Sitepoint Nostalgia

Community
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[FONT=Georgia]It’s just a few more weeks before the big move.

I happened to have a load of freetime today, so I’ve been looking up some of my old, favourite threads.

I’d haunted Sitepoint for a long time before making an account. At the time I was more into webdesign than photography, and constantly had issues I couldn’t solve. Googling would always lead me to this strange orange and blue forum site.

But it was vgarcia’s infamous ‘In this thread I tell you how you will die’ (remember that?!), together with a pesky Javascript problem, than finally made me register.

I’ve been hooked since.[/FONT]

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I remember it. I went first! Those were the days…

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I remember when the Sitepoint still had its marketplace attached to it XP I was always amazed at some of the big sales on it too.

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I bet you’ll miss the smileys most of all :big_pink_valentine:

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[FONT=Georgia]I remember when we first ‘discovered’ Neil deGrasse Tyson, back in 2008.

‘Death by Giant Meteor’

These days almost everyone knows his face. But we knew about him first dammit! So there![/FONT]

Those were the heydays of our long, long philosophical discussions with @Datura ; @r937 ; @php_daemon ; and @akritic ;

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Yeap!

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I will. :bawling:

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Well, I don’t remember any specific threads per se, just the fun times :slight_smile:

I think the move to discourse will be a good thing for the Sitepoint community. I look forward to popping in to check out the new decor :wink:

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Fun times they were, so many good memories :slight_smile:

I looked into Discourse and it looks pretty good, I like the simplicity.

Hopefully I will manage to get back to being active on SPF again too.

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I’m sure you guys will find a way to continue to annoy me with them :stuck_out_tongue:

Andy! Saul! Great to see you guys again. And thanks for the support, it’s appreciated, especially from a couple of the old guard like yourselves.

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Don’t just pop in. Stay around! :wink:

That would be great. Hope to see you around :slight_smile:

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[FONT=Georgia]How about this one.

Do y’all remember our short-lived ‘Sitepoint Forumcast’ ?

What a wonderful mix of accents and personalities! This is an international forum, people!

Episode 01 ([URL=“http://media.libsyn.com/media/sitepoint/sitepointforumcast001.mp3”]mp3)

Episode 02 ([URL=“http://media.libsyn.com/media/sitepoint/sitepointforumcast002.mp3”]mp3)

Episode 03 ([URL=“http://traffic.libsyn.com/sitepoint/sitepoinforumcast003.mp3”]mp3)

But we never did do that Sitepoint Swimsuit Calendar…[/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia]I’ll definitely miss this little guy :weee:

And this one :inspector: yeees.[/FONT]

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Never say never.

These ones were good.

Put a face with your name thread!

Put your imaginary face with a name.

Your name on a grain of rice.

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[FONT=Georgia]Oh my. Forgot about that one!

Why was I such an a-hole? I’m sorry, @Dark_Tranquility ; .[/FONT]

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Did somebody say nostalgia? :slight_smile:

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[FONT=Georgia]Holy cow!

Dude!

Where did you come from?![/FONT]

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Hey @Shaun_OfTheDead,

Thanks. I pop in from time to time and I’ve been monitoring the move to Discourse. I also talk to Sarah (@HAWK) fairly regularly and keep in touch with various SitePointers. There are so many nostalgic moments that I have from my time here. I was a volunteer staff member for 11 years, 4 months, 4 weeks and 1 day. When I joined, these forums had 40,000 posts, 6,000 threads and 2,500 members. When I became a member of staff, it had 175,000 posts, 25,000 threads and 7,000 members. REALLY! I can never hope to remember all of the great moments.

First and foremost, I met some of my closest friends here, people I’ll know for the rest of my life, like Brandon Eley (@beley), Chrispian Burks (@Crowe), Stephan Segraves (@Hartmann), Brad Williams (@Thing) and Ted Sindzinski (@Ted_S). I am tremendously grateful for that and always will be.

And that’s just the list I talk to regularly. I keep in touch with so many people I met here.

Here are some other random things that come to mind:

  • This is the first article I wrote for SitePoint. It stands up remarkably well for being 12 years old. But at the time, a really influential member of the community went after me pretty hard. Specifically about having hyphens in your name (who came out on the right side of history on that one, heh).

@Jeremy_W defended me, just as directly as the other person had criticized me. To the 17 year old me, that meant a lot and Jeremy will always be my friend.

  • I served under 5 different admins. Wayne Luke (@Hierophant), Nicky Danino (@Nicky), Thomas Rutter (@mmj), Sarah Large (@Sarah) and Shayne Tilley (@ShayneTilley). All had good traits.

  • When Brad started the thread pitching the idea of a SitePoint Podcast. It was his idea, his thought and his push that got it going. Stephan and I just jumped along for the ride. We recorded the pilot ourselves. Kevin Yank (@Kevin_Yank) jumped on for the first episode and it was an amazing run. Louis Simoneau (@Louis_Simoneau) and Kevin Dees would join us later and be great. I valued the opportunity to get to know Brad, Stephan, Kevin, Louis and Kevin on a deeper level. We had a lot of fun. I really look back fondly on the live shows that we did, in person.

Carl Longnecker (@longneck) and Karn Broad (@WebKarnage) did a great job as editors, as well. Winning the .net Magazine Award was special.

All in all, a lot of work went into building a popular podcast and it was a wonderful experience.

  • There are so many forum threads that it is hard to come up with any particular ones. Which is kind of disappointing. But, like life, the days blur.

  • SitePoint members have gone on to to do so many great things. Start great companies, work at great companies, become respected leaders in their industry, write books, etc. It’s amazing. That is, to me, a good part of the legacy of the SitePoint Forums. What all of us went on to do. If you just listed every staff member ever and what they’ve accomplished - it’s staggering.

  • I’ve met a lot of SitePointers in person, both employees and community members.

  • Those who know me know of my work in the online community space and I’ve been fortunate to have an impact there. SitePoint was really influential to me, especially how Wayne laid the groundwork. I learned a lot here about community.

That’s what I have for now. It’s hard to do it justice. SitePoint has impacted my life is a very positive way.

Long live SitePoint.

Patrick

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Can’t be mentioned and not pop in to say hello. :slight_smile:

Patrick’s post has me getting nostalgic too! Like Patrick, I’ve met some great friends at SitePoint, and there’s no doubt SitePoint helped me get to where I am today. The community here helped me immensely when I was just learning web development.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with SitePoint in several roles… writing articles, serving as mentor and advisor of the forums, co-authoring a book and the Tribune newsletter. Good times!

Didn’t know about the forums moving over to Discourse… will be interesting to see how it goes. I’ll have to pop in soon to check it out.

Thanks for the mention, Patrick. Hard to believe it’s been that long ago when we all met here!

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I remember hiring HAWK … sorry.

I remember still vividly the day I was told Dan Schultz had passed.

I remember the wildest three days of my life with the bushfire appeal and the 5-4-1 sale.

I remember writing a book with @beley having never actually met him (at the time).

But I think what I remember most is that this community is still proof of one the most beautiful virtues of the internet. That I can create real friendships that will last a lifetime with people completely different to me, in another part of the world that at a different time I would have never crossed paths with.

And I’m a better person for that and eternally thankful.

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[FONT=Georgia]Wow, I don’t remember the exact moment I found out (it might have been from reading your announcement) but I remember the feeling across the forum.

It was one of those times that reminds you that these are real people out in the world we’re talking to.[/FONT]