Posted on

IRCspy.com launched in February 2003.

launch by xanthus

The IRCspy forums (forums.ircspy.com) launched around November 2003, but it's not clear based on Wayback Machine snapshots.

ircspy.com forum beginnings

It was this forum that I spent a lot of time in as a kid, passionately debating with folks in the "serious debate" general chat.

ircspy forums yawnbox activity

When IRCspy.com got shut down in November 2005, I was devestated that I would be losing access to my online community.

goodbye from forcefire

The IRCspy forums eventually rebranded as the TorrentSpy Forums and stayed online until at least June 2007.

ircspy and torrentspy forums rebrand

For years I tracked the WHOIS data of IRCspy.com to see if the new owner would either not renew the domain, or auction it off. It finally went to auction in November 2018; I was determined to win, to keep this small piece of internet history from being abused further.

winning ircspy.com from godaddy auctions

I haven't decided if I am going to create a simple HTML/CSS memorial, or, use the domain for something else. I've been thinking about making it a Mastodon server. I wish I had friends from the original forum to reach an agreement on how to use it.

More to come!