Delaware Gazette Website Dies Of Natural Causes At Age 22

The Delaware Gazette’s flagship website, delgazette.com, passed away quietly yesterday on the local MidOhio.net server where it was housed. The site, more than 15 years old at the time of its death (150 in human years), was one of the oldest and most storied websites on the Internet.

First published in 1996, the site maintained many of its original design elements up until the time of its death, including its table-based layout, use of pop-up ads, sloppy code, and over reliance on external websites for site content and functionality. In its later years, the site even included an advertisement at the bottom of the page that overlapped the footer on Firefox and Chrome web browsers.

Gazette webmaster Steve Terry expressed grief over the site’s passing.

“I raised that website from a single line of HTML,” Terry said. “It’s really sad to see her go.”

Asked about his future now that the website has died, Terry admitted he would probably be fired and replaced by someone who knows what they are doing.

“With the current decline in newspaper readership, it is probably smart for the Gazette to hire a webmaster with experience working with websites built in this millennium,” Terry said. “Besides, I have already been offered a job to help maintain the Delaware Area Chamber of Commerce’s web site. They love my work.”

Gazette staff writer Andrew Andy, the paper’s sole link to the 21st century, said he’s ready to move on to something more modern.

“I like to think I work for a real newspaper, “ Andy explained, “but when I refer people to my articles and their computers crash, I begin to doubt myself.”

The Gazette is planning a memorial service via their Facebook account this Thursday at 8 p.m. Members of the community are invited to share memories of the site’s atrociousness.