BackYardChickens Forum

BYC History

•    1999 – Garm creates www.backyardchickens.com
•    Late 2000 – Around October Garm creates a message board hosted on the BYC website using UtlimateBB http://web.archive.org/web/20001001010446/http://www.backyardchickens.com/
•    April 2001 – Garm changes forum software to use ikonboard http://web.archive.org/web/20010410072809/http://www.backyardchickens.com/
•    Early 2002 – Garm moves the forum from being hosted on the BYC site to hosting it at ezboard .  I believe it was too time / resource intensive to keep the forum running on the BYC servers Garm was using.
•    Late 2002 – Cindi (chickchair) is elevated to Admin status at the new forum
•    Late 2004 – Garm gets really busy (new wife, etc.) and turns ownership of the ezboard forum to Cindi
•    Dec. 2004 – Rob gets his first chickens and scours the net for info.  Finds BYC and a great group of people. http://www.nifty-stuff.com/new-chickens.php
•    Dec. 2004 – Rob starts two new threads on ezboard and gets a TON of great help from members. 
•    Early 2005 – Rob goes back to ezboard and discovers his first thread is gone.  Realizes that his thread was automatically deleted as it became “old”.  Rob was VERY upset to loose all the great info he received from his new friends… quickly created a backup of the second thread so it wouldn’t ever be lost: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/chicken-coop-forum.php
•    2005 – current – Rob becomes very frustrated with ezboard (deleted posts, constantly logged off, terrible search, etc.)
•    March 2005 – Rob goes to BYC to gain more great info… SITE IS GONE!!  Rob jumps on ezboard and discovers nobody knows what is going on.  Does some sleuth work and gets a hold of Cindi who says to contact the site owner, Garm.  Rob contacts Garm to see what can be done to bring the wonderful resource back up.  Is it possible to host / buy the site?  Whatever it takes, Rob wants to do it.   Garm replies, “I will be posting the site again in the next couple of days.”    A few weeks later BYC.com is back up… PHEW!
•    November 2006 – Rob tries to get onto BYC and can’t.  Goes to ezboard and discovers it has been down for a few MONTHS
•    November 2006 – Rob digs through his emails and finds Garm’s address.  Starts asking (practically begging) Garm to sell him the site so he can bring it back (and never let it die again).  After about a month of emails back and forth Rob buys the site from Garm.
•    Late November 2006 – Rob contacts Cindi to bring her up to speed on what’s going on.  Rob reads more and more about ezboard and that they are converting to Yuku .  Lots of members seem worried about this so Rob discusses with Cindi the opportunity to bring the forum back to BYC (where it was originally).  He also mentions his frustrations with the ezboard software and support and believes he can host an overall better forum experience.  Cindi thinks it is a great idea.
•    December 2006 -  It takes about another month to transfer the domain and get the site contents, and upload / update the site to work on the new servers.
•    January 11, 2007 – The site is re-launched and the new BYC forum is unveiled: http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3

UPDATES:

•    03/01/2007 - Bumper Sticker design contest begins
•    03/03/2007 - New Smilies are added
•    03/23/2007 - 1,000 Members!
•    04/01/2007 - BackYardCows launched
•    04/20/2007 - BYC Personal Pages launched
•    04/25/2007 - BYC Chat (version 1)Is Live
•    05/08/2007 - BYC Bumper Stickers Finally Arive
•    06/21/2007 – Big Category / Forum Reorganization
•    07/14/2007 - New "Mark As Read" Feature
•    07/18/2007 - BYC Personal Pages Upgrade
•    08/09/2007 - BYC hits 100.000-posts mark 
•    09/15/2007 - 4,000th Members
•    09/26 & 27/2007 - New Forum Moderators: speckledhen & silkiechicken
•    10/06/2007 - Coop Design Contest Winners
•    11/01/2007 - Private Messages added
•    11/01/2007 - BYC Forum Sponsors
•    12/08/2007 - BYC CHAT Version II
•    12/16/2007 - New BYC "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Shirt
•    01/23/2008 - Yuku (the owner of ezboard) decides to convert the ezBYC forum into the YukuBYC forum.
•    01/26/2008 - 1 Year after BYC forum was opened to the public we hit 6,000 members !
•    02/04/2008 - Double Private Messages
•    03/09/2008 - 7,000 Member Contest
•    03/10/2008 - 2 NEW BYC Moderators - MissPrissy & kstaven
•    03/15/2008 - NEW BYC forum: Online Poultry Show
•    03/15/2008 - NEW BYC Sister Site Launched:  TheEasyGarden.com
•    03/20/2008 - PM Storage increases by 25%
•    03/25/2008 - Chillin With My Peeps Shirts Added
•    03/29/2008 - 8,000 Members
•    04/01/2008 - BYC HACKED!!!
•    04/16/2008 - 9,000 Members
•    04/24/2008 - BYC snags 500,000-posts mark
•    05/06/2008 - 10,000 Members + Free Image Hosting Added
•    06/12/2008 - Buy Sell Trade Section Updated
•    06/17/2008 - BYC Goes Green
•    06/17/2008 - 12,000 Members
•    07/03/2008 - BYC "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Coffee Mugs Released
•    07/12/2008 - 2 More BYC Sister Sites: BackYardCows.com and SufficientSelf.com
•    07/17/2008 - New BYC Section: Local Chicken Laws & Ordinances
•    08/26/2008 - New BYC Facebook group
•    08/29/2008 - 15,000 Members + 50% increase in PM storage
•    09/20/2008 - 16,000 Members + DOUBLE  Image Storage Space
•    10/12/2008 - 17,000 members
•    11/04/2008 - Huge forum reorganization
•    11/14/2008 - New Feature: Links To Member's BYC Pages Under Avatars
•    11/17/2008 - BYC Mentioned In Newsweek.com
•    11/20/2008 - BYC-University Clothing Available
•    11/24/2008 - 19,000 members
•    12/08/2008 - New Forum Search Powered By Google
•    12/21/2008 - 20,000 Members! + 30% Increase in Private Message Storage Space
•    01/04/2009 - HomeMade Incubator Contest
•    01/05/2009 - 2 New BYC Moderators! gumpsgirl & The Chicken Lady 
•    01/10/2009 - Announcing BYC Golden Feather Memberships
•    01/11/2009 - terrielacy made a forum Administrator
•    01/14/2009 - New Feature - Private Message Select: All , None
•    03/14/2009 - 25,000 Members! = 25% More Image Storage Space!
•    03/28/2009 - Member Profiles new feature: Geographic Location Info
•    04/17/2009 - Inception of the Buy Sell Trade (BST) Feedback System
•    04/20/2009 - New Feature: Private Message Folders
•    05/09/2009 - BYC Milestone: two million posts!
•    05/13/2009 - New BYC Features: PM Notification & Mass Move
•    05/19/2009 - New Feature: Collapsible Categories
•    05/28/2009 - Advanced BYC Chicken Breed Database & System Introduced
•    05/31/2009 - New Feature: Show All Topics - All topics started by a member
•    06/11/2009 - Pass Along BYC Business Cards On Sale
•    06/19/2009 - BYC Buddy Lists Introduced (credits to Golden Feather Members)
•    06/23/2009 - BYC hits 35,000-member mark
•    07/18/2009 - Full Color "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Clothing Line On Sale
•    07/27/2009 - Raising Chickens For Dummies, The Official Book Of BYC, Released
•    09/06/2009 - New BYC Moderator: Wynette
•    09/07/2009 - BYC Wins Facebook Video Contest
•    10/24/2009 - BSA Listings Feedback System Upgrade
•    11/03/2009 - Three Million Posts!
•    11/18/2009 - BYC 2010 Calendar On Sale 
•    12/02/2009 - BYC CookBooks Printed
•    03/02/2010 - BYC reaches a milestone 50,000-member mark; gives away 50% increased image storage space for everyone.
•    03/12/2010 - 55,555th Member Contest 
•    03/16/2010 - Chicken Brooder Contest
•    03/27/2010 - Chicken LORE (Laws and Ordinances and your Rights and Entitlements) project launched.
•    03/27/2010 - New Feature: Breed Selection - Search Tool
•    04/18/2010 - BYC "Other Poultry" Breeds Database 
•    05/31/2010 - BYC Forum Platinum Poultry Membership, Introduced
•    06/07/2010 - First Waterers & Feeders Design Contest
•    06/15/2010 - New Feature - BSA Listings On BYC Homepage & Forum Index
•    06/26/2010 - BYC Shirt Design Contest

This is a super high level overview of 9 years of history.  If there are main points that should be added or changed, please PM me.