To all involved in getting R-F established, and keeping it running, thank you.

I like the community feel that this place has. Whereas one year ago I was a RPS only guy, I now visit this one as much as RPS, if not more.

I've met some really cool people on here, and since the vBulletin upgrade, it seems this place has a big future. Also, I think the recent "closure" with Gen-Edge will be for the better of the Ranger community as a whole.

Just saying congrats, and mostly, thanks. You guys have done well.

 

well, dano gets alot of credit for getting this place up and going...

i had the "dream", if you will... i had the goals set in my mind of what i wanted out of an enthusiasts' forum, but the know-how wasn't there...

i knew what i wanted to have, but to actually get it onto the internet was another thing...

basically, after leaving generation-edge on my own i moved over to djayenos.com. djayenos is a great site with soem really good people there...

i wanted to be able to help djayenos grow into the best ranger site out there, cuz i knew it had the best ranger people there, imho...

however, i just didn't see how it ever could grow with the way many people viewed it as a bashing site(though it was not).. also, the name djayenos is not too easy to get out there since it doesn't really relate to rangers...

so i hopped onto www.1and1.com and i knew i wanted to register a cool name...

i couldn't think of anything initially... i thought "it should be something simple and self explanatory" so to be easier to advertise and attract new members... not to mention the name in itself gives some legitimacy... so i tried RangerForums, but it was taken... then i thought "gen-edge has a hyphen..." so i registered "www.Ranger-Forums.com"...

and it began from there...

every night for a few weeks, dano and i would talk on the phone about the forum, about my idea for it, about my expectations, and what a forum needs to have to be successful and entertaining...

dano grabbed the domain name i bought, and stuck it on his personal server and started hosting the site with no bandwidth or storage limitations... not a bad way to go, huh? and did i mention for free

so, i decide on running a phpbb, because it's free... we get it installed on there, and i contact a good friend through here, adam... i say "adam, wanna help me get a list of forums for the site?" and of course he comes through with a rough draft version of the forum layout... i tweaked it a little but kept the general idae of what he laid out for the forums... then for a week or so i worked on it in my free time at work and at home...

and i am sure i am missing some things in there, but i can't really remember it all...

i got the name out there, i started telling people about it before it opened, and i knew alot of people were excited about it...

dano and i finally get it all ready and we got our moderators set up and opened the forum up @ midnight(central time) june 1st, this summer...

and from there it has grow to what it is today and will continue to grow more and more...

aside:

dano is no longer here, for some personal reasons... we are no longer on his server... no we are hosted by startlogic.com and i have learned quite a bit from my beginnings... sk0t and michael are our technical administrators on everything related to the database and i have become proficient enough in most of the vbulletin stuff to be able to run that part of the site, independent from them...

we, as admins, and the moderators are also a close group of guys who want nothing more than this community to grow also...

what i wanted here was a place like "cheers"... where everyone knows your name and it's just somewhere you wanna be...

it isn't just the internet... if it were just the internet, why would we care so much? why would we fight like friends fight? why would we meet with eachother? stay at eachother's homes? etc... this is a community of people with a common interest in ford ranger pickups, but for anyone to say that is all that it is, must be missing out on the parts of this forum that keep me coming back everyday...

 

That was beautiful christian :'(

 

I agree with everything John said. I may not be a big poster, but I spend all my free time searching through the forums and reading about everything. Now I just have the Cheers theme song stuck in my head :(

 

very nice Christian

even if an olive branch is not accepted do not ever stop offering them
life is too short to hold grudges - time goes fast - people do change

whatever happened recently on GEN-EDGE, well maybe that is for the best
be true in what you say and do
no matter what happens in life you really only have yourself to answer to

in the end it will only be you and God in judgement
be true, stay the course, and you will have no regrets
PEACE

 

I came into the Ranger scene after all the drama it seems because I know little about it. I was on TRS all the time and I love that site but they are pretty extreme in their offroading and that's not me. Then I heard about/found GE and thought it was pretty good but I never really felt at home there..(and the login setup doesn't work with my security setup so I have to login a backroute...sucks)..then I think Q told me about this place. I read some, didn't post much. I think that was shortly after it opened? Anyway not long ago I came back and read thru more posts and felt like I could relate to the people here. It was also smaller and more personal than GE. I've posted more and more and now I feel like this is my home forum and TRS is where I got for offroad info, GE I go to for meet info and here I am most of the time just hangin out. This is home and I will proudly put the R-F sticker on my truck..
I'd like to second what John said. Thank you very much...