I entered the WC community around 1996, just before WCP was released. I had played WC ever since the original came out, but I didn't know about the online community until a fellow fan told me about the Aces Club. I was amazed by all the online dialogue beyond the games themselves, such as the fanfics and RPGs.
I first got involved with a "New Technology Group" that was part of the Aces Club; not surprising in hindsight, since I'm an engineer by trade. I thought it was neat that I could come up with designs that people would use in their fanfics and RPGs. After about six months I was still unable to get anything passed by "the Review Board". This was partially my fault, as I was new to the process and defensive about any negative feedback. On the other hand, when they shot down concepts, even when there was nothing but positive feedback, it made them seem a little...elitist. Eventually, I realized that fanfics can use whatever the heck ships they want, and moved on. I took a look today and found the NTRB is still open (with a facelift from my days), but it hasn't been touched in over a year.
I moved on to fanfics; it seemed as if the Aces' fanfics were in three categories. The first category tended to deal with average pilots in a timeline which would meld decently with canon. The second category tended to deal with extremely good pilots in "Aces Club supercarriers" which would throw canon completely out the window, but the dialogue and writing was decent enough that they were enjoyable. The third category - which I call "the Tannock zone" - well, I won't go there...
I tried writing my own fanfic, but during a reread I became dissapointed with where the plot was going; it was drifting more and more into the second category, and I stopped the project about a third of the way in around 2000 (I found the Word files on my laptop while I'm writing this)
Around that time I found this website, or whatever version it may have been at the time. I lurked around, reading up on the various projects and forums during my off-time over the years in grad school. The credit for my taking the plunge and registering, however, has to go to Standoff and their scoreboard - seeing how well I fared amongst other WC fanatics was too great a temptation to resist. Projects such as UE, SO, HTL and Saga rekindled my interest. About six months ago, I started working on a new fanfic; fortunately, it's still in that first category I mentioned above.
OT: Hey, this post takes me off the Cadet roster. About darn time.