I found that convo from 2017, this was my initial response
Basically this group and the Foundation got started because Yahell was wreaking absolute havoc in the adult groups that it controlled, and they faced limited prospects. Groups disappeared every week without warning.
The original Crux group predates the Yahoo days, it has it's roots in older bdsm related forums. When I joined around 1998/99 it was on a small forum platform that was then swallowed up by by another forum and then by Yahoo all within a short space of time. I created my current Yahoo email account just for this reason, to join Yahoo as they forced us all to have Yahoo membership to remain in the group. When I joined there were about 300-500 or so members, it was a cosy little club but things grew and grew and grew to thousands by the time Yahoo lowered the boom on us. We even had an IRC channel that members could drop into, chat and roleplay. Our brother group was Crucim, which specialised in male crux and had a strong gay flavour, although it always had a lot of straight members who kept their heads down under the tyrannical rule of Sejanus. He popped up here a while back under the name Myrelin until his general unplesantness and mysogyny saw him off. Crucim was succeeded by Male_Crux_Research, which is altogether more benign.
At the end Crux had a team of moderators which gloried in the name the Council of Crux (not many people know that).
We saw the writing on the wall, and plans were made to decamp to our own site if and when trouble finally hit. As Jedakk says, there was the possibility of going in with CruxDreams and Makar, but Olivier Huffkens had a long standing problem with those who ran Crux and so while a portion of the membership went to form the new Crux Forums group under the CruxDreams unbrella the original Crux carried on at Yahoo. The old group was finally killed by Yahoo in 2005 and we all moved to the Foundation. This is why my own membership here dates from 2006, I didn't have a huge incentive to join up in 2005 as I naturally followed from Crux to Foundation and other things were occupying my attention. This group was a little bit rough around the edges in those early days, I don't mean nasty but it had a bit of sorting out to do, I didn't visit here very often for a long time and only became a regular here around 2011 or so.
Bridgette and Dianne, yes, they kept setting up groups and Yahoo kept taking them down. I always wondered how Crux managed to last so long. It's hard to imagine now but it really was a very hostile environment for adult groups in those days.
To the names already mentioned I'd add Sweet (Child of Hungry) Heat, who was very kind to me in those early days in the group, Sam Bains who was another manip artist, Mistress Lady Catherine, Dr Mabuse who had an interest in saints and martyrs and would probably love Gabriel Knight, and I fondly remember those mentioned above. Aedilis, Arcimboldo, Le Chat, FF (there were two), Shiva another of our mods who disappeared for a time and is now posting very nice manips on Deviantart. Taryn, enough said - too many others to mention but it is a real pleasure to remember those days. Helmut was certainly on Crux, and Rotrex. And Amber, who was another "colourful" member with her own group, and her own "pose"
Ich bin über die Websites von Le Chat, Arcimboldo und (seltsamerweise) Huffkens zu Crux gekommen. Nein, nicht Crucified Women, er hatte eine noch ältere Seite! Ich glaube, eines führte zum anderen, und alle deuteten auf irgendeine Weise auf Crux hin, wo auch immer es damals war. Ich habe nie zurückgeschaut!
So . . . . . Arcimboldo und Huffkens hatten beide alte Websites, die mich inspirierten und mich auf die Crux-Gruppe aufmerksam machten. Die Algolagnia-Website von Arcimboldo war jahrelang sichtbar, ich glaube nicht, dass sie noch da ist. Es enthielt eine Seite darüber, wie er seine Manips zusammenstellte, sehr nützlich für alle, die anfangen. Ich werde seine ganze Arbeit irgendwo haben, aber aus irgendeinem Grund habe ich keinen Arcimboldo-Ordner, ich habe in den frühen Tagen keine separaten Ordner erstellt. Ich muss sie jagen. Ich bin so froh, ihn wieder zu sehen und wieder zu arbeiten, und hier unter uns