Sitepoint Nostalgia

Community
21

Indeed

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Wow, been ages since I’ve been here! Thanks for the tag on FB Patrick :slight_smile:

As many have said, SP/SPF was one of my first “homes” online (Yahoo! Chat: Web Design was my first). I arrived when the community was still fairly small (Wayne was still admin), and proceeded to piss a bunch of people off (feel free to check my early threads, I swear Wayne threatened to ban me twice). Eventually, I learned a lot about myself here:

  1. I decided to switch from pseudonyms to my real name, thanks to the community here
  2. I learned to write (I published lots of articles here, a couple on A List Apart, several in magazines, etc)
  3. It was thanks to SPF that I started my first “real” blog along with Aaron Brazell (@technosailor). That blog turned into a book, which turned into a startup, which raised millions and helped define professional blogging in many of it’s forms
  4. I helped invent Photoshop Tennis here in these forums along with @eddie
  5. I learned to code properly, participated in many PHP vs ASP moments, then gave up coding and design (irony!)
  6. I bought and sold dozens of sites on the Marketplace

And I could go on and on and on. But the truth is, as others have mentioned, it’s the friendships with people all over the world. Sure, I learned and grew from a snotty sarcastic kid into a snotty sarcastic adult (heh), but it’s the friends I’ve made that made all the difference.

I’m not sure what the move to Discourse means (all the content disappears? WHY is everyone so nostalgic?! Lol), but now that I’m here maybe I’ll stick around a bit :slight_smile:

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t be where I am today without the crew at SPF. So, thank you :slight_smile:

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Hey! I used to have over 12,000 posts?! How am I now not in the 10k club?!!!

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Thanks for the mention Patrick, although I’ve possibly come to SitePoint the other way around when compared to the vast majority, via the podcast as a listener then producer of that before posting here much.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Kevin Yank in person (top man!) although unfortunately no-one else to my knowledge (unless they were at the .net magazine awards I guess).

There are certainly a few people I’d really like to get the chance to meet, but I’m in no position to travel outside the UK currently. Hopefully the future can hold such a meeting or two…

Karn.

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Nope. As less as possible anyway. You never know when things change… :smiley:

WHY is everyone so nostalgic?! Lol)

Age I guess… :wink:

, but now that I’m here maybe I’ll stick around a bit :slight_smile:

Please do! I just read some of the posts you made today and enjoyed them. It would be nice to see you around.

That’s one for @HAWK; :slight_smile:
(maybe they gave some to me… I always wondered how I got to make 9K posts… :shifty: )

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Hah, no worries. I think I was the third person to hit the 10K club, so it used to be a big deal. Not sure if it is anymore :wink:

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Man has it been a long time! I’m really enjoying seeing some familiar faces in this thread! I joined SitePoint back in the WebmasterBase.com days. I still attribute Sitepoint with helping me become the developer I am today.

Things I remember most

Well now I want to write a blog post about my history on SitePoint! :slight_smile:

28

Patrick, Thanks for the mention! I had to come check it out and just seeing that my username is Crowe instead of Chrispian really tells me how long ago that was. 13 years?! Wow. That’s crazy. Such a good group of people came from these forums and I’m glad that so many of us are still in touch.

I’ve rarely worked directly with other developers primarily working in small offices where I’m the only developer and SitePoint gave me a place to hang out with like minded people and ask questions when I would get stuck. It was also fun helping others and giving back in that way. I can honestly say I probably wouldn’t be the developer I am now without the friends and support I found here.

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#wavesatchrispian

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You will be, buddy. You will be.

And just like that I forgive you. Nice words, well spoken.

We’ll be migrating a huge chunk of content and flat HTML archiving the rest. The nostalgia is likely because we’ve spent a tonne of time talking about the good times and the bad in an attempt to decide where we need to go. I’m pretty stoked that Shaun started this thread, and even more stoked that Patrick dragged you all back, but Patrick’s pretty awesome like that.

Anyway, please do stick around. If we ever needed support from the likes of you guys, it’s now.

Ah sorry. That’s my fault. I culled a whole lot of forums a few years back when they turned into cesspits of spam and fluff, in an attempt to streamline things. It was a huge oversight not to retain post count, but I was new to the job at the time.

In summation, thanks for stopping by guys. Don’t leave it so long next time.

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My pleasure, @HAWK. Thank you for the kind words. :slight_smile: @beley, @Jeremy_W, @WebKarnage and @Crowe - happy to tag all of you. Grateful to know all of you. I appreciate you all adding your thoughts onto this thread.

Patrick

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Wow, so many memories and so many familiar faces…

I remember those discussions about web standards we used to have back in those days… can’t believe its been so long ago now…

Good 'ol days :smiley:

Good to see you all :slight_smile:

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Heck, I remember witnessing the social media explosion with you guys on here. Remember we used to have threads making fun of MySpace and trying to find the ugliest MySpace pages?

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Heh, yup. And I remember getting a PM on here from Vinnie one day telling me to join Twitter when no one had even heard of it. I did, and now I earn my living from it. Crazy.

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Nyaww such a great outpouring of goodwill in this thread. Thanks for pinging me, @iFroggy!

Really looking forward to seeing what the next generation of this community looks like. It’s a testament to everyone’s contributions to date that it has made it this far in its current form, but I’m particularly excited about the move to Discourse, intended as it is to give this community the momentum to carry it through its next decade of life.

Onward and upward! :slight_smile:

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[FONT=Georgia]hahaha! I just remembered another classic!

Here patching some silly PHP errors I made and this one popped into my head:

Have you tried trim() ?[/FONT]

:lol:

Off Topic:

And yes, I forgot to use trim() .

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[FONT=Georgia]Imagine that, eh?

The Internet itself has changed though. Back in my day (like what, only ten years ago?) there was such a thing as ‘web surfing’.

How often does that happen these days? It’s either straight to work or straight to social networks it seems.[/FONT]

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Thanks for your words Kev. :slight_smile:

Agreed. That’s definitely contributed to the way in which this community functions.

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There’s actually lots of good stuff when you look back…

@lo0ol; or @stymiee; chosen as the couple of the year http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?312085-Couple-of-the-Year-SitePoint-Awards-2005

or @M_Johansson;… with himself! :lol:

I used to love @Bleys; colored bug (a copy of stymiee’s)

They were fun to watch (and read)… even their virtual fights http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?234974-lo0ol

It is good to see you around here from time to time

40

Starting to look like a reunion thread here. Where’s Vinnie when you need him :smiley:

Too many nostalgic moments to summarize so quickly. I do miss the PRWE forum and debates with @Hellbent;. The ASP v PHP debates with Jeremy were always classic. Rap battles in the staff forum haha…

SPF helped skyrocket my knowledge and understand of technology in general, and for it I am thankful. My professional career deviated from the development side of things over a decade ago, but I still try to keep up with new developments and trends. It’s helped me launch unrelated products in other industries more than I can count.

I don’t keep in touch with many SPF’ers as I’d like, and it’s unfortunate. But I am grateful to have called many of you my friend at one point in time.

Jeremy, Aaron, Vinnie, Mattias, Peter, Toni… and many others. You all make up what I consider to be some amazing years here on staff.

Glad to see SPF still going strong. I hope it remains the same birthplace for innovation that it was for us ten years ago.

:cool: