Related to Elements: DJ, HH Forum
I'm gonna go out on a sturdy limb and just put the final nail in this coffin. DJForums.com, the once massive online DJ community, is dead. While not solely a Hip Hop Forum, DJForums.com had a Hip Hop section with a close-knit group of contributors, an expansive database of information on equipment, production gear and DJ tools, and all kinds of DJ tips, tricks and techniques on file.
Using the Internet Archive's search engine, Wayback Machine (one great way to see dead website content) you can clearly see this place was really jumping.
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It was a slow painful death, almost like watching an Alzheimer victim pop in and out of reality. The website would go completely down, for weeks at a time, starting late in 2010, and gradually it would go down more often each passing month throughout this entire year. At this point DJForums has been MIA, completely out of commission since around October 14 2011, the longest stretch yet. Prior to that it must have been down sporadically 9 or 10 times, sometimes days, sometimes weeks at a time, and when it came back you would never know.
When it did come back, one thing was for sure, you better not ask where it went or why it went down or you would get snapped at for the inquiry. A concerned member started a thread in the General Forum there inquiring why the forum kept failing to keep it's host running, and if there was anything he could do to help out. BAD IDEA. One of the forum moderators representing DJForums said on that thread that it was a "problem with the hosting". He quickly added, "If you think it's about money, Go F__K yourself!" So, the users who straggled back on to the site after weeks of downtime basically had to pretend that it never happened. Ad space at the tops of each forum disappeared as apparently the buyers of that space had enough of the downtime, and pulled out of the deal leaving an almost omniscient "Website Not Found" white space in it's place. Spam on the forum started to run rampant as the mods seemed to almost give up on cleaning it up. Users who prepaid for the VIP forum (A special section of the forum users actually pay money to visit) were S.O.L. Even Google started to take notice as their once overpowering search engine presence started to drop off the face of the Internet.
Luckily all these DJForums users are not dead, they are still alive. Unless they stopped DJing, they still need a place to go to discuss music, techniques and the like.
INSERT PLUG (BUT KEEP IT SUBTLE HERE.) "Oh look, a brand new Hip Hop forum, and it looks like they could use some active members!" Official Periodic Forum
Seriously, OPF is nothing like DJF, nor do we want to be anything like it, but we are equally passionate about music, production, remixes and ESPECIALLY Hip Hop, so if you feel a void from this untimely death, we would love to help fill it. Please Join and build with us. END PLUG
DJForums was one of many forums I visited devoted to the art of DJing and in particular I appreciated the Hip Hop section. Like other forums, it was a collaboration of it's users and therefore a truly unique perspective on DJing and Hip Hop that couldn't be found on any other forum. I'm not saying it was better then any other forums, on the contrary, sometimes it was blistering with newbies asking the same cliche questions about DJ names, or how to do the triple-backwards-bicep-click-flare, or "Hey, watch me practice my chirps and tell me what I'm doing wrong" videos. But besides all that, there were some real heads that held it down, and frankly brought their distinct and diverse perspective of Hip Hop and\or DJing to the masses. For those reasons, I will miss DJForums. RIP DJ Forums!
DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong, I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again. BUT, if DJForums decides to pull a zombie forum maneuver and come back from the dead again, I hope they figured out their so-called hosting problem for the sake of maintaining some dignity. Hosting is dirt cheap, and not hard to find, so frankly I don't believe or accept the excuse.
ATTN: DJ Forums Ex-Users... Please add on, comments are absolutely welcome! Also, if you have any additional insider information about this or updates, please comment on this post.
SEE ALSO: Here's what Official Periodic Forums members had to say about the downtime of DJForums. PLEASE NOTE: One must be a logged in member to read the General Forum, but it's not required to be logged in for the Crate Digging Hip Hop, Crate Digging Non Hip Hop, Mixtape Submission, or Producer Forums at Official Periodic Forums.
