Underdogfight: Home Of The Underdogs Returns
This went live last week, but I wanted to give it a chance to stabilize before linking. Home of the Underdogs is back. Kind of. It's a revival, which plans to pick up where the last king of abandonware left off, and push forward with lots of new functionality (user reviews, additions, etc). Home of the Underdogs has been sadly missed since it went bankrupt in February. While existing well into a legal grey area, it was a singular historical resource which any lover of the medium really has to adore. Go bookmark it, eh?
Of course, there's a little internet drama around it.
I'll keep it short, because I'm not actively involved in any way and not technically qualified to judge the merits of the case. Basically, while a revival group was formed, it ended up in a direct schism between different people wanting to take different routes.
The one linked to takes the idea that the site should press forward and embrace-off-the-shelf coding to allow to do it as quickly as possible. Its' the one which is mainly active. Homeoftheunderdogs.net conversely wants to be more faithful to the original, without re-creating its problems, and seems to think that technically speaking HOTUD is going to fall over if it tries to do what it does. And then there's Hotu.pratyeka.org which - er - does other stuff too. It's classic Internet politics. I suspect eventually it'll shake down one way or the other, but until it does, there's a pack of Underdogs running these internet streets.
Oh, go watch the Wikipedia page to pick over some of this. It's very much a story in progress.