500E A Trip Down Memory Lane

[gerryvz]

It’s almost surreal to think that this site has now been up and operating continuously since November 30, 2008. That’s now more than 17 years.

I was doing some research on some technical stuff relating to this site (DNS records and such) and found that I had originally registered the 500Eboard domain in May of 2008.

That was the time when I initially spun up and started configuring this forum, driven by the continuing and lengthy/intermittent downtime periods of the preceding 500ecstasy forum.

That led me to this thread, which talked about the ongoing issues and parallel paths of the two forums for about 18 months.

A lot of history here…..good for folks to read so they know where this site came from.

5

Thread 'Scott's 500ecstasy.com site (partial)'

Jul 5, 2009

Postby a-man on Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:39 am

My interactions with the 500Ecstacy community were really positive, and as a newbie to this world it was a great resource to have. Recently it seemed that Scott did not have the time to manage it. It will be a huge loss to lose all the collective knowledge that was gathered there, but I think we need to look to the future. Where can we have a resource we can count on and be the central repository of information? I think the community needs an active and passionate 'community manager' who has the knowledge and maintains the site. I recommend that...

• 500Espot
• Replies: 75
• Forum: Announcements and Admin

• 

If you want to go back even further to 2003, here is a thread on PeachParts where Scott was spinning up his forum. Looks like it initially went “live” on August 18, 2003.

500ecstasy.com - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Just giving a shout out to Scott's new 500E500 website... 500Ecstasy Coming Soon!

www.peachparts.com

What a long way we have come as a 500E community over the past (nearly) 20+ years.

 

[Eno]

Thank you for all your work and efforts.

 

[emerydc8]

Thanks for taking on the job of being the active and passionate community manager—and for sticking around after the 15-year mark.

 

[TerryA]

@gerryvz,
Gerry, Thanks for all of the time and effort you have put in on your 500Eboard. I can’t think of a better way to start my day!

Have a Merry Christmas & and even Happier New Year!

Take Care

 

[TimL]

@gerryvz, thank you and the many heavy duty knowledge contributors like @gsxr and @Jlaa for the unrivaled 500E universe you built.

I’m bereft of a 036 these days, but your forum made my previous ownership over the past seven years infinitely more enjoyable!

These are ridiculously amazing cars and you built a ridiculously amazing forum to match!

 

[daantjie]

Indeed running a site is a pretty thankless job for sure. I'm a member of a few Benz forums and by far this one is run the best

 

[Sam SL]

Thank-you thank-you thank-you, much appreciated!

 

[Jlaa]

This forum has the highest signal to noise ratio and the highest quality discourse of any site in all of automobile-dom. We are so spoiled by @gerryvz 's forum here --- I am reminded of that every time I seek information via any other source.

BTW trying to find useful MB information from TFTMNBNBEHKTS (That Forum That Must Not Be Named But Everyone Here Knows The Site) is truly a miserable experience. :-(

 

[rucraig]

Thank you so much for the huge time and effort you've poured into this site, and the community that's been created around it. My ownership of my 036 would be impossible without it!

 

[Russell R Coe]

Thank you very much Gerry, for all you do to keep this site the best place to keep our cars running. It is very much appreciated,
I'm sure I would have given up on mine many years ago, but through this site it continues be a joy to drive and own.
I have also meet many fellow owners, who have been just wonderful people to be associated with.
All the best, and Happy Holidays to all.

 

[gerryvz]

So that post I linked to in the first post of this thread was by Allen Stephens, who is still a member of this site under the name @Sacco_Fan. It is dated December 10, 2008, so just 10 days after this site was first brought online. It is part of a collection of posts from a thread that I was only able to recover part of, after the crash that this site had in early July of 2009, when it was just 8 months old. That was when the hosting company deleted the site's database, and couldn't recover it for me.

I had to re-create the site from scratch, and was able to do so in about 24 hours. But of course, starting from scratch, without the forum's database, meant that there was no content/posts/threads/images.

So, I had to scramble to scour Google to get cached threads, before the cache disappeared from Google. I was able to claw back a few dozen threads from Google, but we lost some of the earliest information and threads from the site's initial months, sadly.

From that point forward, I began doing weekly database dumps, which I still do to this day, every Sunday morning. And we also have daily site backups, automated. These site backups have come in exceedingly handy about 5 times over the years, when a software upgrade went south and borked the entire site. With the backups, I am able to immediately do a complete site restore in about 20 minutes, and the site just picks up where it left off. It's scary when this happens, but without it the site would have had MUCH more extended downtime over the years.

The weekly manual database backups are done as part of my Sunday maintenance routine. I've talked about it before in other threads about how the site administration works -- you can read about it in detail here.

Anyway, that is a little context for the post I linked to in the first post of this thread!

 

[195910]

Thanks to @gerryvz for setting up the forum and to all the members who contribute with their knowledge and experience.

This is a knowledge and facts based forum and probably the best M-B forum online. Unfortunately, M-B does not care about supporting their classic community, this forum should be on top of their list.

Some of us here know each other for more than 20 years! we should do an anniversary online reunion! @gerryvz is a forum teams call possible?

 

[gerryvz]

Some of us here know each other for more than 20 years! we should do an anniversary online reunion!

Yes, going through all of my personal database entries while integrating them into the VIN database has reminded me of how many of our members have been part of the community since 500Ecstasy debuted in August 2003. Preceding this site by a good 5 years.

QUITE A FEW folks have been with us since that time, both in the US and globally.

@gerryvz is a forum teams call possible?

An intriguing idea, to say the least. Perhaps we could do a Google Meet, since just about everyone has a Google account. We could do the call say on a Sunday morning US Pacific Time to make it accessible for all US and European + Middle East folks (evening there).

Do you want to help plan such an event?

Too bad we didn’t do this during COVID!

 

[195910]

Yes, going through all of my personal database entries while integrating them into the VIN database has reminded me of how many of our members have been part of the community since 500Ecstasy debuted in August 2003. Preceding this site by a good 5 years.

QUITE A FEW folks have been with us since that time, both in the US and globally.


An intriguing idea, to say the least. Perhaps we could do a Google Meet, since just about everyone has a Google account. We could do the call say on a Sunday morning US Pacific Time to make it accessible for all US and European + Middle East folks (evening there).

Do you want to help plan such an event?

Too bad we didn’t do this during COVID!

Sure Gerry, Let's do it!

We can agree on a Sunday, but how soon? next week or early next year ?
Anyone interested in saying a few words can be allocated a time slot, this can be followed up by a group discussion or panel.

would a live E-mail work?