Rhino forum and community history - call for stories

Rhino
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Hi all,

As some of you might be aware, I’m working on writing a history of Rhino as part of my PhD dissertation, which is on the techno-social history of design software. I’ve already spoken with some of the key protagonists at McNeel, but also feel that what makes Rhino unique is the community that was built around it.

I’m looking to discuss this aspect with members of the community that have been around here for 15+ years. Bonus points if you were around during the usenet newsgroup days!

If anybody wants to share their story, please reach out to me - (galo.canizares [at] uky [dot] edu).

best,
Galo

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Discourse is a little over 11 years old, so anyone ‘around’ for 15+ years would have had to have been on the usenet newsgroup…

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It would be great to see the stories posted publicly. That would be almost as interesting as the long running post about people’s hobbies. That one is still getting some occasional attention.

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That would be great! Feel free to post these stories here.

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Well, for one, there was another official Rhino forum here, before Discourse.

I notice that I have been coming to this helpful and excellent forum for 10 years, having also been on the old one.

If you get people who have been here for much longer than 10 years–who don’t work for McNeel, you might have another topic for your study ; )

[On the other end of the spectrum, you might have the Arduino forum, where have I seen such cruelty, I am taken aback. I remember when I asked why people were so mean–one of the moderators stated it was because kids were also on the forum : (

Found that I am not the only one who thinks so:
https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/ub4gj6/absolutely_unbelievable_how_forumarduinocc_is/?rdt=58115
https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/7ua76x/why_are_the_arduinocc_forums_so_terrible/

]

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Ever seen anything like this on a forum?

Well, Pascal was very helpful, and pleasant. Ninety-four well-wishes states something not only about the forum, but the person.

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Sounds like Stack Overflow. If you dare to ask a question that’s been asked before you’ll get ripped to shreds.

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I don’t understand your response. I had stated the Pascal was well appreciated and celebrated on this forum. For nearly 100 well wishes on an employee departure on a Forum, I’ve never seen before.

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Dan was not replying to your post about Pascal. It was the previous post. You can see which post is being replied to if you click on the little arrow with your name next to it in the top right corner of Dan’s post.

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That is what I’ve found too. Not many online forums are as welcoming and helpful as this one.

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Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that this forum is hostile. I was referring to the part of your post where you referenced a different hostile forum. I was just adding to your point of how pleasant this forum is compared to some others out there. Sorry for the confusion.

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I think such dissertation should consider to include these items:

  1. Strong community that does not like change.go back to the original Usenet newsgroup. Even tot he fact that some people here (I won’t name names for ‘compassion reasons’) fought with teeth and nails against stopping using the old newsgroup and moving to this now equally old platform.

There’s some progressive and modern talks to now move this newsgroup from Discourse to Discord, and I think the same folks will fight against it too.

  1. Activism. Many decisions by McNeel about the product where first introduced here, and there was some clear pushback that made McNell change or reverse course.

  2. Troll compassion. Thought out the decades we had a few trolls that would come and go. And I most admire the kindness and compassion they have been treaded with here. It’s like there always been a common understanding that some people struggle with all kinds of stuff outside of this forum, and outside of Rhino and this community has been kind to put them in their place but not shaming them or victimizing them.

  3. Friendships. I’ve met many people IRL all over the word, and had great shared moments with them, and they all started as interactions here.

You are all good, Charlie Browns.

G

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It’s okay. In communication, these things happen. : )
It’s likely most if-not all my fault.

[Yea, the Arduino forum is just mean. Oddly, they were nicer to me than many others there, but still, I’ve warned parents about it. I even asked the 2:3 of the electronic signal-integrity people at my local coffee shop, if there is some weird rite of passage where electronics people are hurtful to others, for things like asking questions. They said not.]

I think that part of what makes this forum great, is that so many people are willing to help the newbies. Of course, at some point the person working on the project must stand up, but seeing so many people offer solutions–that they all could be learned from. By helping others, you have a chance to hone your skills. Often 3D design is about the process, unwrapping the onion.

I, myself can be a bit snarky, but, I’ve always had Rhino’s best interests at heart–just like everyone else with an opinion : )

As a product, I like Rhino, but oddly this example of a forum–is also a fine product, easily the best commercial forum I have ever been on, and perhaps still one of the finest by any measure.

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I’m not sure what kind of stories you are looking for, but…

I started with Rhino in 1997 when it was still in beta on the recommendation of a designer friend because I needed to model 3D parts for CNC milling from 2D sketches and drawings. I bought my 1.0 license in November 1998 just after it was released. After regularly pestering the same designer friend with all kinds of questions, some time in 1999 he suggested I join should the usenet newsgroup. I was like, “What’s usenet???”

(apparently before it was even a newsgroup, it was a mailing list…)

The newsgroup atmosphere was very cool back then, a small club of users. We had @mikko answering a lot of questions, Pascal was already there but as an independent designer. Some of you reading this will have also been in that group (I count at least 20 or so). In 2009 or so, I started keeping posting stats for the year based on my local store of usenet posts in Outlook - and posting the summary on New Year’s day. When I say small and clubby, according to my stats, ~60% of the posts were made by only 25 people.

Breaking up the “club” was the primary resistance (myself included) to changing to an http based format - in addition to the fact that most http forum formats at the time were just goddawful - many still are, I can’t believe how many are still using PHP. But it was obvious to all that the nntp format was old, limited, and virtually unknown to the newer generations. Most people didn’t have software capable of setting up an nntp group, let alone know what it was.

McNeel had already started the “Rhino 5 Community” in 2012(?) as a Ning format - very few people actually liked that either. And then came Discourse, at that time it was still in Beta. Courageous of McNeel to adopt a format that was basically untested at the time, but it turned out to be a great decision. And so, in June of 2013, the newsgroup was closed once and forever.

The adoption of the http-based format resulted a huge expansion of the number of users. But at the same time, due to the efforts of both McNeel and long-time users, it has kept up and built on the newsgroup tradition of being civil, kind and above all helpful.

As to the talk of moving to something like Discord - I will reserve judgement on that. If in whatever format the Rhino forum remains a place to get help, report issues, and share expert knowledge and technical info, I’m in. If however it degenerates into some kind of social media-like free-for-all, making real answers hard to find amidst the emoji fruit salad, then I’m out. But as my handle states, I’m a dinosaur. YMMV. Anyway, I don’t think McNeel would let this place become that kind of a mess, so I’m not worried.

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This is exactly the kind of story I’m looking for. Thanks so much for sharing!

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Since Mitch started the ball rolling…

I discovered Rhino by accident in the summer of 2000. At the time we used Cadkey with FastSurf to do our surfacing for CNC. I wasn’t necessarily looking to replace Cadkey at the time, but I (like all Cadkey users at the time) was doubtful about the future of Cadkey. What happened in 2000 was that we were tired of paying a local company to translate Catia files that we received from our customers. There was a product at the time that advertised a Catia translator as standard. I believe it was IronCAD. I arranged a demo, and when I asked them how they handled surfacing they mentioned Rhino. It was just in passing. They didn’t (at the time) have a Catia translator as advertised (we ended up buying Catia).

Once I had accidentally stumbled across the existence of Rhino, I got a demo CD from somewhere and started looking into whether or not it was a better fit than Cadkey. It initially seemed too simplistic so I thought I’d just pick something around the shop and see if it was possible to model it. So I found a drill press and gave it a try.

I realized that there was a lot more than meets the eye here. So I started proposing the idea of switching to Rhino from Cadkey, but the idea of change scares people. So I had constant pushback from different departments. There were some things that Cadkey could do, and Rhino 1.1 couldn’t.

It was at this point that I discovered the old Rhino newsgroup as I had to either figure out how to fill these gaps in Rhino, or walk away from it. I still recall my very first inquiry into scripting. I still remember Roland helping me with a tool to determine IJK vectors which we needed for our QC department. I was impressed with the willingness of strangers (at the time) to help me solve the issues that were being thrown at me as hopeful roadblocks to change. I’m still appreciative of all the help I’ve had over the years, as I’m not a programmer, just an old tool and die maker with only a little Autolisp programming experience at that point.

In my opinion, the newsgroup, and later this forum, were critical to the success we’ve enjoyed with Rhino. 23 years later and I still check the forum out every day. I don’t post as much as I used to, but I’m still here in the shadows.

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Digital Sculptors - History of Rhino (digital-sculptors.com)

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Confession:

I started that rumor just to mess with my fellow old members here :rofl::rofl::rofl:

This is why I love you Mitch!

G

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Well, I always take everything you say seriously… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I think I started using the old newsgroup around '97 as well, after being introduced to the rhino beta from a friend. I had recently graduated from Industrial Design and was trying to model something that I couldn’t achieve in AutoCad. I remember being excited and surprised that a software company was offering a free version of its software to the public to beta-test, and I would report bugs and feature requests as regularly as I could.

I remember being amazed at the vibrancy and helpfulness of the original newsgroup, and how quickly a question would be responded to - either by a member of the McNeel team, or by another helpful user from around the world.

When I started teaching Rhino I would mention the newsgroup at the start of the class, and ask one of the students to post a question as a ‘noob’ and we would watch to see how quickly an answer would come in. Usually it was within 10 minutes and always before the end of the class.

Whenever I talked to people about Rhino, I would mention the newsgroup in the same conversation. “If you can’t figure something out, just ask the newsgroup and you’ll get an answer within 10 minutes”, I would say - and continue to say!

You have to remember, in these early years internet searches were hit and miss, and finding answers to software questions usually involved browsing or searching through the ‘help’ file, which took a lot more time than it does now.

I couldn’t count the number of times I had my bacon saved by the likes of Pascal, John Brock, Helvetosaur and many others. I even had a response from Bob McNeel himself on one occasion!

There were many years that I would have Rhino and the newsgroup open simultaneously. I remember getting to a stage when writing my query to the newsgroup would prompt a possible solution in my mind, and with a little exploration I would find it, I remember being proud of myself and grateful for not having to bother the newsgroup with yet another question!

I do recall the early newsgroup didn’t have email notifications for responses, so you had to constantly check back to see if someone responded to your message. As newsgroups became more popular I do remember posting, “why doesn’t the Rhino newsgroup have email notifications to responses like every other newsgroup on the planet?” or something like that!

I remember being thrilled when the new Discourse forum was released - with email notifications!

In essence, the newsgroup/forum removed the barrier between the creators and the users of Rhino. Being able send bug reports, request features (many that were implemented!) and get rapid responses from McNeel software engineers and other users, made me feel like a collaborator, and not just an isolated user. In fact I never felt isolated at all - rather, I felt like I was part of a talented, geeky, friendly, intelligent, helpful and vibrant community, and still do!

Even though I’m not on the forum as much as I used to be, I know it will always have my back when I need it, and am sure most people feel the same.

Andrew :slight_smile:

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