...it's been 9 years?!

[Hawker]

Happy 9th Anniversary, Neighboursfans!

 

I almost have to pinch myself when I realise that we've been online as Neighboursfans for a whopping 9 years. Those of you who were around from the early days will know that we were online under a different name for the first 4 and a bit years (launching in November 2000) - and it seems incredible that we're still here 13+ years later.

 

I always say this, but I always mean it - thank you to everyone who logs on and takes part in the forums. Everyone who posts really contributes to the running of the forums, and makes this such a fun and friendly place to visit. You're all superstars - thank you.

 

It is, of course, Neighbours' own anniversary today - making it to 29 years (crikey). The rumours and spoilers make it sound like we've got lots to look forward to from the show, and I know everyone's been enjoying the early 1980s episodes that have been released on DVD. It's a shame that we haven't got any repeats airing (it pains me to think those 90s episodes are gathering dust!) - but we'll keep our fingers crossed for the future.

 

Neighbours Episodes is growing out of itself - as you all know, as the archive keeps disappearing for a few days at the end of the month. Astonishingly, we've summarised 6329 episodes - which is a whopping 92.79% of episodes! We've only got 492 historical episodes to go...absolutely incredible.

 

A huge thank you to everyone who contributes to the episodes site. If you've never written a summary, you might not realise just how much time they take to write - and everyone who writes for us always makes a real effort to accurately summarise each scene, and even transcribe significant pieces of dialogue.

 

On top of that, lots of members have submitted caps for episodes - and it's no easy task. I think the screencaps really add to the episodes (there's something about the accompanying visual that helps to bring the summaries to life), so I appreciate everyone who works on those as well.

 

The screencaps and accompanying tags also mean that we've got a brilliant character gallery (I'd have killed for that when I was 14 - that's what I really wanted from a Neighbours website as a teen!).

 

So, a huge thank you to everyone who contributes to the summaries site, and a special shout out to both Gaynor and Graham, who go above and beyond in many different ways to ensure that the archive runs smoothly.

 

As for the forum itself, I am always indebted to my team of Staff and my fellow Admin, Janet. I'm proud to say that they're all great friends of mine, and they all work really hard to ensure that the board runs smoothly - particularly in periods when I'm not always able to get online (oh, to be a student again!). Thank you for all that you do; I don't always get chance to say it, but you guys really are fab.

 

We've had a few changes over the past year, the most notable being the board upgrade. Obviously, this has caused a few changes (mostly the avatars) and I'm still(!) working on sorting those out. You know it's been a long task when I haven't managed to upload any Phil ones yet(!) ...I am loving the 'like' post feature, though!

 

As an aside that may make you laugh, the lack of avatar support was one of the things that stopped me from upgrading the board sooner. One of my only regrets is that it stopped me from running some of the features I had planned...and one of those was an area of the board to have avatar competitions. We've got some amazing avatars, but we haven't got all of the families covered, and some characters are neglected...so I decided that it would be a great idea to have a few contests where we covered some of the older characters.

...the funny thing is, the two characters I chose for the first competition? Brad and Lauren. I was quite amused when they returned! Maybe I should resurrect that post from the depths of the forums.

 

...anyway, that's enough from me. As I said earlier, everyone, please pat yourselves on the back. You all make this a really awesome community, and I enjoy spending time here. I hope you all do too. Thank you for visiting.

[Graham]

Thanks, Sal. None of us would be here if it wasn't for you having taken over the running of the board all those years ago, so give yourself a pat on the back as well for being the person who keeps the show on the road.

 

And Happy Birthday to Neighbours and to us!

[Col]

Well done Sal

 

You and the staff/admin team do a fantastic job and it's a great place to come

 

Hopefully, one day, the episode archive will be complete

[Stew]

Thanks Sal for keeping the board up and running for us. Happy birthday to Neighbours and nfans.

[iank]

Wow, nine years!

 

Congratulations, Sal!

[adlerj]

Congratulations to the whole site for going for 9 years! Here's to many more in the future

[Bagpuss]

Yes, thanks for everything. And thanks for being such a good friend too.

[Tractor Girl]

Thanks to everyone who makes this forum what it is, in particuar the summarisers, the staff and of course Sal who keeps the whole thing going. Where would we be without you guys?

 

The screencaps and accompanying tags also mean that we've got a brilliant character gallery (I'd have killed for that when I was 14 - that's what I really wanted from a Neighbours website as a teen!).

 

 

I know what you're saying but part of me is totally grateful that there wasn't such a thing when I was 14. If this Board at existed then, let alone a character gallery.... well let's just say I think my eduction would have suffered big time!

 

Here's to our birthday and the show's, and many more to come.

[twinkles]

Belated Happy Birthday to the forum, all of us and Neighbours too

 

A huge thanks to Sal and all the admin staff that keep it going, you do a fantastic job and it's a great place to come

[Clare]

Happy belated birthday Neighboursfans! Thank you to everyone - you all do a great job.

[Paulrobinson]

A belated birthday from me too. Since my illness I don't get on everyday like I used to, but I have met some amazing friends through this board, many of which helped me through said illness.

Neighbours has always been a big part if my life, and the board has just enhanced that. Thank you Sal, Gaynor, Graham, Janet and everyone else encephalitis has left me a soppy old thing

[Jez]

Even though it's nearly coming up to five months I still want to say Happy Birthday to NeighboursFans for nine glorious years and to also say how great it is to post on this forum and to discuss Neighbours with those who are just as passionate about the show as I am.

 

Thanks for making this possible Sal and here's to many great years for the forum and hopefully the show as well

 

One thing I'm curious about though is whether it was deliberate to set up the forum under this name exactly at the 20th anniversary since Neighbours first aired in Australia or whether it was just pure coincidence it fell on that date. I think it's cool either way!

[Hawker]

Good question!

 

I seem to think that I deliberately plumped for the anniversary of the show...so yes, it could've been the 16th or the 14th or whatever, and I selected the 18th on purpose.

 

It's all a bit in the dim and distant past now, but if I remember rightly, I was told that Erinsborough was closing its doors, and I was given the offer to continue the forum/site under a different name. I think I had a week or so to get the new site up and running - although I'm pretty certain that the writing had been on the wall for a while...and I made the decision to purchase the forum software (we'd been using a free version up until that point) and upgraded it...I had quite a bit of work to do on it, as I'd made LOTS of modifications to the original software when it was Erinsborough, and we wanted a lot of those features back.

 

The biggest nightmare was that the hosting provider of Erinsborough suffered a catastrophic outage the week prior to us switching over, which meant a lot of people didn't find us / make the crossover. It wasn't at all deliberate - it was just an unbelievable stroke of bad luck...and it meant that we just started afresh...we were going to transfer a bunch of the topics etc, but in the end, with the host out for so long, it was easier to just take across the members database and begin again.

[Tracy C]

It was the airing of the 2004 finale in the UK that caused the old board to crash/prevented folk finding this place for quite a while.

[Hawker]

Yeah, it wasn't the board software though - it was that the server collapsed under the strain of it, and the hosts didn't get it back up quickly. I think the fact that the site hadn't been renewed with them meant that they weren't that bothered, as we were leaving a week or so later.

[Tracy C]

I wasn't aware of that bit. Explains why it was down for so long.

[Hawker]

It was definitely their end.

 

What I do regret is not sending out a mass e-mail...I can't remember at the time why I didn't do it, but I should've. I think I sort of figured that people would find their way across eventually, but there wasn't Twitter and stuff like that back then, so although the hardcore bunch of posters found out and spread the word around, we still had people turning up 5 years later saying, "Oh my god, you're here!"

[Ash]

Bit late but congrats and thank you, Sal, for a place that has been there for me in so many ways over the last nine years. I joined on March 19, 2005, so I must have been here almost the second Neighboursfans itself (this incarnation) came to life.

 

I was a busy little poster in the early days - my distinct memory is of late nights with Steve (Morrish) and JA talking about all sorts.

 

I went very quiet for a while as other things in real life took over and then came back and this happened a few times, as it does with us all, I think. My fan-fic era (2005-2009) was probably my busiest time here, but I am a more regular visitor today than I have been in recent years, and I think my actually not watching Neighbours anymore is what stopped me writing fan fic. Shame really; I truly enjoyed it.

 

Long may this place last. It's still a lovely little community and I can't imagine ever being without it completely.

[Jamie]

Wow, 9 years. A big congratualtions to Sal. It's been a while since I've been an active user on here but it's nice to see some of the regulars, plus some new ones, still around.

I joined in June of '04, which is when it was still it was E.Net I believe? I think I remember one of the first topics I posted. I think I accidentally posted it in the wrong forum area so it got moved (a rather random memory, I know).

Here's to many more years to come!

[Hawker]

Good to 'see' you again, mate!

 

Yes, June of 04 was still Erins - we converted to Nfans in March of 05.

 

It seems very odd that we did about 4 years and 4 months under Erins and we've been going for 9 and a half years now as Nfans. I remember us tipping over the 'half and half' milestone, but now Erins is a long way in the past. Where has the time gone?!