When was SAS communities launched?

[novinosrin]

Hi,  I am extremely curious to know When the SAS communities was launched? Are there folks who have participated on the day of launch are still active  now?    I know SAS L has been around since 1990's as I got to know that from Art T but intrigued to find out about our home aka here. 

[PaigeMiller]

SAS Communities was launched on 15 October 1582, after James Goodnight convinced Pope Gregory XIII to skip 11 days on the calendar, and then the new calendar could be named after Gregory. That also explains why in SAS, the earliest date that can be represented is 15 October 1582.

[SASKiwi]

There is another theory that it started on 1 January 1960 because SAS stores this date internally as 0 days.

[novinosrin]

hahahaha. love your sense of humor 

[Ksharp]

I can not answer your question. But maybe @Cynthia_SAS  could you some clue.

She has very old membership.

When I firstly login this forum at October 2009. She have been here for a long time.

@Cynthia_sas @data_null;  @Patrick  @Peter.C are all before me .

So these people may know the answer .

[ChrisHemedinger]

I'm enjoying the responses so far.  I almost hate to interject with the real answers.

The SAS Support Communities -- back then known as the discussion forums -- were launched in 2006.  Our early contributors included many of the same people who participate today, including @Cynthia_sas, @DonH, @Vince_SAS, @ScottBass, and many others.  Including me.  I was working in R&D as a developer/manager at the time.  

My colleagues @reneeharper, and later @LainieH, were very involved in the operation of the communities site -- although, back then, it was not the huge channel of communication that it is today.  For those involved, it was a part-time effort in addition to all of our "real jobs."

Around 2013, @AnnaBrown became our first official "community manager" -- a person whose primary job is to curate content, foster connections, and help users find answers on the community.

In 2014, SAS decided to make a bigger investment and establish an entire group of community managers to help grow this active and healthy site for SAS users.  That's when I moved over to take a formal role here, and we added @BeverlyBrown and @ShelleySessoms to the mix.  Most recently, we've added @joeFurbee as a Developer Advocate.

The number of discussions (charted below) and the number of members has grown steadily over time.  

More importantly, the number of visits and views (by members and non-members) has really skyrocketed, as this site is now a primary destination for those seeking answers for how to accomplish their work using SAS.  The site hosts thousands of topics that provide instant answers to SAS practitioners.

And that's all because of you, our curious and knowledgeable members.  Your quick and helpful responses have made this community an essential resource for any SAS user -- at any level.

[PaigeMiller]

Well, I'm going to stick with my story, and I have the proof right here:

[BeverlyBrown]

Love the humor and history documented in this thread. I joined in 2012, when a lot of SAS employees...myself included...were figuring out how to weave social media into the fabric of our workdays. Like a lot of new members, I spent a lot of time lurking. Community manager has been among my favorite roles at SAS. S'great to be a part of helping people do their best work with SAS.

[DonH]

Thanks for the reference @ChrisHemedinger. And permit me to add that there are lots of other names that could be listed as well.

There is a long and rich history of online groups dating back to the early 1990s (perhaps even the late 80s). 

There have been lots of starts/stops and there are still tons of online SAS Support Groups - like on Facebook, LinkedIn, StackExchange, etc. and of course SAS-L which was one of the first if not the first is still kicking.

The interesting thing is that when you talked to many users historically, they did not realize they were accessing this content because their search engine just found it.

What the now/soon to be retired sasCommunity.org did and now communities.sas.com has done is created a recognizable community. If you find an answer (thanks to your internet search), the obvious SAS involvement makes a big difference.

I started teaching the SAS Macro and SQL courses a few years ago (I first taught SAS classes back in the early 1980s thru the early 1990s) and when I asked my students if they know about communities.sas.com about half of them do now; two years ago it was rare to get more than one or two people to raise their hands. I encourage them to participate and point out the 24x7 nature. Teaching on the East Coast of the US I tell them that if they have a question late at night, there are folks in Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, . . .  who can and do answer. If it is very early in the morning, there are folks in Europe who can and do answer.  Similar timing works around the world.

I now tell a story about a student asking me a very specific question (not related to the course) on the first day about something I did not use. Before leaving home the next morning to teach the second/final day, I posted the question to communities.sas.com. By the time the class started, there were 3-4 answers to the question.

[novinosrin]

@Ksharp  Well done Xia Keshan, almost a decade of incredible contribution. I have always loved reading your posts. Even my parents love reading your posts and my mom ranks you as 1. 

[Ksharp]

It is my honor. 🙂

@Tom and @data_null__(a.k.a  John King) are better than me .

[art297]

@novinosrin: One correction regarding SAS-L. The first post to that list was on November 13, 1986.

Art

[Andygray]

@art297  Are you sure? I don't think public use of commercial emails existed in the 80's let alone commercial portals that offered email service like msn etc and in general internet for the most part.

Were you communicating by hand written posts and sending regular mails(not emails) using postal service?

[art297]

@Andygray: While I was using SAS at the time, I wasn't aware of the Listserv until many years later, so I can't speak from direct experience.

I'm not sure if you can access the following link ( http://vm.marist.edu/htbin/wlvgl?L=SAS-L&LOG=LOG8611 ) without having signed up with the Marist Listserv, but the following is a copy of the page you'd see if you can.

Sure looks electronic to me!

[art297]

@Andygray: A little more digging indicated that they were using BITNET (i.e., Because It's There NET, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET). Email, via BITNET, was available as early as 1981.