I was just browsing the member list by date joined and was trying to see who joined first. Just kinda trying to see how long these forums have been around. Funny, but the last few pages of members all list a joined date 12/31/1969. What's the story behind that? and how long have these forums been in existence?
Thanks,
Kris

 

I think the webmaster has the site birthdate - 11/25/96.

At one time there was an electronic 'mailing list'.
Later you could sign up for the mailing list, the website or both.
I joined the site first, then the mailing list but, the mailing list was cumbersome. You got a huge e-mail.
I believe at some point everyone who was on the 'mailing list' was given automatic membership to the website. When this happened, a date had to be loaded in the 'date field' and either the system or Steve loaded '12/31/69'.

In July of 1999, there was a system crash. All threads that had not been posted to within a short time were lost.

You can find a thread that was started before July 1999 but, only if it was posted to right before the crash.

This is why many of the 'old' members have 'zero' posts. They were active way back when but, not since July 1999.

The site has really grown in eight years.
I believe there were less than a 1,000 members when I joined.