Edmund Reid

JTRForums:
A Decade of Dedication
By HOWARD BROWN
I was asked by Adam Wood to prepare a brief history of JTR Forums, now entering its eleventh
year, for the readers of the Rip.
Back in the Fall of 2005, Tim Mosley and I took the original domain name which he had established in 2003 and
applied it to software he had at his disposal. The current version of the Forums was born on 19 September 2005.
At first, we laid the foundation... sections for victims, suspects, aspects of the case, etc. A labor of love, we
quickly filled the main page with a wide of assortment of topics for newcomers and long time researchers and
aficionados.
Membership numbers were slow in accumulating. The majority of Ripper-related discussion took place on
Casebook, the pioneering effort of Stephen Ryder in the mid-1990s and one of, if not the most important
developments in the history of Ripperology. Although social media Ripperology such as Facebook might have given
any message board a run for its money in terms of being the most frequented, had it been available in the late
'90s, Casebook had the finest collection of newspapers and archival material for public consumption anywhere,
which remains that site's most valuable asset.
The question became: What could the Forums do which would establish itself as a viable entity at that time?
I had had a considerable number of ideas which I considered testing on Casebook (one of which was Trivia Night,
a weekly online game which involved teams of players in Casebook's chat room... another was an organized,
coordinated section on Ripper suspect Robert D'Onston Stephenson, which, unlike the Trivia Night idea, didn't take
off and fly), but I felt it would be a little too intrusive, along with the fact I wasn't sure they would be embraced
by Casebook's membership. I felt that there were quite a few concepts that hadn't been explored, but which
should be.
I set those ideas up on JTRForums, beginning in late 2005, some of which remain to this day:
Five Questions With...
A set of questions provided to a Forums member or to someone within the field, or sometimes not, such as
James Badal (Cleveland Torso Killer expert) and Tom Voigt (Zodiac webmaster). It's been popular since its first
appearance. The contribution of well known researchers such as Martin Fido, Rob House, John Malcolm and Paul
Begg, to name but a few, on often important points of view making their appearance anywhere for the first time
is a favorite of our membership.
Topic of the Month
Self-explanatory: each month a new idea or perhaps an old one would be revisited for group discussion.
Book of the Month
Forums members review books from the present day as well as older works, usually, but not always, from within
Ripperology.
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