Hello,
Bogro ...
as to Kaethe: some of the older sites have been up and running for a long time. If I remember correctly, Playmoboard was founded in 2001 and as far as I know - there was nothing before that. I joined in in 2004 so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything of what went on before that.
Bogro
A quick and "abbreviated" history of the Playmobil community:Before forums (and boards) there were newsgroups.
Lego had a newsgroup (rec.toys.lego).
Playmobil did not have a newsgroup!
About 1996-1997 I was consistently "flamed" in the Lego newsgroup for mentioning Playmobil and for looking for other Playmobil collectors. (BTW, I never found another Playmobil collector.)
However, I did meet
David Helber, a fellow Texan, who had just started his
Victorian Wargaming site. He liked Playmobil and gave me a lot of help in setting up Garden Wargaming. (GW was launched in April of 1998.)
eBay had started in 1994. Only a few used Playmobil sets were beginning to be offered for auction.
Bart de Smet had no sooner launched
Playmobil Central in 2000, when Playmobil's attorneys informed him that he could not have a Playmobil website.
Oliver Deeg had begun his Playmobil photo stories about the same time and was told that he also couldn't have a website using the Playmobil name.
On Sunday the 26th of November, 2000 ... The three of us launched operation "
Klicky Thunder" ...
"
Playmobil Central" continued to operate under cover. The name was changed to "
Collector Central" and hosted at Garden Wargaming. Then we began the
Great Klicky Wars.
All of the online Playmobil vendors were angry with Zirndorf as they had been told that they could no longer sell Playmobil over the internet. The eBay dealers were angry because they might lose their "collector" customer base.
Bart,
Oliver and I organized a massive email campaign (with the help of the vendors, eBay dealers and collectors) that totally surprised Zirndorf. Within a matter of weeks, the three of us were invited to visit with the powers at Klicky Towers.
Geobra's attorneys came up with some guidelines for Playmobil fansites. We made a few suggestions. And, we finally all agreed on what is still being used today.
Bart reopened Playmobil Central as
Collectobil,
Oliver reopened his website as
Playfans,
Tahra reopened Playmoville as
Playkingdoms, and so on.
Bart almost immediately reinstated the "message board" for the Playmobil community! (This was the FIRST Playmobil forum, board or group!) The kind of free "Forum" software thst we have today was not yet available, so it all had to be managed manually.
When the three Yahoo Playmobil groups came along,
Bart closed the Collectobil message board.
The three Yahoo Playmobil groups were finally amalgamated into one.
Ty ran it until he became ill and
Sylvia took it over until he was well enough to return.
Panos really angered most of the "old timers" when he opened
Playmoboard. Using the name "Playmo" was in direct defiance of the agreement that we had all made with Geobra. However, we all decided to ignore it, as we had already fought a long hard battle with Zirndorf and didn't want to stir up any unnecessary trouble for any of us.
So in summary ...
Bart had the
FIRST Playmobil message board at (
Collectobil) Playmobil Central.
The
Yahoo Playmobil Groups, finally amalgamating into one Playmobil group, were
SECOND.
And,
Panos'
Playmoboard was
THIRD.
However,
Sylvia's
Playmofriends is by far the
BEST ...
All the best,
Richard
Edit: forgot a comma ... 
