In 2003 Novell bought and merged with SUSE. At the time I ran the Novell forums. SUSE didn’t have forums so I started up the SUSE community forums, I believe around 2007 (??). openSUSE was a different animal. There was no “official” openSUSE forums but there were a number of other ad hoc forums organized by various people. It was clear that the knowledge pool for openSUSE was being split among various sites. I decided to create these forums as an official openSUSE forum site and at the same time open a dialog with the owners of the other sites in an attempt to pool resources and consolidate the pool of knowledge for the product. It became clear that there were two main forum sites and after discussions, they agreed to join this site. It was the birth of the openSUSE forums as THE site to get help and information about openSUSE.
I became 1 of a 3 team administrative staff. We, along with other moderator staff grew this community into an extremely robust and healthy online community. After a while, I left the administrative position and became the technical administrator. Adding languages, updating the platform software, working with the admins and moderators on spam control, creating and arranging forums…it’s been fun.
Novell became Attachmate then Micro Focus. A while ago SUSE and openSUSE was broken off as a separate business but I remained here as part of a Technical Services Agreement between SUSE and Micro Focus. I stayed with Micro Focus and our agreement to work together on these forums has come to an end. Today, after many years of being involved here, I removed my own administrator role and permissions. I’m now just another forum member. These forums have an EXCELLENT staff who work hard and care a lot. You guys on staff are a unified and dedicated group and it’s been a pleasure to work along side you. Looking at how this community has grown and prospered makes me glad I had the opportunity to be part of it.
Wow Kim. I always saw you as one of the club and never contemplated that you could just leave us alone.
Being a staff member here on the openSUSE forums now for some time, I can testify that you always were working with the best of the forums in mind and very effective working too.
As my mainstay for forums internals (VBulletin and how we do it here), I will miss you dearly.
Kim, you’re one of a kind, that’s for sure. (For those who don’t know, I’ve known Kim since 1994 - he’s been a friend, a mentor, even my bo…er, manager for a period of time.)
As always, a pleasure working with you - this community wouldn’t be what it is today without your involvement, and your presence will always be felt here.
I don’t know if tour still reading this Kim but I was here for those transitions the forum as we both knew it and know it would never have come about without you THANK YOU!!
(For those who don’t know, I’ve known Kim since 1994 - he’s been a friend, a mentor, even my bo…er, manager for a period of time.)