[TheForge] theforge history who knows it?

[Mark Williams]

theforge started at the St Louis ABANA conference in 1994. Enrique Vega 
organized a small group of folk, no more than 30, at an unscheduled 
gathering to discuss ways of using the internet to improve blacksmithing. 
The artmetal listserver hosted by Washington University was one result. The 
on-line supplier's list was another. A formal request for support was made 
to the ABANA board at the November 1994 meeting. However, the ABANA board 
was leery of this new medium and took a wait and see attitude. After several 
years, during which time the number on the list and in the supplier's list 
grew, the ABANA board decided that the ArtMetal list had too many 
non-blacksmiths and, so, started theforge as educational outreach for both 
the blacksmithing community and for the public. At first, the host was 
Washington University. They did this as a public service and charged zero 
for it. A graduate student used theforge as a research project. Problems 
arose as no one was responsible for maintenence of theforge after the 
student graduated. At that time(1998 I think), I was working at NASA's 
Wallops Flight Facility. One of my coworkers, Al Waller, hosted listservers 
for a large group of ham radio operators. Upon hearing of the problems 
theforge was having, he said he could host theforge on his system for $100 
per year. The ABANA board accepted and we've been with Al ever since.

I hope this helps with the history of theforge and answers Terry's 
questions. I don't remember all the names of other folk involved. Perhaps 
Dave Brown could add to this description.

Mark Williams
Snow Hill, Maryland

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "terry l. ridder" <terrylr at blauedonau.com>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 12:39 AM
Subject: [TheForge] theforge history who knows it?


> hello;
>
> while working on the searchable theforge archives and theforge faq it
> dawned on me that a brief history of theforge would be nice to have in
> the faq. so my question:
>
> who knows the history of theforge mailing?
> when did theforge mailing list start?
> how many members where there when it started?
>
> -- 
> terry l. ridder ><>
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