The Goons are a small internet community. Most of the members met on an online game called Graal; the vast majority of them belonged to a guild called "The Flames." The Goons is an open community: anyone wishing to join may simply sign up at our message board (usually referred to as "the board") damngoons.com. We discuss a variety of topics (more on that later).

History

The Flames

This was the Graal Online guild where most of us met. A brief history of the guild, along with an account of our most important adventures, can be found here: The Flames History (http://damngoons.com/history.html)

The Flames disbanded, and the emergence of the first Goons forums

In March of 2002, Perhonorificus (then known as Consolamentum) had decided to end the guild, which had been in a quagmire for some time. The man known as "Cons" later explained: "First, disbanding the Flames had become obligatory. The guild was already moribund, and a vast majority of the faithful members used only the message board. I didn't want the guild to become an online community à la MSN Groups. That wasn't the guild's intended direction, far from it! "The Flames" in itself was a Graal gaming guild, no more, no less. However, the faith in GOON, which was at first solely a joke (I called Jonathan "you damn goon!" on Celestia after one of his mischiefs), spread rapidly and beyond control. Thus when I shut down the guild, I formed a hidden message board for the Flames/Goons who wanted to use it." This began the first message board for The Goons.

Consolamentum departs; the board moves

The first board was closed with fair warning by Cons and he said his good-byes. Another Goon/ex-Flames member named Russ (also known as J5 and Johnny#5) then decided to host the Goons community on his web server, j5networks.net. This occurred durring August 2002. The community was preserved, but most of the members were inactive and the board was quite dull. Despite the occasional periods activity, the message board was mostly inactive, being frequented by only a handful of users.

Consolamentum returns

On August 20, 2003, Consolamentum returned. His new alias was Perhonorificus. With his return, the board started to pick up activity once more. He and Russ were now both administrators of the community, though Perhonorificus had never requested to obtain such a position -- he merely wished to visit his past acquaintances, and lick a few old wounds.

Current day and damngoons.com

Perhonorificus and Russ moved the message board to an actual webhost and obtained the new domain name damngoons.com. The board began to prosper and is now more active; additionally, it now welcomes the general public.

The Board

The board itself holds many different topics. We have forums ranging from regular discussions to world events, philosophical insights, videogames, multimedia, computer technologies, and women. Diversity also emanates within the members themselves, adding different views into the discussions, and thus making them very interesting, to say at the least. Anyone is welcome to join our little corner of the internet.