Staybeautiful.net
From MSPpedia
staybeautiful.net was a online MSP resource maintained and created by Gareth Flynn. It was established in 1999 and had 9 sections, namely; news, live, pictures, interviews, lyrics, reference, links, chat and a php forum.
Content
The news section was updated regularly and combined both official press releases from manics.co.uk and well supported rumours circulating through the fan community.
The live section featured setlists and a comprehensive list of all the live dates the Manics had played during their career.
The pictures section featured a search facility which allowed users to browse photos by era, setting and type (live, b/w, colour) and content (band members in photo, group, individual). Fans submitted their own photos and magazine scans to create a visual record of the Manics career.
The lyrics section contained both album versions of songs, b-sides, inaccurately sung cover versions (such as Last Christmas) and live versions of songs [whose lyrics were changed when performed] organised by the venue at which they were sung.
The forum was a well used, vibrant community. Various fora allowed for general discussion of the Manics, other band discussion, and off-topic discussion. Gig meet-ups were often co-ordinated through the forums which allowed fans across the UK to form friendships based on their interest in the band and meet like-minded individuals in their area.
Current Status
In May 2004, the forum at Stay Beautiful was discontinued, amidst speculation that the administrator, Gar', didn't have time to moderate a series of increasingly fraught and hostile exchanges between, on one hand, a member known as Wymark, and pretty much the rest of the forum on the other, and chose closing it down over letting it deteriorate into an anarchic and unwelcoming embarrassment to the rest of the site.[1].
Sometime during August or September in 2006 staybeautiful.net went offline. For around 2 years the news page had displayed a message saying that as the Manics were not recording there was no news to report ("With the Manics now on an extended break, there is currently no news" [2]). This message persisted even when the Manics returned to the studio and released Lifeblood however most users were happy to get their MSP news from other sources and continued using staybeautiful.net to view photos, lyrics and setlists.
Most residents of the board moved to the forums on foreverdelayed.org and some LiveJournal communities where networking and meet-ups continued to be co-ordinated from.
At this time it is unclear whether staybeautiful.net will return. Attempts to contact the administrator by various parties have so far proved fruitless [3]. However, some of the content is still available thanks to archiving sites.
