The origins of Bluelight
by Anonymous with contributions from Jase, johnboy, skydancer and xtcxtc
Beginning in 1997, there was a small message board hosted on bluelight.net called the MDMA Clearinghouse. The Clearinghouse was a side project for the owner of a design company called Bluelight Designs in West Palm Beach, Florida. The message board could only hold a few threads before they scrolled off the board and could not be retrieved.
Nevertheless, a small but dedicated number of people were regular participants and it felt like a close community. Someone suggested that a more permanent home be created so the message board could be stable and the content could be better managed.
The New Bluelight was created in May 1999 as a new home for the MDMA Clearinghouse participants. The "bluelight.nu" domain was registered in June 1999. Once the technical details were finalized, "The New Bluelight" opened for business and most of the crowd from MDMA Clearinghouse migrated to the new forums.
In October of 2005 the domain was switched to "bluelight.ru".
At least two different kinds of message board software (DCForum and wwwboard.cgi) were used between May 1999 and October 1999. There are no posts remaining from that time period. "The New Bluelight" changed software again in October 1999 and has operated continuously ever since then. From that time, Bluelight has grown from a small underground forum to one of the largest message boards of all time.
At some point the MDMA Clearinghouse collapsed and disappeared, although historic screen shots of the front page are still available through . While there have been many changes, Bluelight is still maintained by volunteers and a strong community spirit continues to evolve.
