About us

A brief history of the Simple:Press forum plugin

The Simple:Press forum plugin has an interesting history, dating back to 2006, just three years after WordPress was introduced. The plugin was originally called Simple Forum and was developed by Andy Staines to provide support for his small plugins. Dissatisfied with existing forum plugins, he created his own support mechanism and began using it on his website that December.

As more users of Andy’s other plugins started to use the forum for their questions and requests, it began to gain popularity. Users would ask if they could use the plugin on their own websites, and slowly but surely, the project gained momentum.

The second user to register on Andy’s support forum was Steve Klasen. He requested a copy of the plugin and began suggesting new features and changes, often writing half the code himself. As time went on, he became a valued collaborator and the project became increasingly dependent on both of them. Thus, a partnership was formed.

Eventually, they discovered that a standalone application called Simple Forum already existed. To avoid confusion, they changed the name to Simple:Press, maintaining the “simple” misnomer while honoring its WordPress foundation.

Simple:Press today

As of February 2023, the Simple:Press forum and ecosystem is managed by Causality Agency, a small digital agency based in Stockholm, Sweden. Our team consists of approximately 15 developers, project managers, and designers who specialize in working with PHP, JavaScript and WordPress for both large and small client projects.

We share a passion for classic web forums and are dedicated to advancing the Simple:Press forum and its ecosystem. As such, we are committed to its ongoing development and growth.

Check out our other projects Domain Backup and Current Version.