About Us
1999: We started way back then, we only reported news – on a free Tripod site, with a ProBoards message board system – and with a very bulky design, lots of images, and very little content. The site was called, United Federation of Planets – Star Trek. I also registered the ‘ufpst.co.uk’ domain this year.
2000: I was gifted the use of a popular website design, and I spent months getting the design prepared and modified for my own uses. It was sleek, and over all, quite good. I started to use my ‘ufpst.co.uk’ domain this year, and launched the new site in September. The site title was ‘StarFleet HQ’. I was still using a free message board system, Communicator, from BoardHost.
2001: I continued using v2 of the site, and as with most sites it evolves into v2.3. I started to pick up alot of visitors and decided it was time to move off a free host and get my own site building up.
2002: I started the year off with an old design from last year, with my core visitors. I then started working on my own design at the start of the summer. Under the shortened title of StarFleet. The last months of the year were spent coding, perfecting the design – and on December 24th I launched the new design – to mass approval.
2003: I had been using v3 of the site, and had some minor tweaks – until the summer. My host cancelled our hosting, and we rushed to find a new host and get everything transferred – I lost everything. I moved host, set up a new forum, StarFleet BBS, and started work on a new more professional design. This time I got a few professionals to help (thanks Paul and Louise), and had a new site for a Halloween launch. We renamed the site to ‘United Federation of Planets’ – to reflect the original meaning of the domain, United Federation of Planets Star Trek. The new forums were nicely called, United Federation of Planets Forum – more professional sounding and looking (thanks Euan)!
2004: The UFP Forums are now registered with Invision Power Servcies, and have moved the forums domain onto their server too. We continued to expand, and at one stage we new Stargate and Lost sections in preparation for launch. Sadly these never saw the light of day on the main site.
2005: I continued using v5 of the site, and as with most sites it evolved over the year. The forums started to become a lot busier, and the site becomes more known in the Trek community.
2006: We have moved the forum back to the current server, and installed a brand new PunBB, which runs much quicker than the old boards – but with fewer features. We have also launched a new web site design, version 6. The launch occurred at the same time as a move to a brand new server. The server now runs both the ufpst.co.uk and ufpst-forums.co.uk domains.
2007: After researching trends in web site design, the UFP web site was converted to fit the 1024 screen resolution, this maximises the amount of content which can be placed on the page.
2009: Sadly during this year the site was taken offline. Despite numerous calls to maintain some element of the site, it was closed indefinitely. Luckily, we retained ownership of the domain – just in case!
2012: Fast forward three years, and after a successful release of J. J. Abrams’ blockbuster movie STAR TREK in 2009 (and a sequel on the way the following year) – the fan community is truly active again. After a lot of consideration, I decided to re-open the United Federation of Planets (April 2012). My thanks go out to Site5 for their free themes, I am using a heavily modified version of their design. I’ve given up attempting to give the site a version number, so I call this design the 2012 version – it seems apt does it not?! The reason it took so long to bring the site back to life was that I spent a while attempting to develop a unique angle from which to take the site. While I cannot reveal all the plans just yet, I hope you enjoy this new era. I leave you with just one promise – It’s going to be fun!
“Into Darkness” Poster
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