M&G,
Great questions and thanks for asking! This has been a trip down memory lane!
Why did I start the board? Well, it can be answered no better than when it was introduced back on July 31st, 1997 - which coincidentally was the 2nd anniversary of when I moved to Jamaica!
http://www.realnegril.com/beingees/nn310797.htm
There was no "signing up" policy in 1997, so there was no way to track how many people "signed up" in 1997 - but since the number of postings crashed the original board within a week, it was obvious we were onto something... (grin)
http://www.realnegril.com/beingees/nn060897.htm
The first "Boardie Bash" as they are now called happened on February 4th, 1999. You can see the folks that attended in the picture on the Negril Today pages from back then!
http://www.realnegril.com/beingees/nn040299.htm
http://www.realnegril.com/beingees/nn050299.htm
http://www.realnegril.com/beingees/nn060299.htm
http://www.realnegril.com/beingees/nn080299.htm
It was called the "Meeting of the Board" back in those days. It was prompted as both a way for the viewers of the Negril Message Board to have an annual gathering in person in Negril, as well as a visible way for the businesses in Negril to see the impact that Negril.com was having. An interesting note, this gathering happened a month before TripAdvisor even became a website, we were already in our 4th year...
The 14th annual event was quite a gathering, while we dont really bother to keep an absolute count for personal privacy reasons - a safe guess for the number of folks we met this year was around 150. This year's event was by the far the most fun week we have ever had for Negril.com! There were many old friends along with some great new faces to add to the Boardie family! Thank you all for attending and look forward to seeing more of you next year! WooHoo!
Negril.com has nearly every country in the world viewing the Board - last time I checked it was 188, I think there are only 196 total... (grin)
I still see many of the very first attendees in Negril - Suz, Chris, Thomas and of course - Lloydie from 3-Dives! Not all attend the gatherings but some still post - most have changed their posting names for various reasons. The internet has changed quite a bit over the years. A few have passed on and we miss them daily...
There are several boardies from the first year still active and still post, but if they dont post in this thread - then who am I to out them. Everyone is allowed their own sense of privacy. You should have gotten here years ago to know who they are... (grin)
There have been many folks married through meeting on the board - but once again - that is their thing and they should be allowed their privacy. I would imagine a few might be divorced by now... (not so much of a grin)
As for the longest, most viewed, most responded, etc threads - we have absolutely no desire to maintain any such statistics. Each question is equally important - equally valuable - so no thread is "better" or means more than than any other thread. Each poster is equally valuable.
Thanks for asking!
Originally Posted by Rob
