Oh yes, I think I had been lurking on Cemetech for a couple weeks without an account (I was still pretty much a creature of ticalc.org and UnitedTI at that point), and when you were looking for programmers to help with the computer-side of gCn I registered to volunteer.

Fair enough. You joined in February of this year, and while Ult Dev'r and Kllrnohj were terrorizing some new users around 2007 or 2008, I certainly don't think any such activity was happening since 2008. That's my (biased) opinion, of course.

@Elfprince13, ah yes, you were very helpful with getting that started. I still have high hopes of finishing some form of globalCALCnet one of these years.

The first thing I hit outside of TI-Calc was #tcpa.
Enough said.

I found cemetech via Tari who was showing off early betas of DCS6 at our school, or maybe it was very late DCS 5 versions I don't really recall.

@TC01: I'm sad that that particular bit of cooperation fell apart; I personally think it was good for both sites.

@Sonlen: It's not just me that values good spelling and grammar. I have carefully picked my moderators and gmods and admins to be individuals with similar values.

@TheStorm: Early betas of DCS6 were indeed very late DCS5 versions. I'm glad to hear that Doors CS drew both of you here; you both have been valuable and loyal members.

@SirCmpwn: And nikky trolled the heck out of you on #tcpa?

@KermM, I don't quite remember, but I tried to talk about calculators x.x

The height of it was when JPez was temporarily suspended from adminship for misbehavior, but I think that was 2006 or 2007.

Oh yeah, there's even a topic named something like "What Bugs me as an -A-d-m-i-n- -M-o-d-e-r-a-t-o-r- Admin".

It depends, though. There is a smaller category of newbies who have never visited a forum help section before and are not very tech-savvy, who may not be aware about the netiquette. Those are at risk of not necessarily searching before asking. In my opinion they need to be pointed to the right direction, but I don't think they should be treated as n00bs. But it is just my personal views. Every forum works differently.

Personally, I've lurked on Cemetech since late 2004 on and off, and I feel it got much friendlier than it was from early 2006 to late 2007. It may still not be as friendly as certain other forums on the web, but I think this is one of the reasons why Cemetech and Omnimaga activity increased this much since the 2008 lull. It is also one reason why I still post here.

/me is tempted to pull an updated statistics of most forums image.

EDIT: Quoting fail X.x

I saw it happen for a very very short period of time during Spring 2009 and in January 2010. However I am HAPPY they did it in Jan 2010. No offense to the Freebuild crew, but at one point some of them almost turned Cemetech board into a joke and I'm happy Kllrnohj/Ultimate Dev/Nikky were here to put them back at their place.

And indeed, if it's clear a user is new to fora and netiquette, I feel we generally try to point them in the right direction. However, if they fail to take the hint, our pointers generally get decreasingly subtle and tactful.

I found cemetech when I was programming my calculator and had a memory leak. I didn't know what it was or what to do, so I posted here and the nice people revised my code, told me what I was doing wrong, and set me on my merry way. I continued to post questions I had about things, and eventually left in June. Then, late July I bought a calculator and remembered the nice happy place this was and rejoined for good.

Rejoined?

I never got rid of my account, but I really had no intention of coming back, sorry. >_<

D: then you would have never met me!

Or any of the other people I chat with daily on here. I'm glad I met friends on here, because that is an incentive to stay too.

This. This precisely. And usually a slow learning process takes place and they improve. I'd say DShiznit is our poster child for this, having at one point even been banned for an extended period of time. Now he is productive and creative member of the community, and I'm happy to have him around.

I started TI programming in July 2001, but only started lurking on websites in September 2001 and posting on forums in 2003. This is the order in which I joined forums:

September 2003: MaxCoderz
October 2003: forum89.vvlr.com (now Yaronet #493, a z80 forum that used to have 68K as well)
November 2003: Yaronet #2 (68K board), #21 (83+), United-TI, ticalc.org and Drubu Productions, CalcGames, calc.org
December 2003: Spitfire Productions
February 2004: TI-Gen
March 2004: Yaronet #462 (Omnimaga first forum. We had 60 posts in half a year there so I closed it afterward X.x) and GreenFire (a re-incarnation of Spitfire, which died a few months before)
May 2004: Prgmerz, Dragon-Fire Programming
August 2004: Epic Programming Studio (formerly Dysfunction Programming, revived from Drubu), TI-Freakware (back when they were on MSN)
October 2004: Cemetech, FMS Software (I think I never posted, though)
December 2004: Revsoft
January 2005: TICALCS2, Vuton Programming, Vuton Code, CalcHaven
March 2005: TI-Center, z80 Revelation, ShadowPhoenix Productions, Fryedsoft and Suicidal Psycho Software. (I think. There were also OVER 9000 other programming teams that started that month and I forgot which one I joined)
May 2005: Omnimaga on Invisionfree
September 2005: TI-BANK
Somewhere around 2007 or early 2008: Calc.org forums, Bluecrimson
August 2008: The new (and current) Omnimaga forums.
June 2009: TI-BASIC Developer

I'm not sure if I forgot any. Several of those no longer exists, are dead or I left. Nowadays I only post regularly on Cemetech and Omnimaga and every now and then on Ticalc.org and yAronet 68K/Nspire board.

That makes me a very sad Kerm to hear. I'm glad that you did indeed revisit us, though.

@Elfprince: Heartily agreed!

@DJ: A similar story for me. I started programming in sixth (TI-82) and seventh (TI-83) grades, but didn't start posting on ticalc.org until my Freshman year of high school.

I blame Elfprince13 for my membership here.

Wow DJ, that's a lot of forums...

I discovered Cemetech through Omnimaga, which I found through a discussion on my IRC channel.

I started programming on my calc about 5 years ago, but started posting on forums this year.