The history of Cohousing.org (the website)

We would like to capture more of the history of the Cohousing website including the names of those involved and the anecdotes as well. If you have information you'd like to share, please send a note to our editor.

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1995 – Version 1.0: Original Cohousing Website - started with a static list of communities, then the cohousing list management was merged with ic.org. Who: Stuart Staniford with involvement form Mike Mariner, Fred Olsen, and Michael McIntyre.

1998 – Version 2.0: Freshened look and feel. Who: Bill Germino as the first paid webmaster and Michael McIntyre continuing as community list manager.

1999 – Version 3.0: Revised user interface. Who: Susan LaBarre, the third webmaster, revised the user interface.

1999 – Version 4.0: Revised look and feel. Who: Jenise Aminoff, the fourth webmaster, revised the website's look and feel

2000 – Version 5.0: New information architecture and made extensive changes to the site's graphic design and interface. Who: Michael MacIntyre, Jillian Downey, and Elph Morgan (web team) working for Executive Director Zev Paiss, followed by ED Roy O'Shaughnessy.

2003 – Version 6.0: New logo, technology (PHP conversion). Who: Michael MacIntyre, Chris Hamilton, and Erika Banks working with oversight from all volunteer Communications Team

2006 – Version 7.0: New architecture based on proprietary Association-oriented ASP platform with a Content Management System (CMS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Who: Coho/US board member Neil Planchon and Cohousing Magazine editors Evangeline Welsh and Jo Anne Smith worked with two private companies with oversight from all-volunteer Communications Team.

2008 – Version 8.0 (Beta): Basic migration from a costly proprietary platform to an open-source platform using the Drupal CMS with CiviCRM - dramatically lowered monthly hosting costs with increased ease-of-use, control, and higher reliability. Who: Catya Belfer-Shevett, Ben Cordes, Editor Donna Freiermuth, Publisher John Parsons, Database Manager John Imbur working for Executive Director Craig Ragland... with input from dozens of Alpha Testers.

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2008 – Version 8.5 (Full): Our plan is to stay in Beta through the 2008 National Cohousing Conference in June and then to celebrate the Full release at this large gathering of cohousers. What new features are in store for this release? Well, that depends on us. Who is us? Well, you can count on the Coho/US staff, members of our volunteer board and some of our stalwart volunteers. Would you like to join us? Or, please feel free to contribute some money energy to pay for some website development costs.