Thank You, Mike West

MUNICH, GERMANY – This week, Mike West, the founder of LDDebate.org, has taken the long-standing message boards offline.

“As everyone’s noticed,” West notes in a message on the web site, “the quality of the boards has become absolutely miserable over the last few months. I simply don’t have time to moderate the forums, and it shows.”

But all is not lost. “I’m pleased,” he adds, “however, that a good friend has stepped up to fill in the vacuum left by my complete absence. Mike Bietz has put together a new board with a solid group of committed moderators and admins at www.theldboards.org. I encourage you to go pay a visit, sign up for an account, and begin your conversations again. You’ll be happy you did.”

Mike West has endorsed these new forums as the successor to LDDebate.org, and he, like many of us, looks forward to seeing how these boards do. But, like many, LDDebate.org will always have an important place in my heart.

When it was founded in 1998, the web site helped provide a central, interactive place for debaters to talk, debate, and generally exchange ideas. It served as a hangout for all of us. Though he always shunned the credit and the spotlight, Mike West, perhaps more than anyone, deserves credit for developing the idea of an online, national debate community. On behalf of the thousands of users of LDDebate.org (“Westman” to us old-timers), I’d like to say thank you to LDDebate.org’s Member #1.

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Interested in knowing more about Mike, and why he started LDDebate.org? Be sure to read “LDDebate.org: Member #1″ — an interview conducted three years ago this Sunday — here in VBD’s archives.

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