The History of the ScubaBoard

[joewr]

Folks,

After a prolonged absence due to, well, just due to..., I decided it was time to come home and look around. My goodness, the NetDoc has transformed this once sleepy site into an incredibly valuable tool for all divers, experienced and inexperienced, adept and inept, cool and fool, old and new, far and few! Nice work, Doc!

Just for the fun of it, I thought some of you Board Denizens might like to see what the original cast looked like. Most are now off wandering the earth in different disguises, but a few remain. See if you can recognize those loyal, royal folks. And, speaking of "royal" the founders whose names appear first on the list of "Founding Fathers & Mothers" are King Neptune and Lady Diver. The King sorta kept watch on the Kingdom, but Lady Diver had the red pencil. So, if you dared to use an explitive and did not delete it, she was right there with her magical, digital, hypertal red pencil...and, whosh...transgression erased, warning issued, face all red, and, maybe even a "time out"!

At any rate, without further ado, here is the list of "Founding Fathers and & Mothers" in order of date joined (dates shown):


The Founding Fathers and Mothers
King Neptune 7-13-2000
Ted S 7-13-2000
Lady Diver 7-14-2000
Herman 7-19-2000
Rainreg 7-20-2000
Natasha 7-24-2000
Iguana Don 9-5-2000
BillP 9-16-2000
Greg G 9-17-2000
Dr Deco 9-20-2000 }
Walter 9-25-2000
rcohn 9-25-2000
John Reinertson 9-25-2000
Dee 9-26-2000
Mario S Caner 9-28-2000
Submariner 9-29-2000
Rick Murchison 10-13-2000
Warhammer 10-24-2000
scubadoc 11-16-2000
DEEPSEA 11-28-2000
Scubababy 12-11-2000
joewr 12-19-2000
Remora 12-27-2000
mattiedread 12-29-2000
DocVikingo 1-5-2001
NetDoc 1-20-2001

joewr...servant of the People...when the People have money...although gold and crude oil will do, as well...and this spot is still for sale or lease...

 

[The Chairman]

Those were fun times, and we're still having fun after all these years!

Joe sent me the link to this (sort of), so I just had to come and see. In the old days, we pretty much knew EVERYONE on the site. Now, it's not such a manageable task. To put that in perspective, when I joined, I was user #879. That's less than a thousand. Currently we are pushing 200,000 members (193,894) and we average 25,000+ unique visitors each and every day. Its not that unusual for us to top a million visitors in a month. I can't tell you how many times I have met someone who apologizes for "only" lurking here. On a recent trip, one of these lurkers claimed that %90 of his knowledge about Scuba Diving came from right here. That's the power of our community and the opening line of our ToS explains it all: Welcome to ScubaBoard: the world's largest community of scuba diving enthusiasts dedicated to sharing the wonders of our underwater world in a fun, safe and friendly environment. Our focus is to advance safety, knowledge and enjoyment within the diving community by encouraging the mutual exchange of experiences, ideas and opinions. We sincerely hope you enjoy and benefit from your extended surface interval with us.

Yeah, we have evolved over the years. The mods no longer correct spelling or grammar and there is no dreaded red pencil. We still discuss split fins, masks on forehead and yes: the Warhammer maneuver (Don't Look!). We've had our share of trolls over the years as well as an abundance of wisdom. In our twelfth year, we are ancient in internet age yet we are still young and still growing. With the sudden advent of Facebook's popularity, the rest of the Scuba Industry finally "gets us". After all, we have been Scuba's Social Media Site since way before the term Social Media was coined.

Back then: 1 shared server.
Today: 11 dedicated servers.
Back then: Businesses were not allowed!
Today: We have manufacturers' and agencies' forums as well as our marketplace forums.
Back then: They were called Regulators.
Today: We call them the Mod Squad.
Back then: We were the largest single site for Scuba Diving.
Today: We are STILL the largest single site for Scuba Diving, only now we don't have anyone even close!

 

[herman]

Nice bit of history Joe. It was a lot differnent in those days, Mayberry has grown into NYC. I think I have the only avatar from the original set that is still in use. Back then you had to pick from a fairly small list. I thought about changing it but it just did not seem right, at least I am keeping a little of the old SB alive.

 

[D_B]

Thank you for that post Joewr and to you Pete, for making a nice place to hang out on our surface interval :cool2:

 

[Ted S]

Ahh the old days... Tempting as it is to glorify the past, things get better with time and with forums & ScubaBoard that's been very, very true.

When we first started building the site in June of 2000 this software was a brand new invention.... avatars were just starting to be used, smilies were something you had to type characters in for and all the little bells and whistles like quick reply had not even been dreamed of. And of course the conversation was a lot smaller too

Herman [aka member 57], joewr [#441], netdoc [#879] and I know there's many more from the pre-1000 point days still here regularly [or lurking around like myself]. It's amazing to see the overall growth as NetDoc pointed out out but what really "wows" me is being able to have a conversation about the board at just about any dive shop or location [after "Otter" turned me into a diver]. Despite all the talk, plans and goals we had back in the "dotcom boom" when this started, I never expected to see a day where everyone knew the name.

11 down and here's to the next 11... and more.

- Ted S aka "Tech Admin" aka "Technical Administrator"

 

[gypsyjim]

I am not a part of the original crew, but the board you all created held a wealth of information, and quite an assortment of interesting dive folks, so I quickly found a home. I always wondered what the board looked like in the years before I discovered it, but I am sure that it was the combined personalities and interests every one of you original members who gave the board the extra edge that helped it rise so far above any competitors and would be competitors on the internet.


I did not wander in till '05, while researching some dive destination on line, and discovering SB, and quickly made new friends with folks like Herman, who made me welcome.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Thanks for the reminder, Joe... Has it really been over a decade???????
Wow!

Rick

 

[Ted S]

I am not a part of the original crew, but the board you all created held a wealth of information, and quite an assortment of interesting dive folks, so I quickly found a home. I always wondered what the board looked like in the years before I discovered it, but I am sure that it was the combined personalities and interests every one of you original members who gave the board the extra edge that helped it rise so far above any competitors and would be competitors on the internet

I think the appropriate word to describe the original layout is basic.

You can see a screenshot of the site from August of 2000, a few weeks after it had gone live and with just 121 members total at http://www.moderninsider.com/history/scubaboard2000.jpg

By sept of 2001 we were up to 1,750 users, 6,800 in sept of 2002 and 16,700 in sept of 2003. In 2004 [32,000 members] the layout finally got a major update with the launch of a new vBulletin forum version bringing things closer to what you see today. 2005-2006 is when much of the major changes took place and SB started to enter the dive industry as a brand at events and shows [kuddos to NetDoc for giving me a second run on SB] and of course since then things have just grown and grown.

Thanks for the reminder, Joe... Has it really been over a decade??????? Wow!

11 years and change since we started warming up the engines... Almost 11 years to the day for you specifically.

 

[gypsyjim]

I think the appropriate word to describe the original layout is basic.

You can see a screenshot of the site from August of 2000, a few weeks after it had gone live and with just 121 members total at http://www.moderninsider.com/history/scubaboard2000.jpg
.

now that is basic! Hard to believe the transition to the look we have today.

 

[herman]

Nice to see your still around in the background Ted. Some the changes I like and others I don't but such is weblife. I do have to agree with Walter however, I miss the macaws.