#gos

Like many of us, I grew up with Garden of Shadows. To me, it was more than just a forum. It was a place I could ask for help, learn new skills and, best of all, find amazing content in any style I could possibly want. I loved the board names, the people, the themes; everything, really.

And I admit I was more than a little heartbroken to find it gone.

After mulling it over, I decided that I wanted to preserve what I possibly could. I spent a few hours yesterday running through strategies and ideas about how to best go about it, and the best I could come up with was, well, exactly the same.

So, here it is: the Garden of Shadows mirror forum.

I've only just started, but I hope to add a little bit to it every day. The primary focus will be on preserving all the knowledge and custom content. I'm tackling it myself, but if you feel so inclined, you're more than welcome to join in.

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**I am editing this post based on feedback in the comments.**

I would still like everybody to stop, pause, make some really tight fists with their hands, now shake them out, and do some deep breathing.

I would still like to ask people to sloooow down. The internet moves fast but sometimes, life moves more slowly.

There are still efforts going on behind the scenes to get GOS back online (and Sims 2 Artists).

New hosting has been secured. The website php needs upgrading and this has not been working, but people are working on it.

I know its hard when things happen and you don't know what's going on.

Instead of panicking, jumping to conclusions, making angry posts, it's time to offer support, be patient, wait, ask what's happening without getting mad.

And please, remember kindness and empathy. Lunie has been trying to update GOS for months, and she is exhausted. It's down right now, but not dead (yet).

I do not deny this situation has been handled badly. I do not condone hateful or aggressive language FROM anyone directed TO anyone.

The latest update I have is that the site PHP is ancient, and it will be extremely difficult to update it so that the site can be rehosted, but people are trying.

I'm even probably roping in my IT dude husband who does web hosting and deals with this sort of thing, but who is not a simmer and has no idea what GOS really is.

I will try to actively post more updates as I receive them so that communication can be clear and we can all know what's going on.

Cheers,

🌍🪽☀️✨

https://simfileshare.net/folder/189789/

HERE are all the backups I have from GOS. Quite a few, but not all, monthly themes are archived. Wayback machine is no help.

I JUST FUCKING SAW, BITCH.

Okay okay, wait let me collect myself.

First, let me say that I'm actually so sad to see it go. It's been a huge part of my time in the sims community. It's a shame that was so sudden. I really loved the community and I think it's a shame that it happened like it did.

With that out of the way.

BITCH, I TOLD YOU. I TOLD ALL OF YOU. I told ALL you motherfuckers exactly what would happen and everyone bitched like "Oh!! Well, WHY would you do this? Especially when it's not like GOS is closing down anytime soon???"

I got hate mail for months. Bitches poured out of the woodwork like "Mmmm I've always hated Billie, just another thing he's done to add him to my shit list" Then HL bitched at me and acted like the scrape cost him a huge amount of case in data usage when that shit was fucking cents on the dollar. I even offered to pay HL back the like 2 dollars that it *may* have costed him to scape.

Well GUESS who fucking took their ball and went home with very little warning?

I am not usually someone who gets involved in Sims community discourse or public callout-style posts, but this genuinely breaks my heart to see.

A massive amount of the custom content, creativity, and inspiration behind my work on Vermillion Sins came from communities like Garden of Shadows and Sims2Artists. They were huge pillars of the Sims 2 creative space for years.

What hurts most is not even just the shutdown itself. It’s the lack of warning.

These sites were not just forums anymore. They had become archives of nearly two decades of community history: old creators, inactive creators, forum attachments, resources, tutorials, contests, shared knowledge, and years of creativity that helped shape this community into what it became.

A simple “hey, this may go offline permanently soon, please archive what you can” would have allowed people time to preserve pieces of Sims 2 history before they vanished. Instead, so much appears to have disappeared overnight.

And to be clear, I do not think anyone is owed endless unpaid labor or permanent site maintenance. If someone no longer has the time, energy, money, or interest to continue running something, that is completely understandable.

But I do think the community should have at least been given the chance to help. People absolutely would have pitched in through backups, mirrors, technical help, donations, archival efforts, or simply having enough warning to preserve pieces of history before they disappeared.

The Sims 2 community has survived because people cared enough to preserve things. Without archivists, backups, mirrors, and Wayback captures, huge parts of this game’s creative history would already be gone forever.

And honestly, I hope this becomes a wake-up call moving forward. Preservation should matter.

TOUs and repost policies should not become barriers that result in entire pieces of community history disappearing forever the moment a creator or site owner leaves, especially in a community where everything is interconnected.

I respect active creators wanting credit and boundaries. But abandoned content should not be treated like untouchable lost media while the community watches it disappear forever. Communities preserving older Sims games and their content are a huge part of why those games remained alive and accessible long after EA itself had largely moved on from supporting them, and likely played a significant role in renewed interest surrounding things like the Sims 2 Legacy release.