RouterGODS In the Age of Raw Community Collaboration
There was a period in networking culture before structured learning platforms, before algorithm driven recommendations, before polished subscription academies. In that period, growth often came from shared effort. RouterGODS emerged in 2008 within that environment. It began as a CCIE study group founded by Humphrey Cheung, but it quickly evolved into something broader. It became a space where engineers gathered not just to consume information, but to actively work through it together.
What defined that era was collaboration in its most practical form. Engineers would lab configurations live, debate routing behavior, troubleshoot spanning tree inconsistencies, and question design assumptions in real time. Knowledge was not packaged and delivered. It was exchanged. Nightly online sessions, geographically distributed meetups, and open discussions created a rhythm of collective problem solving. If someone struggled with BGP attributes or redistribution logic, the response was not a static document. It was a group session that dissected the problem step by step. That dynamic sharpened practical thinking in a way that solo video learning rarely replicates.
As networking education expanded, the landscape changed. Vendor portals matured. YouTube filled with certification walkthroughs. Commercial platforms offered structured learning paths. Information became easier to access but less dependent on direct interaction. RouterGODS reflects a stage in technical culture when collaboration itself was the primary infrastructure. It represents a time when engineers built competence through shared effort and active exchange. That model may feel less visible today, but it shaped a generation of professionals who learned not just by studying networking, but by practicing it together.
For those interested in exploring its legacy, archived content and resources are still available:
Official blog archive: https://routergods.wordpress.com/
YouTube channel with past technical sessions: https://www.youtube.com/@routergods
Community knowledge base: https://routergods.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/RKB/overview