Hello Michelle,

I really stopped by to take a look at the work you've done with Advanced Forums but when I saw this blog post I thought I'd share some thoughts with you ...

I too remember fondly the days of the BBS. I first began playing with 'online' on my Commodore 64 and with my 300 baud modem I joined Q-Link ... for me that's when the "bug" to build online communities 'bit'. I always felt that "well darn it, I could do it better ...". I began looking at BBS software in 1988 and finally decided on Wildcat in 1989.

I ran Wildcat first as a one line test system and by the time I began to transition to the Internet I had an 8 line system running FidoNet and a few other store and forward networks ... but, the Internet did arrived and I realized that to survive I would have to embrace the new technology.

Well I've been "doing the Internet" since 1995 and just a couple of months ago or so I had an epiphany related to the Internet phenomenon of "social networking" ... social networks are very fancy versions of the BBS we both remember from the 90s, albeit more sophisticated in ways we could not have predicted in "our day". That realization was reaffirming for me because I realized that not only is this "new old" concept a familiar one, but I assumed that all the experiences of that golden age gave me a decided advantage in understanding and building a community I've had in my head for a while now ...

So now I'm a Joomla refugee trying to learn and transition to Drupal ... the freedom and power of Drupal is amazing but the learning curve is sometimes frustrating ... finding your modules Advance Forums and Advance Profiles though has made it possible for me to more quickly move to my own beta phase more quickly ... a big THANKS for that!

Frank