# Chicago PHP First Met in 2000, Not 1997


By Ben Ramsey

Published on July 28, 2015


For many years, I’ve been claiming that Chicago PHP is the oldest, continuous-running PHP user group. This single fact hinged on [a page](http://web.archive.org/web/20061215165756/http://chiphpug.php.net/mpug.htm) that, for many years, was hosted at `chiphpug.php.net` as a historical reference. On this page, it stated:

> The first meeting of the Midwest PHP User's Group (MPUG) will be held at:
>
> Saturday, February 26th, 1997, 1 pm CST \
> Ignition State

I’ve been passing along this information over the years to various members of the community. Most recent, I published it in an [InfoWorld article reflecting on PHP at 20 years](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2933858/php/php-at-20-from-pet-project-to-powerhouse.html). However, today this fact was called into question and debunked because [John Long happened to link to an old mailing list post from 2000](https://twitter.com/Adduc/status/625712790913724416).

In [the post dated February 26, 2000](http://grokbase.com/t/php/php-version3/002vx7f6ar/ann-chiphpug-fka-mpug-meeting), Richard Lynch says:

> The first Chicago PHP User's Group, CHIPHPUG, \[CHIF pug\] meeting went very
well!
>
> It was originally announced as MPUG, but even *I* didn't really like that
name: It was just convenient. :-)

After seeing this, I assumed the year must have been wrong. I thought maybe Grokbase had a bug, but then John pointed to [the same post on news.php.net](http://news.php.net/php.version3/78555). After this, I did some more exploring only to find [a post dated February 23, 2000](http://grokbase.com/t/php/php-version3/002q7ffmrd/php3-ann-midwest-php-users-group-meeting), where the “very first Midwest PHP User’s Group meeting” was announced.

The language used in the post was very similar to that found on the historical page; it’s missing the year.

> The very first Midwest PHP User's Group meeting is definitely "on":
>
> Saturday, February 26th, 1 pm CST \
> Ignition State

This post also links to `http://www.L-I-E.com/MPUG.htm`, a page on Richard’s domain. I looked up [this page on the Internet Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20000408233004/http://www.l-i-e.com/MPUG.htm) to find that it is identical to the historical reference page that used to be hosted at `chiphpug.php.net`, with one exception. The year 1997 was erringly added to the historical reference page.

To confirm, I found the [very first Internet Archive capture for chiphpug.php.net](http://web.archive.org/web/20000818110408/http://chiphpug.php.net/), where it identifies the first meeting of the Chicago PHP user group as Saturday, February 26, 2000. It turns out February 26, 1997, was a Wednesday, while the historical reference page identified it as a Saturday, further proof the year was wrong.

I’m sorry for all the confusion I might have caused, and now that we know the truth, it’s time to find out which group really is the oldest, continuous-running PHP user group.