Lyndon Watson adds:

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't vote.  The RFDs and CFVs were not well
publicised.  They didn't appear in any of the groups that I read regularly
at the time and the first I knew of the proposal was when the results were
posted, for some reason more widely than the RFDs and CFVs [not really,
Lyndon :-)].  I did, however, post the first day the group was enabled
here, and haven't stopped since....

But there are one or two semi-regulars among the yes votes [....] and
others who were once frequent posters but have since dropped away [....]
and one or two prominent personalities in other newsgroups who supported
the vote but haven't posted much or at all here.

Alan Murray deserves to be remembered as the first to post a regular
newspaper clippings service, a role since assumed by Brian Harmer.

It's interesting to remember that the group was created by expat New
Zealanders and in its earliest days carried mainly expats' posts.  In the
first year, whole weekends used to go by without a single post.  But one of
the nice things then was the level of participation by friendly foreigners.
There are still a few (g'day Chuck, Don, Amos if you're still there...),
but not enough of them and too many of the weirdly hostile (a raspberry to
Henry, Rocket Jim...) and the cross-posting nits.