Timeline

I'm often asked about the history of Outpost 10F. As such I spent some time assembling a list of events I consider crticial to the development and progress of the site we enjoy today. These events are listed below in chronological order.

September 1996

During the first week of my first semester at university I went online for the first time. I visited Yahoo and ran a search for my surname and found a surprising number of relatives I didn't know I had (a whole other story with an interesting outcome). That was enough for the Internet to captivate my interest and from that point forward I made a point of learning what I could about browsers, html, useful sites, etc.

November 1996

A childhood friend of mine from down the street introduced me to a X-Files themed chat site called Spooky's. At the time I was a big fan of the X-Files and was blown away seeing how chat rooms worked. At first I was very shy typing back and forth to someone; it was all very new and rather strange. With time though I picked it up and enjoyed conversing with fellow fans.

December 1996

It was during mid-December I decided to purchase an Internet connection at home. I signed up with AOL first but was very disappointed in their connection quality. Ultimately I switched to a provider called Internet Gateway, or Intergate.

January 1997 - May 1997

I introduced the Spooky's chat site to Terrence, a friend of mine. (Terrence would later become Outpost 10F's Fleet Admiral). The two of us frequented the site, often together at the same computer. Suffice it to say, we stirred up some fun trouble now and then. As I spent more time at Spooky's the more interested I became in how such a chat site worked. I created special "hacks" to the site which enabled chatters to make use of options that were not available in the official "main menu." With time that grew boring and I moved on to studying CGI and Perl programming (the guts of such a chat site).

May 1997

It was during mid May I decided to try to build my own chat room, as a summer project. I was interested in learning more about computer programming and felt it would be a great opportunity to do so. After taking this upon myself I needed to choose a theme for the site. I decided Star Trek would be a great theme because of the room for neat gadgets, features, etc. It was also quite appealing, with First Contact just having been in theatres. I was a Star Trek fan to some degree, but not very well versed. I needed help with this endeavour to make it as appealing and enjoyable for fans of the show. So, I turned to Terrence for help who was much more a fan than I was. Fortunately he too was keen on the idea. During May and the first few weeks of June the two of us spent hours assemling pages and files. I'll always remember the first time I logged into what we now know as Ten Forward - what a feeling of accomplishment! Features added at this point in time included:

• Guinan's Bar
• The Armory

[Author's note: I wasn't too sure about the feasibility of the armory but Terrence was so excited about it I had to give it a shot]

June 1997

It was during the second week of June (approximately) we first opened Ten Forward to the public. We encouraged our chat friends from Spooky's to come by and make use of the room. We made a point of quickly promoting a few people such that senior officers existed. One officer in question made Commander in several weeks time. Over the summer attendance in the room grew and people stayed. I suspect the opportunity to move up in rank in addition to the ability to remove troublemakers (which didn't exist in Spooky's) were key factors in retaining membership.

[Author's note: Ten Forward was first located on the web space that came with my account with Intergate: http://www.intergate.bc.ca/personal/danneff/tenforward/]

August 1997

It was during the last week of this month we officially opened Ten Forward. This official launch brought about a brand new, LCARS based chat top which we still have today. Frequent chatters at this point in time included Smile, Deanna, Robert Fox, Tommy, and Kassandra.

November 1997

As more members flooded in we needed some criteria or process for determining who was ready for promotion. After quickly promoting our first seniors we wanted to take a step back and make the senior rank something special, something that needed to be earned. It was at this point in time Terrence suggested we form departments. I remember thinking this was a stupid idea. "What the heck would people do in these departments?" I asked. Terrence said, "anything; just give people the opportunity to improve the site and if people do come up with good ideas we can recognize them for it." And from that point on our departments were created and grew steadily both in membership and role. First departments included:

• Security
• Research & Development
• Engineering
• Counseling
• Communications
• Intelligence

October 1997

One day I was chatting in Ten Forward at my university after attending a german class. Just as I entered I saw a new chat member named "Tail-Kinker" exit the room. At this point in time I knew most of the members and hence made a point of studying this "Tail-Kinker's" login details. I found out she was seemingly living in Germany. I thought this was pretty cool and was looking forward to chatting with her in german. A few days later I got the chance and she introduced me to Georg (Josh Hal), and Andreas (Lorgar). Little did I know these three would be central players in the development of the community.

[Author's note: Suzanne (Tail-Kinker) and Andreas went on to develop Alder Hill while Georg played a key role in the technical development of the Outpost. Interestingly enough I introduced Georg to one of his first perl scripts (Outpost 10F's bar). Indeed, the student did go on to surpass the teacher and a few years later he developed our first text file based database system and provided me with the enthusiasm to learn more complicated and sophisticated coding techniques].

August 1998

Ten Forward celebrated its first anniversary. Sir John A. MacDonald (Canada's first Prime Minister) played the role of "Federation Council President."

December 1997 - March 1999

During this time period the Outpost grew in size, both membership and feature wise. The departments we created with some doubt in November 1997 grew and increasinginly became more central to the site. This period of time was more chat focused and while development work did take place it was small in nature and did not involve the direction or growth of the site as a whole.

March 1999

As the Outpost grew it became apparent it required its own domain name. As such, in March 1999 the domain name outpost10f.com was launched and the site moved from its old Intergate account to its new home. It was during this time we also designed Outpost 10F's first logo. Ercu (RQ) designed the logo based on scetch concepts provided by Terrence and I.

[Author's Note: Many have asked why the site/domain was called "Outpost 10F." When we purchased the domain name the only site feature we really had was the Star Trek chat room called, "Ten Forward." However we wanted to expand the site to include other features. The "Outpost" reflected our interest in expanding the content of the site while the "10F" was a numerical representation of "Ten Forward," i.e. 10-F.]

June 1999

The first official Outpost 10F union took place in Las Vegas. Approximately 25 people from all over the world got together for a weekend of sightseeing and partying. This was the defining moment for many of those who had spent a lot of time working on the site.

[Author's note: I had Outpost 10F shirts and caps (complete with our logo) made out for this event].

July 1999

We invited Mr. Jeff Greenwald by Ten Forward for an interview. Jeff had recently finished writing a book titled, "Future Perfect - How Star Trek Has Conquered Planet Earth," and was wanting to promote his book to fans of the show. We carefully planned the event and had him drop by a busy chat room. The interview was completed despite one or two funny happenings. I will refuse to name the member who used the armory to wedgie Mr. Greenwald.

[Author's note: We decided we would disable the armory for any future interviews].

August 1999

Several of us in Vancouver met up with Mr. Paul Lynch, an established director who had directed several Star Trek episodes. It was the first time our involvement with Outpost 10F had led to a real life meeting of someone connected to the theme of our web site. A transcript of our chat with him can be found at the Outpost 10F archives.

The Outpost celebrated its second year anniversary. Jean Cretien (Canada's Prime Minister of the time) played the role of "Federation Council President."

September 1999

In order to take advantage of the interest the Star Wars prequels were generating it was decided the Outpost would build and launch a Star Wars chat room. This would mark the first time the site went past its Star Trek roots. Terrence and I chatted for quite some time about this and it was Terrence who decided the "Cloud City Cantina," or the "CCC" was the name we were looking for. It was at this point we contacted Alexis and asked if he'd be interested in building the site. He readily agreed and in September 1999 the CCC was born.

[Author's note: I was completely blown away by Alexis' creative ideas and features for this chat room. The "intro movie" still impresses me. It's my feeling that Alexis' success in building and maintaining this portion of the Outpost was key in allowing both Terrence and I to feel more comfortable allowing members of the Outpost play more important roles. This launch really set the stage for the future development of the site.]

September 1999 - August 2000

During this time period no major features were released. The Cloud City Cantina chat formed its own departments which ultimately conflicted with the original Ten Forward departments. It was decided that the two sections of Outpost 10F must merge and hence "globalization" occurred. The individual chat room ranks were abolished in exchange for a globalized clearance level system. The departments were also merged. Communications saw the addition of a gaming and simming team while our Security and Intelligence departments were merged to form the ISA.

August 2000

The Outpost celebrated its third year anniversary. Wayne Gretzky (considered the best hockey player of all time) played the role of "Federation Council President."

September 2000

Oilymion & CPAK get married but do not reveal the news until December.

April 2001

Jon & Shellie get married. Yay!

June 2001

As the Outpost grew both in the number of members and projects it became apparent that it had outgrown its "Domain Hosting Plan" with Intergate. The bold decision was made to purchase a web server for the Outpost. Such a plan was expensive and required the financial support of our membership base. In order to fund the server and associated server parking fees the Outpost made "Members Accounts" available. Members purchased such an account for hosting a web site under the Outpost 10F domain name. Due to the outstanding support of core community members enough funds were obtained through the sale of Members Accounts to buy the server and pay for its connection to the Internet.

Once the Outpost had its own server to work with the possibilities for site additions and enhancements become almost endless. Departments received their own subdomain for hosting their content and as such sites and content that once was scattered across the web came together under one domain name. Databases were developed for storing data which could be shared across all Outpost web sites and applications.

July 2001

The second official Outpost 10F union took place in Amsterdam, Holland. With even a larger turn out than the first union the gathering demonstrated the enthusiasm and sense of togetherness the Outpost brought about.

August 2001

The Outpost celebrated its fourth year anniversary. Madame Justice Louise Arbour played the role of "Federation Council President."

October 2001

After the purchase of a web server and quite possibly the most successful Outpost 10F union ever, the membership was motivated to begin streamlining and improving the site. The leadership of the community put their heads together and assembled plans for the upcoming three years. The plan was slated, the "Vision Plan" and included a project audit and technical ideas for a relaunch of Outpost 10F fully utilizing the tools it now had available.

July 2002

After close to a year of hard work, "v2" (version 2.0) of Outpost 10F was launched on July 15th, 2002. The v2 release contained substantial technical upgrades which included a new home page and logo. The v2 launch was made possible by the purchase of the web server a year earlier and the technical ideas as set out in the "Vision Plan."

This month also featured the birth of Megan, the daughter of Jon & Shellie.

August 2002

The Outpost celebrated its fifth year anniversary. Shania Twain (country/pop singer) played the role of "Federation Council President."

October 2002

The Ikonboard Forums at Outpost 10F were launched. The forums enhanced interaction and communication between our members.

January 2003

After years of design and planning the Outpost 10F Schematics project was launched. This unique flash application provided a fictional view of the Outpost and contained links to site data and most importantly, Members Accounts. Those who had purchased Members Accounts with the intention of supporting the web server in 2001 were able to link their homepage up with a room at the Outpost.

[Author's note: This project remains my favourite. It implements three technologies - a Macromedia Flash front end, a database back end, and supporting Perl scripts - and makes a strong statement as to the capabilities of the Outpost 10F membership].

July 2003

The Outpost 10F web server was moved from its location in a data centre to an office building in downtown Vancouver, BC. Through making this change we were able to cut server parking costs significantly, expand the technical possibilities, and set the stage for a decrease in the price of Member Accounts.

[Author's note: The web server is actually located in the office of my place of work. So it's very handy to make technical upgrades and back ups].

August 2003

The third official Outpost 10F union took place in Vancouver, Canada. Unfortunately attendance at this gathering was disappointing. This month also featured the first promotion to an Admiral rank; Henri was promoted to Rear Admiral (CL9) after his wonderful technical assistance with the v2 project and the planning of the 2001 Amsterdam union.

The Outpost celebrated its sixth year anniversary. David Suzuki (the nature guy) played the role of "Federation Council President."

February 2004

Oilymion and CPAK celebrate the birth of their baby daughter Taryn.

April 2004

Our office's Internet Service Provider goes bankrupt and unexpectedly terminates our internet connection. The Outpost disappears offline and I'm left in panic mode. Approximately 2 days later the Outpost is relocated and online back at Internet Gateway / Uniserve.

[Author's Note: This was a very stressful time for me as I had several corporate sites that went down as well. Company executives were calling and asking sternly for their email. Once again Internet Gateway / Uniserve came to the rescue.]