On this night in 2008, the idea for this site was sparked. Four years later, we're celebrating by presenting our new site to the public for the first time. There's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of content to put back, but I thought this would be a good time to show you what we have so far.

For the last couple of months, any attempt to get to our home page has bounced you here, to the forums. As of a few minutes ago, that redirect function has been removed. If you are still getting it, dump your cache. The new site may not be complete, but it's far enough along for public viewing. Check it out when you have a chance.

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I would have preferred to battle the valiant, but I guess you'll have to do.

Yay! 4 whole years!

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Gib mir den Doughnut. Velociraptors love doughnuts.

Happy Anniversary And a big thank you to the pioneers who led us here.

TCFL rocks! Congrats y'all!

Awesome and a big thanks to all of you who have worked so hard on this site!

indigo

Happy Anniversary!

Thanks so much for creating this wonderful place we really appreciate it!

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I have a dog instead of children. I'd rather ruin my carpets than my LIFE!

Just wondering, what is the story behind the TCFL website? (i.e., Bill Gates created Windows in his garage with one of his friends.)

Where were y'all when the idea began?

How did you know each other?

Were there specific life experiences that inspired you to create this site?

Any pictures of the first "live" day?

I'll dig up and re-upload the story for you soon, Emma. Will link here when it's available.

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I would have preferred to battle the valiant, but I guess you'll have to do.

Here's Genesis, a Mosaic Blue entry written on the first anniversary of the idea. In it, I basically tell the story of how this project got started, skimming over the reasons why.

The short version of the "why" is the TCFL founders became friends on a sub-forum of a large website, and were the most active forum on the entire domain. As such, we attracted lurkers and trolls from other parts of the website... and (as those people were mostly mommies) they supposedly complained a LOT about us. So the website's staff came down on us hard... but never offered any proof the complaints actually happened or showed us any respect whatsoever. If we couldn't make our little forum a happy, sunshiny, extremely parent-friendly place, we were no longer welcome. So we took our ball and went home... well, built a new home, whatever.

Basically, when faced with a situation in which we would lose each other, we did the only thing we could: We found a way to keep our friends and opened the door to make far more new friends than we otherwise could have. (The result is the most heavily trafficked CF forum on the web.) You're all here because a group of people became friends in a place they weren't really welcome, and scrambled to keep those friendships when their meeting place was threatened.

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I would have preferred to battle the valiant, but I guess you'll have to do.

Stacey, thank you for posting that! I'm so glad y'all decided to create this website!
It has meant so much to me to read about so many like minded people living such awesome lives.