This is a question for the people that have been on the site from its birth up to 2012-13, let's say. (Especially for the ones that are on here since the mid-2000s) I was wondering how much and in what ways have the site and the forum changed over the years.

If you happen to have any pictures of its interface before, please feel free to share. Or just tell us about your memories and how you came across this place.

How much have the artists and album pages changed as well? Or was it like that always? I am curious to see the answers.

Has the site changed much? Only in so much as the active posters have changed over the years. Some names are still around from when I first arrived, and some are back under different names, but for the most part a lot of who were the main active players have long gone.

The same old tired discussions still get posted, and the same old tired arguments regurgitated. But the biggest change I have noticed, is that a lot of the more active and vocal members of the forum are more open minded than the was the case a decade ago. There are still some who have a very narrow view of prog, but thankfully they seem to be becoming more of a minority as the years go by.

I don’t really care that the site looks tired, as I will always take functionality over aesthetics. I’ve seen too many websites and forums “upgraded” over the years, so that they become far nicer to look at, but also far more awkward and unwieldy to use. PA is far from being a perfect site, but it’s shortcomings are well known, and don’t cause any great impediment. Ultimately, the greatest resource this site has is, is its users. And I think in this regard, the site has improved over the years.

^Interesting observations by both. I have noticed in some pretty old posts (talk about 2005-2009) that the forum users are [often] completely different faces (or rather, avatars ), with some exceptions, as nick said.

I am also curious about the age groups - how have they changed this decade? However, this is impossible to know, right?

Most of the discussions get recycled from time to time, and it is interesting to see the differences of opinion as to what 'prog' is. I'm of that generation who were teenagers when prog was in its first flush, i.e. late 60's / early 70's, so my views may well differ to someone born in the 90's, or in this millennium.  I dislike the terms 'boomer' or 'millennial' as they add nothing to discussions. Good music transcends time and age groups, and the quality stuff will survive and be appreciated by younger generations.

Yep I'm rambling, but put it down to me being senile!

In terms of looks on the site as a whole, there hasn't been much change except for the illustrated banner on the Database header section. Once inside a band's page, there used to be the full discography links appearing on every page in the top right hand corner, which gave instant access to other albums, instead of haviçng to back down to the bio page. This was taken out because it was slowing down the page-loading process 

On the forum side, not much visual changes, but we had a major increase of forums and sub-forums, which didnn't make it easier to find your young.

Raff wrote: As one of the veterans here, I can tell you that the forum is a much nicer, more relaxed place now. Even if there are a couple of people who get on my nerves, this is nothing compared to what the place used to be. And the Collab zone was even worse than the main forum. Things got so bad at one point that I left the site for four years. I am glad I came back, though. I have a sentimental attachment to this site, which to me is a much better place to hang out than those awful social media (or "anti-social media", as I like to call them ). It's true that discussions get recycled, and a lot of people are stuck in the Seventies, but that's a problem of the whole "prog scene", so to speak.

Yeah, the forum was a real war zone  in some ways (but nothing like Rate Your Music ever was) but it was fun and fascinating. I joined on the fourth day of the site's birth (though it existed in a different form before hand) and reviewing away and advising M@X (upon his demand), but it took me months before actually jumping in the thick of things in the forums.

I'd say that 75% o my posts were published before 2009.

This is why it took me so long to post here. It took me approx three years before registering on the site, and a further ten years before posting - purely because I didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I won’t say it was toxic, but it was definitely not as nice as it is now. And for all those who complain about the toxicity of FB, all I can say is that you never saw this forum at its worst (in my opinion, obviously).

It’s funny, ‘cause it’s true! 😄

One can find pretty interesting things.

Did you know that 'Selling England by the Pound' was the number 1 album on the site for some time last decade?

Nice to read something positive about the present compared to the past of the forum for a change!

I must have joined at just the right time then, because I'd never seen the PA forums before September 2019. 

 

One thing that I note is that many of the usernames I see in older reviews for albums are not currently posting in the forum.

 

 

I don't know whether that's really a good thing.  Maybe it could be more hostile before but coming from the far more opinionated and closed-minded environment of metal-archives, that didn't really bother me.  I always found and find PA quite a civil place and I am not someone who minds disagreeableness per se until it gets to the point of verbal abuse. 

There were so many once regular posters who have simply quit the forum now or haven't visited in a very long time at any rate - Dean, Andy, Mike, Pessimist, Teo, thellama, etc. There was so much to learn for me from the posts of someone like Dean. I remember him predicting the streaming music industry way back - like at least ten years ago. 

It's rare that the forum is that enriching anymore but it remains a pleasant enough place to hang out and talk about prog, even though we are all tired of talking about it. 

I was a lurker starting around 2006, then officially joined in 2009, I do remember the site looking different before 2007, I don't have any screen shots.

Clearly the number of members has dwindled and the conversations were more engaging back in the day is best way I can explain it. Today it seems the discussions are merely about what is porg and what is not porg and then why do you think that way .

Rehashing of topics is a normal occurrence when new members join, they don't understand pretty much everything has been discussed already. But I'm fine with that, if not for that the site would be seriously dead.

The biggest change for me is many of the older members/collabs leaving the site for good. I left for a long while due to the mentalness/a$$ness of some but will always come back. Thinking of going to another porg site is waste of time, I can't think about starting over. I used to frequent many other music sites but found it too daunting to keep track, so cut it back a lot.

Anyhow, PA is fine. I just miss some of the discussions from back in the day.

chopper wrote: I've been knocking around a while. I remember at least one forum software update but tbh I can't remember what the difference was. Fundamentally things are the same but we no longer hear from the likes of Snow Dog and even micky is not around so much these days.

Like me, Micky goes through periods in which he's interested in other things. I know he pops in from time to time, but as a whole these days he keeps to himself. Personally, I tend to hang out mostly in the Interactive Poll threads, which have been a constant source of new musical discoveries. In the past few years I have lost a lot of my previous interest in discovering new prog, but I like finding out about other music that can appeal to me.

Regarding the forum as it is now versus what it was like in the past, I'd take PA as it is now any day. Some of the things that went on in the Collab zone were really unpleasant, and I know there is still some bad blood around. PA now may be boring, but (at least to me) it also feels friendly and reassuring. As to Facebook, my main beef with it is not so much its toxic atmosphere (which has improved somewhat in the past few months), but its overall falseness. People there don't care a fig about anyone but themselves, and I feel embarrassed by those who put their lives out for everyone to see.

I'm just here for the free donuts and coffee. Otherwise, this place sucks.

The look and feel of this site has hardly changed. The banner, designed by darksideof, has not always been there. I recall that in earlier years it was possible to browse through albums without going back to the artist's main page.

The forums have become rather relaxed lately. Hardly any right ding-dongs between forum members; 10 years ago I was a spamfighter, now I am a retired spamfighter. As Easy Money stated, the banhammer has hardly been wielded by the Admins lately. It only gets out of the toolbox when a Wally or a Svet tries to sneak in once more.

I don't think the appearance of the forum has changed much for a long time, but I do remember a time when the main page didn't have the banner it currently has (and has had for many years).

This is how I remember the site looking back when I first started using it for research back in 2005:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050207140659/www.progarchives.com/" rel="nofollow - https://web.archive.org/web/20050207140659/http://www.progarchives.com/

And here's what the forum looked like in 2005:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050206152843/www.progarchives.com/forum/" rel="nofollow - https://web.archive.org/web/20050206152843/http://www.progarchives.com/forum/

This is the earliest capture of the site from 2002 where it has the note "Our Database is currently under populating process":

https://web.archive.org/web/20020726140505/www.progarchives.com/" rel="nofollow - https://web.archive.org/web/20020726140505/http://www.progarchives.com/