What was the start of your interests in running your own forum?

Long ago in the late 90s, my parents let me use the WebTV and get online. I made a website using the website creator feature. I learned basic HTML and made it better.

Then after I got a real computer, a friend told me about forums.

Initially, I was using phpBB1, but version 2 came out and I went to it and got serious. Back then you had to code in plugins. It took forever especially on dialup internet, LOL. Smartphones weren’t around so I couldn’t watch slop while I waited for the page to load. 😛

That was my start.

I feel like I used some of the older forums before, but never made one until phpBB1.

I also have a proboards forum right when they came out, but didn’t stick to it for very long.

How about you all? What’s your story?

I wanted to find a place to trade Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

I’m hopeless at making friends in real life so wanted a way to make new friends online. I hate the chat room sites and stuff.

A friend introduced me to a DBZ community and then it evolved from there. Haven’t looked back since.

Started with the official RuneScape forums when I was a kid trying to sell/buy certain items when there was no grand exchange, which led into me using RuneScape clan forums.

Originally I think somewhere 2002 where I’d sign up on some forums because of Yu-Gi-Oh TCG and a game forum where we’d gather for some online games. That eventually led me to InvisionFree. Since then I was hooked on forums and today, I do everything in my power to encourage online communities and traditional use of forums.

On Nov 5, 2026, Gizmo said:

I’m hopeless at making friends in real life so wanted a way to make new friends online. I hate the chat room sites and stuff.

I used to enjoy IRC chat back in the day and Yahoo/MSN chats.

But I’m not a big fan of modern-day chats like Discord and Slack.