The History of Mibba

As most of you know, Mibba was born in 2006. It has been nearly six years since its creation by the wizard of Croatia - our one and only Dujo. There have been tens of thousands of registrations on our beloved website, with still so many active users and faithful writers. But have any of you ever wondered how it all began? The story seems like quite a mystery to all, but we can finally find the secrets and learn about the history of Mibba.

Dujo used to own two other websites for bandfics: ImNotOkay.net and GeekStinkBreath.net. ImNotOkay was a My Chemical Romance fan-site, and GeekStinkBreath was a Green Day fan-site. The purpose of Mibba was to create another website with more variety and space for those stories - but also something bigger than just the bandfics. While Dujo created Mibba, our very own Josipa helped create and influence the article section. (Josipa, one of Dujo's friends, is also a journalist in Croatia.)

Mibba has grown so immensely. "We have almost 300,000 accounts," said Dujo, who I interviewed previously. "15% of them are not active. Of course, there are still users who don't visit the site anymore, but we'll try to bring some of them back!"

So, how has Mibba changed in the past several years? I interviewed some of the first Mibbians who ever registered on this website - so let's hear what they have to say! Sunber, who moved from GeekStinkBreath, said, "I remember when the characters page was added, and the books page was added, and everyone thought the 2 weeks was up, and it wasn't. We were all a little excited, impatient and scared at the same time."

Coincidentally, another user recently posted a thread in the forums about Mibba's background, which Dujo had some neat responses to. Many of us have wondered what Mibba really means - but I think we'll all be surprised at his response!

"It's hard to find a good domain name - everything was already taken so I just wanted something short and easy to pronounce. It doesn't mean anything," says Dujo.

While it's slightly disappointing that there isn't much of an origin on the name, it's also nice to know that it didn't just reflect on the creators and whatnot - but for all of the users.

Not everyone on this site has been on here the same amount of time, of course, so it was very interesting to hear about other major changes that occurred before a lot of users even registered. The HTML/CSS layout features that Mibba adopted was a big but wonderful change for everyone!

Katiethebeat had much to say on the matter! "I remember members being a little apprehensive, and finding out that Mibba was just like ImNotOkay, but it being not so bandfic-based like INO was."

Kurtni, one of the three administrators on the website, gave some extremely helpful information on some of the biggest changes on Mibba.

"I think one of the biggest changes on Mibba was probably when we had the big Quizilla migration. It brought a lot of variety to the website, as well as original fiction writers, which has always been a smaller community on Mibba. At one time, Mibba was a small community with a few thousand users; now, we have hundreds of thousands of Mibbians from all over the world."

What do you guys remember? Some of us have been on longer than others, but we've had some altogether lovely memories. The Crash of '07 was horrific while it happened, but hilarious afterwards - it really proved the users' dedication to Mibba, something that never changed.

"Probably the most important thing that stayed the same is that we don't tolerate abuse/bashing on the site. We expect our users to respect each other and we really care about it. You can't find that on other sites," Dujo said, in terms of Mibba's strong and influenced policies.

The forums have changed such a great deal - from tiny discussion threads to so many wonderful topics - and with the recent New Mibba, we've witnessed some great new features.

Jenni, who moved from GeekStinkBreath as well, said, "If there's anything that hasn't changed, it's probably the function of the site. While new things were added, like articles and the magazine, it's still just a site about creative writing and that's why I love it."

In conclusion, Mibba can really be a great website for young writers, and I'm sure we're all proud of its growth! I encourage you to share your memories in the Remember When thread!