LOL. You're not going crazy. I was using AOL political boards a lot in '96, and there was one poster there(forgot who it was) who used to link or bring articles posted at FR to the AOL boards all the time - of course it didn't sway any of the die-hard lefties our way, but several of us tried.
Eventually, I wandered over to FR myself, and remember names such as Deb, Phil V, a Bob or two, Norm (firehat), Jim of course, and more, and of course the infamous Eschoir.
I didn't save any of the early threads where I lurked, but my earliest recollections were at the end of 1996, and actually, gooleyman, it looks like it would certainly be categorized as a *forum* if there were people posting comments, but for whatever reason, I did get the information for the history of FR from an old article about JimRob.
I don't remember FR ever *looking* like that link either. Wish I'd saved some of the early Whitewater threads.
Of course I remember Deb. She was on all the time. And Doug from Upland with his limericks. There's a Deb registered now, but I wonder if she is the same Deb. She doesn't sound....I mean write, like the old Deb used to write, so I think it's not her. I remember Norm Firehat. He used to write some good articles. Eschoir, the original disruptor, got kicked off several times and came back under different names. Wonder what name he's using now. Whenever someone made comments from left field, they were always accused of being Eschoir reincarnated. the There are so many disruptors crossing over from the DU nowadays, there's no telling if he's out here or not.
I remember saving some old threads, but don't know what I did with them. Like I said, I'll check old hard drive backups. I was painting outside all day today and didn't get a chance to check them. I think I was using a laptop at that time so I'll check the ghost image of that one first.
Bad News. I checked my hard drive backups and the earliest file I can find is from about mid-1999. I guess those are lost forever. Darn. One thing I saw that I did not know. I didn't know you could use taglines back then. Very few had them, but there were a couple of them in that mid-1999 article. Probably the first tagline pioneers.
Even some of the links on the internet archives page don't work.