'''[http://www.theninhotline.net/news/index.php The NIN Hotline]''' is a [[Nine Inch Nails]] news web site started in 1999. It is linked to by [http://www.nin.com/resources/index.html nin.com] and is considered the finest NIN news source on the Net.
The site was created in June of 1999 while Leviathant was in between jobs, as a result of general community disapproval of the way NIN news sites at the time (such as Seems Like Salvation Nothing News & Above the Trees' news page, not to mention the long-idle news.nin.net) were handling things. In order to provide an alternative to the major news sites, which were each run by individuals, three members of the EFnet IRC chatroom #nin99 created a site on Xoom.com and shared the login information. Leviathant, Pablo, and }static{ were the original three collaborators, but soon more staff were added to help post news as it happened. Initially edited by copying and pasting HTML source code, at some point a hacked-to-bits version of the Guestbook Script from the infamous Matt's Script Archive was implemented, allowing accurate timestamping and a consistent layout. During 2000, French and German versions of the site arose, and plans were in the works for a Russian edition of the site as well, but that never quite materialized./
By the end of 2000, flaws in the "everyone is equal" method of running the site led to abuse of power by one of the staff, leading to a reorganization of the site in February 2001, paring staff back down to five people, including the original three founders. A new administrative backend was implemented on this revision, allowing much greater ability to add, change and delete news stories, archives were automated, and the layout was based off a (admittedly crude) template system. Unfortunately, the source code in this backend was especially horrible, and it was not successfully ported over to the German & French editions of the site, which eventually were removed entirely.
That concludes today's history lesson. I'll add more to this article when I'm done the most recent additions to the administrative back-end.