Changes

==Where It Came From==

==Origin of the Samurai Archives==

Starting sometime in late August or Early September 1999, the Samurai Archives Japanese history page was developed by C.E. West and F.W. Seal. R. Noelle, a friend of West's, was trying his hand at running a web server over his cable internet connection from his apartment, and offered to host a website.  West, remembering the utter lack of useful internet sources on Japanese history during his thesis on Oda Nobunaga in 1997, thought that a Japanese history website would be a neat idea.  At the time, Seal was more interested in WWII history, and declined for a time, but soon came around, diving in with a vengeance, as Japanese history was a long time interest of his.  Seal wrote the bulk of the original biographies, much of this work done during the year 2000.  The first handful of slim biographies that were uploaded to the website were taken from notes originally researched by C.E. West during the summer of 1998 during slow periods at work while he was working for Maui Divers in Honolulu, HI.  Most of this initial research came from [[Warrior Rule in Japan]] by Marius Jensen.

Starting sometime in late 1999<ref>The exact date the website first went online is lost to the mists of history; the first verifiable date is September 2nd, 1999</ref>, the Samurai Archives Japanese history page was developed by C.E. West and F.W. Seal. R. Noelle, a friend of West's, was trying his hand at running a web server over his cable internet connection from his apartment, and offered to host a website.  West, remembering the utter lack of useful internet sources on Japanese history during his thesis on Oda Nobunaga in 1997, thought that a Japanese history website would be a neat idea.  At the time, Seal was more interested in WWII history, and declined for a time, but soon came around, diving in with a vengeance, as Japanese history was a long time interest of his.  Seal wrote the bulk of the original biographies, much of this work done during the year 2000.  The first handful of slim biographies that were uploaded to the website were taken from notes originally researched by C.E. West during the summer of 1998 during slow periods at work while he was working for Maui Divers in Honolulu, HI.  Most of this initial research came from [[Warrior Rule in Japan]] by Marius Jensen.

==The Original Plan==

==The Original Plan==

==The Title Banners==

==The Title Banners==

So far, only 3 title banners have been used on the Samurai Archives Japanese history page. The Background photo on the original banner is of Ginkakuji, taken by C.West.   

 

 

So far, only 3 title banners have been used on the Samurai Archives Japanese history page. The Background photo on the original banner is of Ginkakuji, taken by C.West.  The image on the second banner is from a still of a battle scene in the [[NHK Taiga Drama]] "Hideyoshi", from the late 1990's starring Takenaka Naoto as [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]].  The current banner is a more simple and straightforward style, including the Japanese kanji for "Samurai".

==The Forums==

==The Forums==

On Christmas day, 1999, at approximately 10AM PST, the [http://forums.delphiforums.com/samuraihistory/start Samurai History forum] was founded at Delphi Forums.  The forum slowly caught on, attracting people from other Delphi forums.

On Christmas day, 1999, at approximately 10AM PST, the [http://forums.delphiforums.com/samuraihistory/start Samurai History forum] was founded at Delphi Forums.  The forum slowly caught on, attracting people from other Delphi forums.

By the time the new [http://forums.samurai-archives.com Samurai Archives Citadel] forum replaced it in 2006, the Delphi forum was fully entrenched and established as a major Japanese history forum on the internet.

By the time the new [http://forums.samurai-archives.com Samurai Archives Citadel] forum replaced it in 2006, the Delphi forum was fully entrenched and established as a major Japanese history forum on the internet with over 30,000 posts.

====Flame War====

====Flame War====

Although things started out solid, with very high quality discussions, sometime in 2000, a flame war errupted over multiple inane topics, including the inappropriateness of people in the USA selling T-shirts with clan Kamon on them, the "inability" of westerners to "understand" the Japanese, and theories about the possibility of intermarriage between related families within the line of Japanese emperors.  The war was spurred and aggrivated by two particularly bellicose forum goers, and in the resulting explosion most of the members were lost. Few remain today who remember the heady and wild early days of the forum.  Most current members joined in 2001 or later.

Although things started out solid, with very high quality discussions, sometime in late 2000 or very early 2001, a flame war errupted over multiple inane topics, including the inappropriateness of people in the USA selling T-shirts with clan Kamon on them, the "inability" of westerners to "understand" the Japanese or Japanese history, and theories about the possibility of intermarriage between related families within the line of Japanese emperors.  The war was spurred and aggravated by two particularly bellicose forum goers, and in the resulting explosion most of the members were lost. Few remain today who remember the heady and wild early days of the forum.  Most current members joined in 2001 or later.

Unfortunately the forum strings related to the warfare of 2000 were eliminated, and thus lost to history<ref>All flame war related posts were deleted by the moderators in an effort to end further conflict and return the forum to some semblance of normalcy. This decision would come back to haunt them nearly six months later, when C. West and F. Seal ran into both of the agitators on a (now defunct) Delphi Japanese culture forum, and the two agitators yet again began hurling accusations.</ref>.

Unfortunately the forum strings related to the warfare of 2000 were eliminated, and thus lost to history<ref>All flame war related posts were deleted by the moderators in an effort to end further conflict and return the forum to some semblance of normalcy. This decision would come back to haunt them nearly six months later, when C. West and F. Seal ran into both of the agitators on a (now defunct) Delphi Japanese culture forum, and the two agitators yet again began hurling accusations.</ref>.

===Yahoo Group===

===Yahoo Group===

In an attempt to give people another option for dialogue and discussion, the [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samuraihistory/ Samurai History Yahoo Group] was created in September, 2000.  The theory here was that some people might prefer an email group rather than a forum to communicate, so it was decided to create a yahoo group to supplement the Delphi forum.  The Yahoo group has proven over the years to attract a larger pool of members, however the conversations tends to ebb and flow, and some conversations tend to lack substance in regards to the study of Japanese history (most likely the ease of use is partly to blame for this).

In an attempt to give people another option for dialogue and discussion, the [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samuraihistory/ Samurai History Yahoo Group] was created in September, 2000.  The theory here was that some people might prefer an email group rather than a forum to communicate, so it was decided to create a yahoo group to supplement the Delphi forum.  The Yahoo group has proven over the years to attract a larger pool of members, however the conversations tends to ebb and flow, with long periods of "down time" interspersed with periods of intense activity. An example of this was the time surrounding the release of the Tom Cruise movie ''The Last Samurai''. For a period of three months average posts to the list went from about 100 per month to over 400 per month.

===Samurai Archives Citadel===

===Samurai Archives Citadel===

In 2006, the Samurai History Delphi forum was permanently replaced by the new [http://forums.samurai-archives.com Samurai Archives Citadel]<ref>The name "Citadel" was inspired by the castle citadels from the computer game ''Shogun Total War''.</ref>. Over the years there had been numerous complaints about the difficulty and lack of features of the Delphi forum (however, it was also felt that this "difficulty of use" helped keep out the more disruptive elements who didn't want to take the time and trouble to sign up and interface with the Delphi forum), and so after an offer from forum member [[User:Kryo|Kryo]] to implement and host a new, modernized forum, the Citadel went online approximately May 4th, 2006.  The new forum added features such as "ranks", post counts, and "avatars" that were not available on the delphi forum.

In 2006, the Samurai History Delphi forum was permanently replaced by the new [http://forums.samurai-archives.com Samurai Archives Citadel]<ref>The name "Citadel" was inspired by the castle citadels from the computer game ''Shogun Total War''.</ref>. Over the years there had been numerous complaints about the difficulty and lack of features of the Delphi forum (however, it was also felt that this "difficulty of use" helped keep out the more disruptive elements who didn't want to take the time and trouble to sign up and interface with the Delphi forum), and so after an offer from forum member [[User:Kryo|Kryo]] to implement and host a new, modernized forum, the Citadel went online approximately May 4th, 2006.  The new forum added features such as "ranks", post counts, and "avatars" that were not available on the delphi forum.

==History of the Sections of the Samurai Archives==

==History of the Sections of the Samurai Archives==