Hey Rod, something I've always wondered: What is the history of CP? In reading some of the first posts going back to Jan '01 it seems as if the reader is joining something already in progress. It seems as though as the group around then are familiar with each other and I haven't found a "Genesis thread", so to speak. Was their a precursor to the CP we can see and read about today that launched in 2000?
To give a little history on CP...
I got into cigars in 98/99. I had joined several cigar boards and was disappointed to find that either they were over-moderated, or no moderation in the sense that the topic was rarely about cigars, rather bickering and fighting. Having a history of running various BBS's since the early 90's, I decided this was my chance to go all out and create an internet cigar forum. Having found a fairly new hobby (cigars), I wanted to combine my passion for both cigars and computers... I came up with CigarPass.
CP was a very simple website for people to trade cigars, period. I quickly determined that people who know nothing about one another cannot simply trade cigars; there must be a place for members to communicate openly and not just trade cigars. Relationships must first be built, so I added the lobby, and then over the years added several additional forum categories.
As more people found out about CP, our membership began to grow at a slow but steady rate. As more members came on-board, differences of opinions naturally began to occur. I had initiated a team of moderators in 2002, which only lasted about 48 hours, at which point I decided the community needed to moderate itself. In 2004 I decided to give the moderation tactic another chance, and quickly eliminated it for good. Unfortunately the power went to some peoples heads, and it was making the situation worse. Going self-moderated was the best option for this community. Over the years I solicited for feedback from members on how we can make CP better. I considered all ideas, and took the ones that made the most sense. I never wanted to add too many rules to CP, which is why we really have a very limited number of rules. Still to this day I invite everyone to send in their ideas and suggestions; I believe that in order for any community to be successful, you MUST listen to the community and constantly steer in the direction of success. My belief is that EVERY member OWNS a piece of CP. When you give everyone a piece of the pie, most tend to take a more thoughtful approach to how they behave. You cannot create ground rules for good... Like the old saying goes ... "you can't adjust the direction of the wind, but you can certainly adjust the sails".
The reason you won't see any posts from 2000 is simply because forum software was not so great back then. The software I setup was quite limited with what it could do, therefore I found myself changing software titles several times in 2000. In 2001 we switched to Ikonboard, which was a flat-file database. As forum software evolved, so did CP. We switched to Invision Power, and I couldn't be happier with their software. Unfortunately in order to move forward I had to start fresh, which is why you only see posts from Jan 2001 and on.
CP came up with many features and ideas in our early years. Unfortunately, the larger more established cigar communities copied many of our ideas. We were so small, there wasn't much we could do. Unfortunately they got the recognition of OUR creative ideas since they stole it from us (we only had a couple hundred members) and used it on their site (which had 2,000+ members). Some of you older guys might remember one event we came up with which was stolen by another forum (which today is holding on by a thread). In the early 2000's, Survivor Island was a big thing. CP came up with a game/event called Cigarvivor Island. Our idea was stolen and used at another forum, of which who took all of the credit. Over the years as new forums popped up, many have stolen our copyrighted work. Usually a polite email resolves that issue these days. Some of those forums sold out to the forum tycoon recently and no longer exist.
You might also notice that somewhere between 2001-2005, there are chunks of data missing (even a couple months worth). I was using a shared hosting account, and the ISP's server crashed resulting in lost data (they're backups were old). In 2004 or so, I switched to another host. Unfortunately that "company" was run by a real freak who terminated our account as they said we were trading "feces". Turned out he took a quick glance at CP and saw a reference to "dog rockets", and shut us down. Quite lame to say the least. I was able to grab most of our data and move on. In 2006 I decided enough was enough, and went on to lease our own server where I had full control. Two main reasons for going dedicated: 1.) I wanted control of this site 2.) We needed the resources! Today, our server is located in Washington DC at the Equinix Data Center (one of the best and most secured DC's in the world).
There's a little history of CP just off the top of my head. Again, CP has and always will be a community effort. If I sat down, I could write a book about this site. Lots and lots of history here, and CP is proof that if you really want something to be successful, you can make it happen if you dedicate the time and passion towards it.
