how did you find "the gon"

I received an e-mail in the late nineties advertising a new site that was opening called AudiogoN. I think it was '97 or '98. The e-mail was an unsolicited advertisement. I don't know how they got my e-mail address as being an audiophile type of person. Anyways, it was them who contacted me. After lurking for a few months, I was using the site within a year for serious buying and selling. The site was a lot smaller back then, only a couple of hundred items were listed at the start. I used to participate a lot in the forum, which was not moderated or subdivided into the various caegories as it is today. But within a year it was so corrupted by trollers and flame-baiters that I abandoned the site. A lot of other high profile posters who often submitted useful and thoughtful comments left as well. It was like losing your friends. It seemed to be such a small group of regulars. I returned a couple of years ago to find the site greatly expanded, gear for sale in the thousands rather than a couple of hundred, and sub-divided, moderated discussion boards to keep the trash out. When I rejoined, I couldn't retrieve my old username or feedback comments.You had to do so within a certain period of time after the site was revamped and I wasn't around at the time, having abandoned the site earlier. It was great to have it back though. And it's nice to have a forum again where you can post something without ten or twenty people saying nasty, childish things to you using the anonymity of a username.