McNeel Discourse is 10 years old today

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Well, not sure about the exact date but the first posts I can find are from May 7th, 2013…

Some of us old timers will remember the somewhat stubborn transition from the clubby newsgroup format with a very small group of users - where only 25 people accounted for almost 60% of the posts - to Discourse.

(There was a previous attempt from 2012 on to transition to a web-based ‘social network’ format - based on Microsoft Ning IIRC, the format of which looked a little bit like the ‘news’ page does today - but that was not well received. The Grasshopper pages also were based on Ning, and that however was quite popular and persisted long after the general Rhino forum had switched to Discourse.)

Choosing the Discourse format, which was still more or less in Beta and whose ‘flat’ unthreaded topics, linear timeline format was completely different from the other popular forum formats was also much debated at the time.

In the end, that choice turned out to be brilliant, heralding a new era in how the Rhino community would develop and prosper. It’s impossible for me to describe how incredibly amazing this community has become - I made several attempts, then gave up - so I will just say this: WOW. :star_struck:

Thanks to all who have made and continue to make this forum the best place to be anywhere on the internet.

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That was nice, with all those images posted by the users. :grinning:
I also liked the scripting/Python forum, good use of screen space.
That one was based on another software … I don’t remember the name, sorry. :blush:

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If we had an MVP award for non-McNeel contributors then you’d be on the shortlist. Thanks for your massive contribution down those ten years.

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Honestly, I have never seen any better community than the people contributing in this forum. The management of the forum is also spot on. :ok_hand:

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Hi Mitch,

Thanks for bringing this up.
I agree that indeed no words can fully describe the awesomeness of this community.

It’s amazing how it has grown and how many more inspirational, dedicated, helpful and kind people have joined since.

While I do miss the days when I was much more active, personal and business commitments have made it impossible for me to be as active as I was. Apart from the amount of new topics and replies that is.

-Willem

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I have fond memories of the old newsgroup where John Brock, Pascal, and occasionally even Bob would chime in and teach me just about everything I now know.

The fact I now get to work with these folks daily is something I’m very grateful for.

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