of the website on it before "cheatsheets". I used my WebTV around 1996/97 and there was a messageboard a lot like this. Joe started Cheatsheets. We heard about it on the message board. I won many championships in a row because I was the only one that knew about it in our league. I think we called the message board the fantasy football "underground".

 
Black&Gold said:
I remember a message board that had a lot of the founders of the website on it before "cheatsheets". I used my WebTV around 1996/97 and there was a messageboard a lot like this. Joe started Cheatsheets. We heard about it on the message board. I won many championships in a row because I was the only one that knew about it in our league. I think we called the message board the fantasy football "underground".
Click to expand...
The message board that I remember from 1996 was alt.rec.sport.football.fantasy or something like that. We usually refer to it as rsff.I was working on my Master's Thesis in the fall of 1996 and when I recently went through an old box that included rough drafts of my thesis, I found a few e-mails from old Joe Bryant himself. He had solicited a "brainstorming" session over what made for success in fantasy football from some two dozen or so people who frequented rsff. In those days, getting information from locals and discussing trends were an unbelievable advantage.You can see how focused I was on my thesis at the time...
 
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The Jerk said:
Black&Gold said:
I remember a message board that had a lot of the founders of the website on it before "cheatsheets". I used my WebTV around 1996/97 and there was a messageboard a lot like this. Joe started Cheatsheets. We heard about it on the message board. I won many championships in a row because I was the only one that knew about it in our league. I think we called the message board the fantasy football "underground".
Click to expand...
The message board that I remember from 1996 was alt.rec.sport.football.fantasy or something like that. We usually refer to it as rsff.I was working on my Master's Thesis in the fall of 1996 and when I recently went through an old box that included rough drafts of my thesis, I found a few e-mails from old Joe Bryant himself. He had solicited a "brainstorming" session over what made for success in fantasy football from some two dozen or so people who frequented rsff. In those days, getting information from locals and discussing trends were an unbelievable advantage.You can see how focused I was on my thesis at the time...
Click to expand...
Would you please expand on this? How did you first find out about rsff? I am curious how these things started and how people found them.
 
Saints-Man said:
Would you please expand on this? How did you first find out about rsff? I am curious how these things started and how people found them.
Click to expand...
The memory is a little bit fuzzy on exactly how I ended up at rsff, but I'm sure this is fairly close to what actually happened.My field of study was bioengineering. I was located at an off-campus laboratory and could not always easily access online medical journals. While it was painstakingly slow to connect with my 9600 baud (I think) modem and Mosaic web browser, I was able to find articles related to my thesis and other laboratory projects if I was willing to search for them and connect to MedLine and other archives and be patient as they came up. I used one computer for online communication, one to run the laboratory equipment for studies, and a third as my actual workcenter.I think what happened is that I found some interesting discussions related to engineering -- or maybe it was just technology in general -- in a newsgroup. I think it was a usenet forum or something like that. I wasn't visiting every day but I found that I could occasionally get some ideas by viewing topics in the newsgroup. When the hours got longer and I needed a break, I would occasionally see what other discussion groups were present. Like I said, I don't remember exactly what happened, but one way or another, I ended up at these usenet newsgroups. For all I know, my visits could just as easily have started due to a co-worker in the lab who was visiting the newsgroups for his research or even just for fun and I found them to be interesting. One way or another, I basically stumbled across them.Inevitably, given my love for football, I sought out what newsgroups there were that discussed football. I think my first visits occurred when the Steelers made their run to SB XXX. I visited the football newsgroups, first the rec.sport.football.pro (I think), and then, having started playing FF in 1991, I checked out the next door neighbor, the rsff. This was in January of 1996. If my first visits weren't in January, they definitely happened before the 1996 football season, as I have one or two threads printed out in addition to Joe's e-mails.There was a thread that would fit in today's forums (except for a lower number of participants) debating the merits of Derek Loville vs. Terry Kirby. People set up their positions just like today, with escalating hyperbole and some personal insult (although sadly, insults are far more prevalent today). Naturally, the debate continued well into the season. Ironically, Steve Young ended up with more rushing TDs than either of them!!Something about that thread and others I encountered hooked me on rsff. But... by the next year, I was working full time in industry and traveled quite extensively so that I lost touch with the rsff community for several years. Eventually, I found cheatsheets.net after it had been around for at least one, probably two seasons. I posted a little bit on the yellow forums but still didn't have consistent time available to really interact. I finally found a little more time in 2005 as you can see from my profile.
 
The Jerk said:
Black&Gold said:
I remember a message board that had a lot of the founders of the website on it before "cheatsheets". I used my WebTV around 1996/97 and there was a messageboard a lot like this. Joe started Cheatsheets. We heard about it on the message board. I won many championships in a row because I was the only one that knew about it in our league. I think we called the message board the fantasy football "underground".
Click to expand...
The message board that I remember from 1996 was alt.rec.sport.football.fantasy or something like that. We usually refer to it as rsff.I was working on my Master's Thesis in the fall of 1996 and when I recently went through an old box that included rough drafts of my thesis, I found a few e-mails from old Joe Bryant himself. He had solicited a "brainstorming" session over what made for success in fantasy football from some two dozen or so people who frequented rsff. In those days, getting information from locals and discussing trends were an unbelievable advantage.You can see how focused I was on my thesis at the time...
Click to expand...
Yes, that was it. It was so "plain Jane". After graduating high school in '94 and going to college in '95, I still never really used the internet. I got married in '96 and we started a Fantasy Football league. I had tinkered with running a couple leagues in high school but this was our first big time league. I searched for information with my WebTV (LOL) and stumbled across this forum. It was amazing. I knew about things a week ahead of everyone else.I remember Joe Bryant posting about wanting to start his own website. At the time, I think that there were only several hundred guys in that forum. It was pretty cool. For a year or two, you knew everyone on the board. We were........the "Underground". :)
 
Bad_Mo said:
I think the lowest numbered members should get a Members Only jacket with a FBG logo.
Click to expand...
You'd be surprised how big of a deal this was until the message board ws revamped and everyone had to get new #'s. The original board was numbered from the start. Now, since the board was started over, many of us started on the same day. I got mine for working the Blogger as a perk.
 
Black&Gold said:
Bad_Mo said:
I think the lowest numbered members should get a Members Only jacket with a FBG logo.
Click to expand...
You'd be surprised how big of a deal this was until the message board ws revamped and everyone had to get new #'s. The original board was numbered from the start. Now, since the board was started over, many of us started on the same day. I got mine for working the Blogger as a perk.
Click to expand...
I can imagine. I can't remember how many posts I read over the years that one person was discounting an opinion/comment of another just because their member number was higher. Some people equate a low member number to some kind of insider knowledge which is ridiculous, IMO.
 
Old Yeller,those were the days !! There did seem to be less animosity toward one another back then. People were more respectful for some reason.

 
Black&Gold said:
Bad_Mo said:
I think the lowest numbered members should get a Members Only jacket with a FBG logo.
Click to expand...
You'd be surprised how big of a deal this was until the message board ws revamped and everyone had to get new #'s. The original board was numbered from the start. Now, since the board was started over, many of us started on the same day.
Click to expand...
April 14th aught-three seems like it was yesterday. IIRC, the board opened around 10AM EST and the rush to get in was like a bunch of Secretariats at the starting gate of Churchill Downs.
 
The Jerk said:
Black&Gold said:
I remember a message board that had a lot of the founders of the website on it before "cheatsheets". I used my WebTV around 1996/97 and there was a messageboard a lot like this. Joe started Cheatsheets. We heard about it on the message board. I won many championships in a row because I was the only one that knew about it in our league. I think we called the message board the fantasy football "underground".
Click to expand...
The message board that I remember from 1996 was alt.rec.sport.football.fantasy or something like that. We usually refer to it as rsff.I was working on my Master's Thesis in the fall of 1996 and when I recently went through an old box that included rough drafts of my thesis, I found a few e-mails from old Joe Bryant himself. He had solicited a "brainstorming" session over what made for success in fantasy football from some two dozen or so people who frequented rsff. In those days, getting information from locals and discussing trends were an unbelievable advantage.You can see how focused I was on my thesis at the time...
Click to expand...
Gesh that was a long time ago. I was and am mostly a lurker but spent a ton of time there. I miss cheatsheets.net it was good times.
 
Most of the present "Staff Members" were should we say "recruited" from these boards, specially the "Shark Pool", where they were very active...although they still contribute greatly to the site, I miss their interaction on the "Shark Pool"...guys like Maurice Tremblay, to name just one, who was always very insightful about anything to do with the "Chargers" and the same with the others, it seemed like all of them had something in particular to contribute to the SP...I'd love for these guys to jump in and swim with us more often.....

 
LOL, ya, 14-April 03 was a busy day. look at the difference in numbers between me, ryoly, Doc Detroit, and zamboni.

 
The Jerk said:
Black&Gold said:
I remember a message board that had a lot of the founders of the website on it before "cheatsheets". I used my WebTV around 1996/97 and there was a messageboard a lot like this. Joe started Cheatsheets. We heard about it on the message board. I won many championships in a row because I was the only one that knew about it in our league. I think we called the message board the fantasy football "underground".
Click to expand...
The message board that I remember from 1996 was alt.rec.sport.football.fantasy or something like that. We usually refer to it as rsff.
Click to expand...
That is how Usenet newsgroups are known as now? Some old message board!!! You kids today and you’re fancy World Wide Web. When I was in college only Computer Science students could get on the internet and Usenet newsgroups with its simple ASCII text was all we had..... and we liked it. We also had to walk up hill to school both ways.There were many FF websites when I first started doing FF in 1996 (and all content was free) that were well established by that point.. I am guessing that the alt.rec.sport.... newsgroups go back at least to the mid 80's if not earlier for baseball.
 
Blackadder said:
That is how Usenet newsgroups are known as now? Some old message board!!! You kids today and you’re fancy World Wide Web. When I was in college only Computer Science students could get on the internet and Usenet newsgroups with its simple ASCII text was all we had..... and we liked it. We also had to walk up hill to school both ways.
Click to expand...
We also ate dirt sandwiches for lunch and we were thankful.
 
sparkky said:
LOL, ya, 14-April 03 was a busy day. look at the difference in numbers between me, ryoly, Doc Detroit, and zamboni.
Click to expand...
Yep.I was on the old yeller board, and prior to that on RSFF with Terry Cannon, Joe Bryant, Eric "Seahawk", and a lot of other guys that came over onto cheatsheets and then this board with great info.
 
JohnnyU said:
Old Yeller,those were the days !! There did seem to be less animosity toward one another back then. People were more respectful for some reason.
Click to expand...
Pure numbers. A small intimate gathering of people that had to seek entrance is a tame event. A giant block party thats loud enough for anyone in earshot to stroll over tends to have a much higher likelihood of dbags.
 
valhallan said:
JohnnyU said:
Old Yeller,those were the days !! There did seem to be less animosity toward one another back then. People were more respectful for some reason.
Click to expand...
Pure numbers. A small intimate gathering of people that had to seek entrance is a tame event. A giant block party thats loud enough for anyone in earshot to stroll over tends to have a much higher likelihood of dbags.
Click to expand...
No doubt about it, unfortunately.
 
I remember when this place was cheatsheets. Then it switched over to footballguys and everyone got new member numbers. That's why you see a bunch of people who registered in April.

Most of the FBG staff were just regular poster then and you really got some great back and forth with them. Jason Wood (Woodrow) was always my favorite regular poster because he really broke down his arguments great and backed it up with statistical evidence. When he became part of the staff and his stuff became paid content I :goodposting: .

I still think the Shark Pool has been watered down and lot more and you have to sift through the bull from some of the poster, but it's still a great tool.

 
Yea, well I started playing FF in 1992, sending my picks via my 9600 baud modem with AOL. Then searching for stats on Monday with the USA Today paper. My E-penis is now complete. :hey:

 
Snotbubbles said:
I remember when this place was cheatsheets. Then it switched over to footballguys and everyone got new member numbers. That's why you see a bunch of people who registered in April. Most of the FBG staff were just regular poster then and you really got some great back and forth with them. Jason Wood (Woodrow) was always my favorite regular poster because he really broke down his arguments great and backed it up with statistical evidence. When he became part of the staff and his stuff became paid content I :lmao: . I still think the Shark Pool has been watered down and lot more and you have to sift through the bull from some of the poster, but it's still a great tool.
Click to expand...
maybe us "old timers" should get some kind of "FFL AARP" discount!! LOL agreed, sifting thru lots of the schoolyard, juvenile posts and antics does become tiresome. I can get that by talking to the wife and kid. :thumbup: I come here for stimulating, intellectual adult conversation regarding fantasy football topics. have those words ever been used in the same sentence before??? LOL
 
JohnnyU said:
Old Yeller,those were the days !! There did seem to be less animosity toward one another back then. People were more respectful for some reason.
Click to expand...
You obviously have forgotten Unlucky's threads and other posts about Eddie George in the summer of 01. My first post here was a thread that asked the "How many carries is too many" around the 8th or 9th of May and I got the same kind of replies you would get today shrugging off any fears of too many carries. And then Unlucky showed up telling anyone and everyone that George was done! That didn't go over too well.
 
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Bad_Mo said:
Black&Gold said:
Bad_Mo said:
I think the lowest numbered members should get a Members Only jacket with a FBG logo.
Click to expand...
You'd be surprised how big of a deal this was until the message board ws revamped and everyone had to get new #'s. The original board was numbered from the start. Now, since the board was started over, many of us started on the same day. I got mine for working the Blogger as a perk.
Click to expand...
I can imagine. I can't remember how many posts I read over the years that one person was discounting an opinion/comment of another just because their member number was higher. Some people equate a low member number to some kind of insider knowledge which is ridiculous, IMO.
Click to expand...
Being a 3-digit member (both now and when the message board was revamped), I have to say this is absolutely true! :lol:

 
sparkky said:
agreed, sifting thru lots of the schoolyard, juvenile posts and antics does become tiresome. I can get that by talking to the wife and kid. :lol:
Click to expand...
Other than the "What kind of league has _____ on the waiver wire (or drafted in x round)" posts, I'm finding that it's not that hard to ignore the junior high school commentary. I believe the best way to see that end is for there to be no reaction to the juvenile posts. If they don't get a response, I think they'll go away.There's still a lot of high-quality insights to be found, even if the percentage isn't what it once was.
 
How do I get my old Cheatsheets password back? My user name was LordofWord, but I couldn't figure out how to get my password when things migrated over here. So now I have a four-digit member number. Sigh.

 
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