So I was googling for detailed info on the mt32 and happened to come across this website. I've never heard of it before and probably wouldn't have if it wasn't for some thorough searching. I think the concept is awesome and I can't believe it's not more popular than it is. Curious to know what background people come from. I grew up collecting vintage video games and doing computer stuff. Just recently got into synthesizers and programming them, so this is right up my alley.

Just wanted to know some more about the history of the site as I can't find a whole lot of information online about it. How long has this been going on and does anyone know of estimate of the total active users...? seems like a lot of people on here

There are quite a few users here, especially on the large majors; 125 BotBrs submitted 312 entries to this/last year's Winter Chip, and the ongoing Summer Chip battle so far has had 62 BotBrs enter. You can check this stat on the battle's page, and you can see all battles on the
Arena

tab above.

Minor major battles get many entries, and the occasional one hour battle gets an average of maybe 5 entrants per battle.

The website started in 2005 (despite the arena archive saying the first battle started on year 0000) (the battleofthebits name I believe came some time before) though most of us came here much later (I started in 2016.)

Click on the Lyceum for information about the site and the formats available, it's like a wiki. You can also click Chats for the irc server at #botb, or go on the discord bridge at https://discord.gg/zXDqAD, BotBrs are always online there.

Thanks for the info. What kind of background do you think a majority of the users come from?

i was noob when i got here

I came here through google/reclusivelemming (he uploaded chiptunes on youtube), I don't know where others came from.

I don't remember how I found this place, but it was probably through a Lyceum article involving the IT format. I may have been looking for the latest version of SPC2IT. That sort of thing.

The musical tastes of the BotBr collective don't match mine. The best tune in a big compo never takes first place, for example. First place usually goes to something quirky or funky, maybe even something with a gimmick. I guess that's a natural product of being on the fringe of a fringe, always looking for something new to scratch an itch you didn't know you had. BotBrs are the kid at the soda fountain that mixes every flavor into a suicide. They're putting ketchup on their carrots and telling jokes about butt farts.

That ain't me. So I've never actually entered anything. If you don't enter anything, either, you should stick around anyway, because you won't find anything else like this place.

Hmm, I would have to disagree that first place is always first because it's quirky... Usually first place is something really good in several factors, it may be quirky, but also good. If it's first, it's probably the best, even if I don't like to listen to it. I don't vote on majors often, but if I did, I just vote on how I like it; it never goes how I'd vote it, but it still makes sense where everything is. I will say BotB music isn't close at all to music you would hear on the radio, but that's why we're here. We also have so many people posting here, each with their on styles of writing, so you will find lots of variation here.

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If it's first, it's probably the best, even if I don't like to listen to it.
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The best in the eyes majority, not the best for you still. There's no such thing like objectively better. But yeah, on the topic VirtualMan brought up, there's running joke perpetuated by some that BotB tends to praise someting colloqually known as music theory wankery (term free to one's interpretation ;)), and I think this is true to a non-negligible extent lol; Not to say you're not going to find a HUGE variety of genres and styles here.

Also, although this site --most probably-- started out as a pure chiptune competition place, i wouldn't call it exclusively chiptune-centered anymore, having in mind the vast variety of submission formats it offers now (which is good). That said, it still mostly revolves around vintage computers/synthesizers as the means of producing sound, with many of those formats being either niche or long past their prime time (or both), except for allgears which you can submit literally anything that constitutes music to them.

I nearly forgot music isn't the only art discipline on botb, we have visual stuff too, and occasionally coding for the nerdiest nerds out there

And since you asked about the background of the users, i think a huge part comes from surrounding chiptune communities, either existing or long gone, but there are many people who don't really do typical chiptune at all (me included) as well. I had very little to do with chiptune before i found botb, and it was similar to how you did discover it, for me. I was looking for raw Fairlight CMI samples, and BotB came up in the search results. Actually i'm pretty sure it was the Bandcamp page with compilation of Fairlight compo entries that i landed on first

I built the the site starting in 2005 to host a remix battle. It was to expand from the local remix battles Blank hosted in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanit, MI. 25 samples and 48 hours to make a track. The following winter I held the first Winter Chip and it really started the ball rolling.