RPLS.com is back!

Say what? Yes, you’ve read that correctly. RPLS.com is back, baby! Yeah!

But how? Following the discontinuation of the RPLS Network and POB Magazine, I was able to acquire the expired RPLS.com domain name from the registrar. I welcome all previous contributors to join us at the new RPLS.com when we launch later this month. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Clarification: the RPLS.com domain name has been acquired by me via the free market and we are in no way affiliated with the old RPLS Network, POB Magazine, or BNP Media.

A condensed history of RPLS.com

In the transformative decade of the 1990s, an aspiring surveyor by the name of Mark Eugene Deal envisioned an online hub where fellow surveyors from across the globe could converge and exchange insights, experiences, and memorable tales. In 1996, he launched RPLS.com, an online bulletin board. It became an overnight success in the surveying community.

The growth of RPLS.com became rather overwhelming in the years that followed. Deal repeatedly upgraded his servers during that time but found it difficult to keep up with demand. In 2001, he learned that he had melanoma. He needed to focus on his battle with cancer, so he sold RPLS.com to POB Magazine later that year. He continued to participate in forum discussions until he passed away in January 2002.

POB moved the forums to the i-boards platform where it continued to grow in popularity for nearly a decade. In 2010, POB transformed RPLS.com into a social network dubbed “RPLS Network”, custom built by a third-party developer.

Meanwhile, several surveyors from across the United States were trying to formulate a plan to build a new surveying community website. But how? They contacted me, a Land Surveyor who moonlighted as a web developer, asking if he could build them a new discussion forum — a couple weeks later, BeerLeg.com was born.

BeerLeg was launched on June 30, 2010 and was an overnight success, much like the original RPLS.com that Mark Deal had created nearly 15 years earlier. Due to complications with corporate servers blocking the term “BeerLeg”, it was soon changed to SurveyorConnect.com to better accommodate everyone.

In 2018, POB Magazine announced that they would be permanently discontinuing the RPLS Network. Then, in 2021, BNP Media announced that they would cease operations of POB Magazine.

However, in early 2023, the RPLS.com domain name had expired and became available for public purchase. I jumped on the opportunity and gained control of the domain on June 1, 2023. I’m excited to continue the mission that Mark Deal established back in 1996 by combining the legacy concepts of RPLS.com with the history and success of SurveyorConnect.com.

The new RPLS.com will be more powerful than ever before, and we’d love to work together with people at their own pace to build a new vision. If you are a previous contributor to the old RPLS.com or POB Magazine, we’d love to hear from you!