About

Meditation Enthusiasts has been around for quite some time. The site first launched on July 6th 2010, and since then, it has gone through several iterations and looks. Below a history of the different iterations of the site for those who are interested.

Version 1.0.0 - The Great Beginning

Back then, the site’s URL was xmeditator.com, my online user name. This was back when I was just learning WordPress, and owning a website. During these days, Meditation Enthusiasts had an IRC chatroom, forums, and a UStream. The forums had a couple active users, the most active was a young man named Joe. I started the YouTube channel, Facebook Page, Twitter, and a MySpace page. All of which, except the MySpace page, are updated to this date. A picture of the old site is below:

This was a very good, simple site. However, it wasn’t very “social.” So, enter Version 2.0.0

Version 2.0.0 - The BuddyPress Age

This was a very short lived time on the site. I wanted to make a Meditation Social Network. So, I downloaded and installed the BuddyPress plugin to turn my WordPress blog to a social network. Sadly, the only people who joined were spam bots, so I ultimately killed the site off when my domain, xmeditor.com expired. I re-hosted the site to my other domain: xd13.org.

Version 3.0.0 - XD13 Integration

I had another domain at the time: xd13.org. I wanted to create several interesting sites, which I was able to do with WordPress multi-site and my xd13.org domain. I hosted Meditation Enthusiasts under the domain meditationenthusats.xd13.org, along with several other personal sites. The site launched June 11, 2011. During this time, the forums hosted under forumakers.com was moved to live on the Meditation Enthusiasts site. I also allowed guest posts, and the ability for meditators to sign up and log their meditations. However, the guest posts always seemed very spam like, and getting a WordPress account is very annoying, so no one signed up for the forums or to log their meditations. But, I did not kill these features off. I kept them up, and got a couple of good guest posts.

In the summer of 2012, I learned HTML5 and CSS. I then thought it was time to ditch the bloated website for something similar. Thus began my biggest regret.

Version 4.0.0 - WordPress Free

So now begins the “WHY DID I EVER THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA” time period. I abandoned WordPress for a custom website I wrote from scratch in HTML5 and CSS3. However, the entire site was static, so there was a lot of copy-paste action going on. At the time, it seemed like a good idea. Looking back, I can’t believe I did this. It destroyed the ability to submit guest posts or logs, and it killed off the forums. Adding posts was a painful task, so I didn’t really do it very often. I wanted to revert back, but school got in the way. That is… until I finally decided to reinstall WordPress.

Version 5.0.0 - Back to WordPress

For the 5th iteration of Meditation Enthusiasts, I ended up moving back to WordPress to make my life easier. I made it when my XD13 domain expired. Upon expiration, I decided to move the site to its current domain: meditationenthusiats.org.

Version 6.0.0 - Static Website

I grew tired of the WordPress editor, it got too bloated and slow for my liking. I also didn't want a php-powered website that could be compromised someday. With my main personal website, shendrick.net, I created a website from the static website generator called Pretzel. I liked how I could edit things in a text editor and not in a website. So, I ported the site over again to use the same framework, which is what is in use today.

I don't know if I'll change the site's platform again, only time will tell. However, it will continue to provide information about meditation regardless of the underlying technology!

Happy Meditating!

-Seth