Now recording
The Post2Host Documentary
I am making a documentary about the post2host era, and I am looking for the people who were actually there. Owners and operators. Admins and moderators. And the users, who mattered most and get remembered least.
If that was you, at any host, however small, however briefly, I would like to talk to you.
Chris Lever, founder of StoneRocket. You will more likely remember me as DJB.
Who is asking
My name is Chris Lever. In 2005 I launched StoneRocket, and I ran it until it was sold in 2012. I also ran GigaRocket. On the forums I posted as DJB, and if you had an account with us in those years, that is the name you will recognise, not this one.
So I am not a journalist who found an interesting subject. I was in it: paying the server bill, reading the abuse reports, approving and rejecting applications, moderating the quota-fillers, and answering support at midnight around a job. I know what the ten posts a month felt like from both sides of it.
That is worth saying plainly for two reasons. You will not have to explain the basics to me, so we can spend the hour on what actually happened rather than on what post2host was. And if you were on the receiving end of a decision of mine back then, including a suspension, I would genuinely still like to hear from you. That is part of the record too.
Why this has to happen now
On 24 April 2026, Tripod and Angelfire were switched off on the same day. They had been running since 1995 and 1996. Almost nobody marked it.
The post2host hosts went first and went quieter. Most were one person and a server. Their forums are gone, their databases are gone, and the Wayback Machine caught only fragments. What has not gone, yet, is the people. The 2005 cohort are now in their forties and fifties, still working, still reachable, and still have the backups in a drawer somewhere.
In ten years that will not be true. This is the last comfortable moment to do this properly.
Who I am looking for
Owners and operators
You ran a host. It does not matter whether it had fifty accounts or fifty thousand, whether it lasted a decade or four months, or whether it ended well. The hosts that quietly folded are the ones with nothing written down about them, which makes them the ones I most need.
What did it cost you to run? What did you actually earn? Why did you stop?
Admins and moderators
You were the reason the model worked at all. Somebody had to read every post and decide whether it counted, handle the abuse reports, and tell people their account was going. That job has never been described properly by anyone who did it.
Most of you were volunteers. Several of you were teenagers. I would like that on the record.
Users
You posted ten times a month for a free account, and you got your first server out of it. This is the part everyone skips, and it is the part that actually mattered.
What did you build? What did you break? Did it end up being what you do for a living now? A surprising number of professional careers started this way, and almost none of them are documented.
The people around the edges
Anyone who worked at a control panel company, a budget host, a datacentre or a forum software vendor during this period, or who ran one of the directories and forums the scene advertised on.
You saw the same decade from the other side of the counter, and the story is not complete without that view.
What being interviewed actually involves
I want to be straightforward about this, because vague invitations waste everybody's time.
The practical bit
A recorded video call, usually somewhere between forty-five minutes and an hour. Arranged around you, including evenings and weekends and across time zones. You do not need any equipment beyond whatever you normally take calls on.
There is no script. I will send the general areas in advance so nothing ambushes you.
Your terms
You can appear under your handle rather than your name, which for this era is often more recognisable anyway. You can be audio-only. You can ask for anything to be struck after the fact, and you can withdraw entirely up until release.
Nothing commercially sensitive goes out without you seeing it first.
What I cannot offer
This is self-funded and interviews are unpaid. Everyone is credited however they wish to be, including not at all.
I would rather say that now than have you find out after an hour of your evening.
Not sure you have enough to say?
You almost certainly do. You do not need to remember dates, you do not need documents, and you do not need to have run anything significant. Half of what is missing from this history is simply what it felt like to be there.
If it turns out there is not enough for an interview, that is a pleasant ten minute conversation and no harm done.
Also wanted: anything that survived
Interviews are the priority, but the documentary needs things to look at, and this era is visually almost gone. If any of the following is sitting on an old drive, it is more valuable than you think:
- Screenshots of control panels, forum front pages, signup or application pages
- Welcome emails, suspension notices, "you have not met your quota" warnings
- Forum database dumps, or exports of any kind, however partial
- Banner adverts, logos, skins, or the host's own promotional material
- Server invoices, hosting bills or panel licence receipts, which tell the financial story better than memory does
- Old chat logs between operators, which is where the real history usually lives
- Anything at all relating to the original post2host.net, which even this archive cannot yet account for
Send nothing containing other people's personal data without redacting it first. If a database dump has user emails and password hashes in it, say so and we will work out how to handle it properly rather than you uploading it anywhere.
Put your name forward
Prefer email? hello@chrisleverseo.com. Every message is read by Chris, and every one gets a reply.
Where the project actually stands
Honestly: at the beginning. This page is the first step, and the shape of the finished thing will depend on who comes forward. If twenty people with good stories get in touch, it is a proper documentary. If five do, it is an oral history worth having anyway, and every interview gets preserved either way.
What is not in doubt is that the interviews need recording now rather than later. Everything else can be decided afterwards.
If you would rather see what has already been gathered before deciding, the graveyard lists every host accounted for so far, and the post-mortem sets out where the research currently stands. If either of them is wrong about a host you knew, that alone is worth an email.