Gribblenation is being phased out. Gribblenation.com is going offline now and Gribblenation.net will be around until January 2017.
From Brian LeBlanc...
Y'all - it's a sad day. Gribblenation.com is no more.
Things have obviously changed in the years since we launched the site in 2001. Back then, there was no Facebook, no Wikipedia, IRC was a thing, and the only texts people sent were on AIM. The world has changed in the intervening 15 years to the point that Adam and I agreed that it isn't economical anymore to continue to maintain a static site when things change so quickly.
Adam, as you've probably noticed, is moving a lot of his stuff over to the Sure, Why Not blog. I'm not sure what will become of Wake County Roads, which was a great idea that never got around to being completed to the final product I first envisioned when I started the site in 1999. (1999!!! Has it really been 17 years?)
I do have the entire site archived and saved on a backup drive, so if anyone wants a piece of it, let me know and I'll be glad to share. And this page will stay active, if nothing else to serve as a memorial and a water cooler.
I'm surprisingly wistful pulling the plug on the site, more than I thought I'd be. It was time, though, and I hope you all enjoyed visiting it as much as we did putting it together over the years.
From Doug Kerr...
Other things to know. Gribblenation.net will still be up until January 2017 (which is when the domain expires). This doesn't mean that we will stop paying attention to the hobby either. There's blog sites, Flickr, Facebook, AARoads Forum where we should still be active. In fact, I've been paying attention to those types of media more than my own web page for the past few years.
I do want to thank everyone for their support over the years and give special recognition to those who enjoyed reading or looking at our material over the years.
Gribblenation is used as a source for many road-related Wikipedia articles.
Doug and Brian:
I have never met either of you. I don't believe I have even conversed directly with you on here or MTR for that matter. Adam, only a couple of times, as I contributed a couple of pictures to his AllthingsNC site. But hear me when I say the 3 of you are absolute titans of our hobby, and if there were a Mt Rushmore for roadgeeks y'all would be on it.
To you, and to Gribblenation, the site that ultimately led me here all these years later, I raise my glass!
Quote from: slorydn1 on July 27, 2016, 10:04:28 PM
Doug and Brian:
I have never met either of you. I don't believe I have even conversed directly with you on here or MTR for that matter. Adam, only a couple of times, as I contributed a couple of pictures to his AllthingsNC site. But hear me when I say the 3 of you are absolute titans of our hobby, and if there were a Mt Rushmore for roadgeeks y'all would be on it.
To you, and to Gribblenation, the site that ultimately led me here all these years later, I raise my glass!
Thank you. One thing that I am proud about is how these sites got people interested in our hobby.
Thank you for the kind words. We had a blast - and enjoyed getting a lot of people interested and involved in the hobby. As Doug states we are all still active but it's a lot different than just five years ago. I will say that as I post the old features to the blog and also share them on facebook groups - I must admit that I do miss working on various updates and writing the features and discovering the story behind a road, bridge or what have you.
So, anybody have any idea where Bob's going to move the I-73/74 site to now? lol.
Such a fantastic site. It's sad to see it go. It's even worse when people like me don't like social media sites like Facebook and still heavily prefer sites where you don't have to be a member to look at things.
Thanks for maintaining a great resource for road enthusiasts around the globe! :clap:
As webmaster for DFWFreeways.com (http://dfwfreeways.com) and http://HoustonFreeways.com (http://houstonfreeways.com), I can certainly relate to the trends that make it more difficult to justify the effort involved in maintaining and updating highway information sites. Google is certainly the biggest factor, with its comprehensive ground and aerial photography, and image results on searches. And then there's YouTube for video. Ten to fifteen years ago, TxDOT posted very little in terms of video, and now they have a Youtube channel.
Maintenance is on ongoing huge commitment to keep a site fresh and credible. In spring 2015 I realized that most of my DFWFreeways.com content was from the 2007-2009 period, and much of it was obsolete. I spent more than month full time (between jobs) on a massive effort to bring the site up-to-date and add content, which will of course be substantially obsolete in a few years.
So now I'm reducing new content additions to just a few per year, and I'm trying to focus on content which does not become obsolete as quickly. Construction photos are now my main focus, since they capture a moment in time. By far my most heavily-visited page is the old road maps page, which never becomes obsolete. http://dfwfreeways.com/old-highway-maps (http://dfwfreeways.com/old-highway-maps)
I'm generally seeing a slow but steady decline in traffic on my sites, which can probably be expected due to more competing sources of information and lack of new content on my sites. If I were to make a prediction, I think we'll see more photo-oriented highway sites become static (i.e. more like an archive) or go permanently offline. The sites best-suited for long-term survival are pure historical sites, like cahighways.org
Thank you for creating and maintaining one of the classic road sites. I'll toast you guys this Friday (BBQ with tri-tip and plenty of beer).
I personally would like to thank all involved in the Gribblenation site. This site was one of the first sites I perused when I began roadgeeking on the internet. Good luck to you, Brian and you, Doug in your future endeavors.
I guess this post more relates to Adam but still.
I vividly remember reading about the 4 US 70s of Selma-Smithfield (I guess one may be eliminated via I-42), obviously Bob's I-73/I-74 site which got me into keeping track of those routes, the US 29 Seminole Trail history, the one that states that SC 22 is not truly quicker for most Myrtle Beach destinations, etc.
I would not say that one particular person from any site got me into roads, but it was great to read sites such as Gribblenation that kept me interested in the hobby and I thank everyone involved for that. It was great as a child to learn about routes in your state that I really did not even see that often until I went to college at Virginia Tech.
I guess it is time to favorite Adam's blog.
A lot of the Gribblenation content for VA, NC, and SC will be resurrected in one form or another on the vahighways.com site...
Folks - thanks for the kind words. This wasn't an easy decision. In fact, it's one I've been putting off for a few years now simply because I know how much a part of the community the site has been. It just got to the point that even at about $100 a year, it wasn't an expense we could justify anymore.
Doug already peeled his stuff off onto his own server 6-7 years ago, and while Adam and I remain very close (literally - we live in the same neighborhood!), our lives have changed from where they were fifteen years ago. Adam has two kids now, I have one, and every August when the site renewal came up our wives gave us the side eye to remind us that the money we're spending on GN could be put to use buying, y'know, food and clothes.
It's amazing to me to think back to how different the world was before we started GN. Myspace wasn't even a thing yet, never mind Facebook or any of the photo sharing sites. Instead of this forum, we were all on MTR. Wikipedia and YouTube didn't exist. Road photography actually consisted of hauling out a clunky camera, getting photos developed, scanning them, uploading them and creating a page to display them on. Can you imagine doing that today?
Obviously I'm not all that active on here - in fact, this is my first post, seven years after I registered. But I do appreciate all who are active who used GN as a resource or a source of entertainment over the years. Wake County Roads update jokes aside, it's been a pleasure to have contributed in our own small way to the development of this hobby over the years, and while I'm not going anywhere, I do feel like an era has ended in a way.
As I mentioned on Facebook, I have an archive of the entire site on a backup drive at home. If anyone would like a piece of GN to host on their own, just shoot me an email - bdleblanc at gmail. Thank you all, again, for your kind words and your support through the last fifteen years. It's been a fun ride, one that I will miss for sure.
Brian
The end of an era for sure. I was talking to Doug earlier in the spring about his tour of Ontario page, which I think dated back to something like 2002 or so. At that point, I think that may have been the first time that I had ever seen a picture of a road on the internet.
It's amazing how much things have changed since that time. As has been said above, these sites predated the Facebook's and Flickr's of the internet by many, many years. At that time too, it seemed like a much smaller amount of roadgeeks bothered to put photos on the internet as compared to now.
I still maintain an old school website. For all of the convenience of the new forms of social media, there are things I miss about the old era. Sometimes the internet seems like a yelling match now, with so many people vying for attention. Maybe it's always been that way, it just didn't always seem like it.
Most of you GN participants contributed a lot of endpoint photos to usends.com over the years... thank you!
For those who have moved their photos to Flickr (or any other host), can you post the links here?
It is now official...New York Routes will be moving to its own domain, appropriately named NewYorkRoutes.net, starting on January 1.
More to come...
Gonna miss Gribblenatiion, but good luck with the future.
We still have part of some souvenirs of Gribblenation archived on the Internet Archive alias the Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20160722023734/http://www.gribblenation.com/ and one more souvenir on Archive.is. http://archive.is/7RB90
It's too bad I never was around in this era...but still, I loved the site because it was a way to gather info on some obscure roads. Sad to see it go.
We should all pour one out for GN at the next roadmeet. In the meantime, Doug's Flickr site (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/) (679,228 photos) should slake your road thirst for a while :-)
Gribblenation.net is still around, and as far as I know, it's the same content, so you have a couple more months. A lot of the old stuff is moving to the Sure, Why Not? blog.
I have some things on the .net site, and will probably find a means to parcel them out to Flickr and Google, depending on what time I have to spare.
XT1585
I don't have a website I can move any of the material to, but I still have to ask; How much of the site has been swiped from it so far?
Quote from: D-Dey65 on October 25, 2016, 12:06:42 AM
I don't have a website I can move any of the material to, but I still have to ask; How much of the site has been swiped from it so far?
Not a lot. I had a break in my MBA classes over the summer and did begin to move some NC stuff. This is my final semester of grad school, throw in converting to SAP and Arina at work and two kids - I won't get back to moving items to the blog or Facebook groups until after Christmas.
Then throw in Flickr items for features that never made it to the site, and flickr items thay can easily be folded into existinf features, or projects that were up behind the scenes and not ready to go. There's a lot of material from myself and Doug that will keep us busy for sometime - when either of us have the time.
Also I am double checking with contributors etc to make sure it is ok to move their items to the blog and that may take time.
We were slowly transforming gn.com to a feature type site as that's where my and Doug's work was moving towards. The blog allows that to continue - the Facebook groups allows for the essentials like sign photos etc to continue as well.
Prior to classes starting this semester - I was moving the Blue Ridge Parkway drive feature to the blog. The existing site pages have moved but I have photos from a few trips on the Parkway since then that I am adding. Those will be announced when completed once I graduate and work on them in December.
For anyone who wants to take over parts of my own work on GN.net, please contact me directly as a common courtesy. While there are features and some other odds and sods that I will be moving over to the blog over time, if you want to take a shot at some of my work, have at it.
Quote from: CanesFan27 on October 25, 2016, 04:35:25 PM
Quote from: D-Dey65 on October 25, 2016, 12:06:42 AM
I don't have a website I can move any of the material to, but I still have to ask; How much of the site has been swiped from it so far?
Not a lot. I had a break in my MBA classes over the summer and did begin to move some NC stuff. This is my final semester of grad school, throw in converting to SAP and Arina at work and two kids - I won't get back to moving items to the blog or Facebook groups until after Christmas.
Then throw in Flickr items for features that never made it to the site, and flickr items thay can easily be folded into existinf features, or projects that were up behind the scenes and not ready to go. There's a lot of material from myself and Doug that will keep us busy for sometime - when either of us have the time.
Also I am double checking with contributors etc to make sure it is ok to move their items to the blog and that may take time.
We were slowly transforming gn.com to a feature type site as that's where my and Doug's work was moving towards. The blog allows that to continue - the Facebook groups allows for the essentials like sign photos etc to continue as well.
Prior to classes starting this semester - I was moving the Blue Ridge Parkway drive feature to the blog. The existing site pages have moved but I have photos from a few trips on the Parkway since then that I am adding. Those will be announced when completed once I graduate and work on them in December.
IIRC I only had about 4 pictures from the New Bern area on AllThingsNC and the now old end of NC-43 when it was routed down South Glenburnie....all and any I forgot can be moved at your whim. I don't remember if the email address I gave you then is still good, but the pictures would have been from the 2005 time frame there or there abouts.
All the Gribblenation NC Ends photos were added to my own personal stash and are presented here:
http://www.vahighways.com/ncannex/ncends/index.htm
Quote from: Mapmikey on October 25, 2016, 09:14:03 PM
All the Gribblenation NC Ends photos were added to my own personal stash and are presented here:
http://www.vahighways.com/ncannex/ncends/index.htm (http://www.vahighways.com/ncannex/ncends/index.htm)
Wow, yep, those historic southern terminus thru 2009 photos of NC-43 were mine!
http://www.vahighways.com/ncannex/ncends/images/old43_st_03.jpg (http://www.vahighways.com/ncannex/ncends/images/old43_st_03.jpg)
That one there, you wouldn't recognize any of the scenery behind the NC-43 sign now, it's completely different. Not only is the sign gone, but that building is gone, it's now a parking lot for a Publix (yep they expanded to NC!).
Quote from: kurumi on October 23, 2016, 12:55:09 PM
We should all pour one out for GN at the next roadmeet. In the meantime, Doug's Flickr site (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/) (679,228 photos) should slake your road thirst for a while :-)
Plus there's many more photos (both road-related and not road-related) that I need to upload to Flickr. I could very well be closing in on a million photos.
Sad day for sure, as Doug Kerr, Adam Prince, and Dan Garnell were all good to me to let me share my photos that I used to take on my road trips back in the early 2000's when 35mm film was still the norm.
Now FB, and Flickr, as well as instagram and such with the help of digital technology ended the need for such a site. Plus some of the webmasters at Gribblenation are no longer into roads as many have moved on. Even Geoff Hatchard who owned another site, that he neglected after many years, moved on off of roads all together as he was no wheres near completing his project.
Anyway, it was fun getting noticed and being able to contribute to the start of something worthwhile. Yes all good things never last and life goes on.
Sigh... GN helped me get into this place of sorts and it's sad to see it go :-(
Could a mod sticky this topic...
Pleased to announce that all my NC and Mass. related web pages, and perhaps some new ones, will be moving to my new site: MalmeRoads.net, as of January 1, 2017. As I move the page contents I will provide links to their location on the new site.
^ Looking forward to checking that out!
With permission of Doug Kerr, I've set up a Planned New York article on my site reusing a couple of images from Gribblenation.
http://www.nysroads.com/planned.php
^ Regarding what you say about NY 5 in Syracuse, not all of the proposals for it had it as a freeway east of Fairmount, nor did all of the proposals have it connecting to I-81. There is at least one solid long-range plan out there (ca. 1971) where the proposal was to tie it into the West St interchange on I-690.
Yesterday evening, I had contacted the web host provider for gribblenation.net and requested to cease billing, effectively canceling the account. I felt emotions for sure, mostly sad for pulling the plug on Gribblenation. So it is only a matter of time before the website is taken offline. :-/
Quote from: Dougtone on January 07, 2017, 08:51:46 AM
Yesterday evening, I had contacted the web host provider for gribblenation.net and requested to cease billing, effectively canceling the account. I felt emotions for sure, mostly sad for pulling the plug on Gribblenation. So it is only a matter of time before the website is taken offline. :-/
Sad to see the site officially coming to an end, but I have successfully off-loaded all my pages to my new site: www.malmeroads.net (http://www.malmeroads.net)
Since I haven't had a chance yet on this forum, I should mention that New York Routes has moved and is now up and running at NewYorkRoutes.net. I am still in the the midst of redesigning/cleaning up the pages, but most of the site is functional and more features will be added once the transition process has been completed (Hopefully within the next few weeks).
Though I wrote this in 2005 when the PA State Highways Ends project was completed, I think it captures the spirit of Gribblenation (and state-ends) when both were fairly active sites.
Quote
I officially announced the completion of PA State Route Ends today. After almost five years and who knows how many photos, announced updates, and contributors, the project is finished, for now. Of course, there will be some new designation added Monday and I'll have a missing route.
But seriously, I'm very proud that the project is done, and very thankful to all those who have help make it a success and very popular.
I started PA Ends two months after I introduced North Carolina Ends. I had thought that NC Ends would be finished much quicker than PA and that I would be lucky to really get contributions living so far away, and that it would take a lot of time to get anything outside of SWPA where I grew up.
That changed when the Bees started to send multitudes of ends. Many of times I would check my e-mail after I got home from work, and get about 20 e-mails of ends from them. It was amazing, andthey really are the ones who kicked started the whole project. By the end of 2001, PA Ends was on a roll! Jason Ilyes began sending photos through the mail, David Brunot started to get areas in the northernwestern part of the state, Tim Reichard was getting in and around State College.
2002 and 2003 saw the competition in the Harrisburg Patriot-News Sports Department between Jay Rotz and tony Perry on who could get the most photos added. They also ended up helping Tim with m-plex.com. Marc Axler hit the Philadelphia area hard, Denis Malvern atualy kept track of missing ends and went out and found most of them. David Saluenwhite on his bike hit the remote area of the state with great photos!
Last year saw a feature article in the Harrisburg Patriot-News from the same staff that had the 'Ends Contest.'
Over the years and even recently as routes change, I will get e-mails from contributors saying they hoped a route would change so they can become a contributor. Or how they were glad to finally be a part of the project.
The Bees - I can't begin to thank enough, they are the ones who literally made the idea their own and because of their enthusiasm everyone jumped on the bandwagon. The success of other projects: VA Cutouts, PA Keystones to name two really are a result of them. If not for their involvement in PA Ends, I would never think doing the other projects could be possible. Plus, the whole end page phenomena is because of them.
Jeff Kitsko and Tim Reichard for their cross links to create blanket coverage of information for all state routes. Jason Ilyes for his patience as he waited for me to sort and scan through over 500 photos. The gang in chat for just being the gang in chat. Everyone for their hard work and enthusiasm.
There are some who have questioned why I announce updates as often as I do, and well if I hadn't who knows if the Bees would have found PA Ends. It was because of announced updates that they became involved, and my annoucement of the constant inclusion of their photos that others got involved, and well here we are five years later...PA Ends is done, I have other projeccts I am working on that I always wanted to do and never thought I would get to them. So annoucing those updates over the years have really paid off.
PA Ends has been a lot of fun...it really has made Pennsylvania one of the most publicly active roadgeeking states within the hobby...it's been a great ride...and a good way to close the year. I'll prolly do a redesign next time PA comes up in the updating cycle and add missing links to Jeff's and Tim's histories and junction lists. But it is done.
So again thank you for the past 15 or so years.
I too would like to throw in my thanks to the Gribblenation team. It was an amazing time looking for old signs, then evolving in to State Ends in NY, PA, OH, and then VT, MA, New England, then the Southeast, then Eastern U.S. and it just kept going. But alas, all good things do come to an end, but as doors close, other doors open and so I send along my sincere thanks to all of Gribblenation and here's to the future and what is to come! :)
... and there it goes ... :-/
Here's to what comes next...
My little history with the site:
GribbleNation was my little "flashporter engine" into the AARoads forum (if you get my reference), and the roadgeeking community in general. I remember the days, when I was 10, when I used to run into 404's while clicking through the NC Exit Lists site... Oh well. Those were the days.
Quote from: vdeane on December 19, 2016, 12:52:04 PM
With permission of Doug Kerr, I've set up a Planned New York article on my site reusing a couple of images from Gribblenation.
http://www.nysroads.com/planned.php
Vanshnookenraggen's maps are missing roads like the Soundview Park extension of Bronx River Parkway, the extensions of the Jackie Robinson (Interborough) Parkway, and the North Shore Expressway on Staten Island. Personally, I think the only part of that road that should've been built was the part to the Willowbrook Expressway.
Quote from: bob7374 on January 08, 2017, 03:02:33 PM
Quote from: Dougtone on January 07, 2017, 08:51:46 AM
Yesterday evening, I had contacted the web host provider for gribblenation.net and requested to cease billing, effectively canceling the account. I felt emotions for sure, mostly sad for pulling the plug on Gribblenation. So it is only a matter of time before the website is taken offline. :-/
Sad to see the site officially coming to an end, but I have successfully off-loaded all my pages to my new site: www.malmeroads.net (http://www.malmeroads.net)
The exit list for I-295 in North Carolina was deleted, but I archived it for you:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160408173126/http://gribblenation.com/ncexits/i295nc.html
Quote from: kurumi on October 23, 2016, 12:55:09 PM
We should all pour one out for GN at the next roadmeet. In the meantime, Doug's Flickr site (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/) (679,228 photos) should slake your road thirst for a while :-)
Speaking of Doug's photos (I have about 30,000) we are depending on the subject incorporating them into new blog features - like this new one on the Abandoned PA Turnpike from the October 2004 roadmeet there - http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-visit-to-abandoned-pennsylvania.html
Odd, as I was going through to process this right now, to find that gribblenation.com is still up.
I am going to miss Carter Buchanan's photos as well as Chris Patriciarca ( sorry if I misspelled his name) and a few others that I cannot remember their names. The first two had great photos of the south, but all in all everyone had something good to contribute.
Quote from: cahwyguy on May 29, 2017, 08:59:48 PM
Odd, as I was going through to process this right now, to find that gribblenation.com is still up.
News to me - looks like a gentleman by the name of William Lawson has taken over the domain. You will see his name in replace of pages I did. Also a number of links are inactive.
Not sure who he is - oh well. If he is part if this forum, drop me a line.
Sorry for necrobump.
Curious Katavia here decided to go look at the site's whois listing... it makes no mention of this "William Lawson". Last update date was February of this year, when it changed hands from Mr. LeBlank to "Register.com Partner Network". So... (shrugs)
I found links to NY 22 and 100 on Steve Anderson's coverage of the proposed Grand Concourse Expressway:
22:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160313133540/http://gribblenation.net/nyroutes/jct/022.htm
100:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160305014749/http://www.gribblenation.net/nyroutes/jct/100.htm
Anything else still need to be archived?