14 Years of Zoochat: A Retrospective

I know my presence is virtually non-existent these days, but I insist on being recognized with the ZooChatters who joined in 2008. Thank you very much :p

pachyderm pro said:
Part 2: Out With The Old

On October 20th, 2008, almost exactly 5 years since the original launch of the site, zoochat was finally born. A refurbished photo gallery, a new homepage, a digital donation box and the addition of the popular chatroom (Which I can't seem to find since the new zoochat update last year, which I will elaborate on in the next post) were all added for zoo fanatics to enjoy. Along side the new site, official facebook and twitter pages were launched for the forum. This new interface pulled in more and more members every day, and the years that followed all went pretty smooth. 2008 saw present day moderator @DavidBrown join, plus @Arizona Docent and @jbnbsn99 the following year. Also that year, @Nisha joined the site. Zoochat was expanding in popularity every day.

In 2010, @TeaLovingDave became the first of the now moderators from Europe to join the site. That same year, @zooboy28 became the first Australian present day moderator to join. I know I keep raving on about how many moderators we have, and it may not seem like the biggest deal, but they help make the site what it is, and I thank them all for that. There are a couple more I mention in the next post, so keep on reading. Though 2010 was also the year of the purge, "The Great Photo Purge" actually. Do to a situation with disk storage space, over 25,000 photos were erased from the site. A couple were saved and reuploaded by their posters, though the damage had been done.

Next post, the events of the 2010's, including the massive 2016 update. Thank you all for reading.
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pachyderm pro said:
008 saw present day moderator @DavidBrown join, plus @Arizona Docent and @jbnbsn99 the following year. Also that year, @Nisha joined the site. Zoochat was expanding in popularity every day.

In 2010, @TeaLovingDave became the first of the now moderators from Europe to join the site.
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I also joined in 2008, so if you didn't forget the German Dutch Swiss person, you would have known he was the first European of the now moderators to join :p
 
Ituri said:
I know my presence is virtually non-existent these days, but I insist on being recognized with the ZooChatters who joined in 2008. Thank you very much :p
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I think he was only listing only Moderators past and present. And anyway, your profile says you joined in 2007.
I, however, joined on the day ZooChat was born.

:p

Hix
 
As promised, @pachyderm pro , I have added links to parts 2 and 3 into the first post of this thread (which already contains the text of part 1)

:)
 
Hix said:
I think he was only listing only Moderators past and present. And anyway, your profile says you joined in 2007.
I, however, joined on the day ZooChat was born.

:p

Hix
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Okay, but it was December of 2007.
 
Part 4: The Climax, Modern Day Zoochat

This will be the last "On-Topic" post by myself, but feel free to ramble on about whatever.

2017 had major changes in the administrative side of zoochat. @jbnsbn99 and @Nisha resigned as moderators, and @Arizona Docent , @lintworm , @FunkyGibbon and @DavidBrown became moderators in their place.

This means there are now 9 staff members that help operate the site:

7 Moderators:
Arizona Docent
FunkyGibbon
Lintworm
David Brown
TeaLovingDave
Zooboy28
Chlidonias

2 Administrators:
Simon Hampel
Jobalba

These 9 staff members do some great work, and help make the community what it is, and speaking of, zoochat has evolved into the worlds largest zoo and animal discussion forum.
There are currently exactly 9,700 members on the site, with an average of 10 new members every month. There is a total of 826,231 posts, and 61,657 threads. Its remarkable what a community this site has become.

Some of us are 60, others are 15. Some are from Europe, some from America, some from Asia, some are from Australia (Or New Zealand :p). Some are zookeepers, some are directors, some are volunteers, some are just nerds. Were all different, but we all joined this site for the same reason, we all love animals and zoos. Now that's something!

Some great discussion has come up over all these years, with some great threds to go with them, some of my favorites include:
Thylo's Nonsense Thread, Snowleopards Roadtrip Threads, JavanRhino's Design a Zoo thread, Batto's How To Found a zoo thread, and pachyderm pro's 14 years of zoochat thread...

Another fun fact that most people don't realize, most photos of zoos actually come from zoochat. Members on here have posted 314,581 photos from zoos all over the world. From the historic arches in Berlin, to the lush tropics of San Diego, almost every major zoo out there has been covered with photos in great detail.

So with all of this said and done, I think we all owe someone a great big thank you for all of this, because without that Australian zoo fanatic, who had experience running forums just like these, we would not be where we are now...

So thank you for reading along, but more importantly... Thank you @Simon Hampel :)
 
Post was made last October, Crowthorne didn't become a mod until earlier this March, a whole six months after this thread wrapped up. So no, I did not forget anyone.
 
Thanks for the thought @birdsandbats but @pachyderm pro is right, I only became a mod earlier this year and this retrospective thread is from October last year
 
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