<>About this community

First of all, I would like to welcome all newcomers to this great community. Please read the following information so that you understand more about us, what we do etc.

>>Location: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com OR http://s7.invisionfree.com/China_History_Forum

>>Introduction
China History Forum (short form CHF) was established in June 2004 as an online community for the learning, discussion and exploring of chinese history. It was established by the founder of the much acclaimed online community "History Forum Simaqian Studio (SMQ) "( i.e. General Zhaoyun), , when General Zhaoyun (GZ) realised that there needs to be a community dedicated to the discussion of chinese history. CHF is considered to be a subsidiary of Simaqian Studio, but instead of calling it SMQ China, we prefer to name it "China History Forum " for easier remembering and for uniqueness.

>>Founder and early Staffs
The founder is myself (General Zhaoyun or GZ). Early staffs include Liu Ce, Book of Faith, Yihesan, Yun, Thirdgumi, Sephodwyrm

>>Current Owner
I own the URL http://www.chinahistoryforum.com , and the forum site is hosted with Invisionfree.

>>Community Philosophy
"Those who do not forget the past are the master of the future" - Sima Qian

>>Mission and Aims
We aim to be the main english-language portal on the internet for discussing chinese history. Our mission is to provide a favourable environment for forummers from all over the world to learn and discuss chinese history.

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<>History of this community

>>Initial Foundation
Towards the middle of May 2004, GZ, the founder of Simaqian Studio(an online community for discussing general history) came across THFA (a new community founded by Janissary for discussing turks history). After frequenting THFA a few times, he came forth the idea that there should be a community focused on the discussion of chinese history (i.e. there is a focused forum for discussing turks history, why can't there be a chinese history forum?).

He decided to surf the internet to check if there is any good community for discussing chinese history, as he was also interested in chinese history. The search result was that there were many chinese-language forums for discussing chinese history but no english-language forums focused on the discussion of chinese history. As there were already many forummers in SMQ (Simaqian Studio), AE (All Empires), SoSZ (Scholars of Shen Zhou) who are interested in chinese history (and some even request to have one), GZ made up his mind to establish a community for discussing chinese history. As this community could also help support SMQ by diverting some traffic there, it was decided that it should be considered a subsidiary (or brother site) of SMQ. This was the foundation of this community.

In order to make the community unique and easy to remember, instead of calling it "SMQ China", the name "China History Forum" was chosen. The invisionboard forum software was selected, but instead of hosting it on his own, GZ chosed Invisionfree, a forum host who provides hosting of invisionboard forums free of charge.

By late May 2004, the forums were created and established. GZ also recruited a small team of staffs that consisted of chinese history freaks from SMQ and AE. They include Liu Ce, Yihesan and Book of Faith (staffs from SMQ), Yun, Thirdgumi and Sephodwyrm (forummers from AE).

In June 2004, the site was officially opened and soon many new forummers began to pour in.

>>June to August 2004
When the community was opened in June 2004, there were only 24 members at a start, but the membership grew to more than 100 in 1 1/2 months time, and the number of posts from 40 to 5000 in 2 months time. Traffic also increases steadily and the site averaged about 180 visitors per day.

Much of this success was due to the fact that both forummers and staffs had been active in the chinese history discussion. The contribution by both staffs and forummers in the content building of this forum were noteworthy. Staffs such as General Zhaoyun, Liu Ce, Yun, Yihesan, Sephodwyrm and Thirdgumi contributed actively to the content of this site, and the staff team, though small, had helped to make this forum a success.

In mid July 2004, the project activities were initiated, which involves translation of articles from chinese sources to english. A website called China History Info (CHI) was also set up for putting up these translation work. In July 22, 2004, Book of Faith resigned due to other committments in other forums, and Yun was promoted to Super Moderator to take over his position.

In mid August 2004, owing to the need to help boost the discussion activities, an expansion was carried out and 9 new forums (chinese history by dynasty period) were added. New moderators were also recruited including Ghost of Han, WuTao, Zelbest, Astralis, Bryan, RollingWave. The traffic and membership continued to increase and by end of August 2004, membership reached 170 and no. of posting reaches more than 8300.

More new forummers continue to pour in and the community has begun to develop into a booming site and main portal for discussing chinese history.

(History of this community will be updated as time progress)