I don't think there's a thread on this, but please correct me if i'm wrong. How did you find ShadeCrest?
Believe it or not, we were once top 15 on PlanetMinecraft. That's where I found this server, I haven't joined any other servers since.
A friend of my sisters introduced her to this server as a first multiplayer server. Then my sister told me.
Back when I was a griefer, I looked for a server to grief. Googled "Best Minecraft Server". This was the first result, and I could see why. No griefin' this gem!
Front page of minestatus, if memory serves. My first server was some Australian hardcore PvP server of all things, then some other PvP server where my poor hotel was griefed (I think these PvP servers just dominated the front pages at the time), and after that I came across my baby right here.
I found CW390's airship on DeviantArt around October 2012, decided to check it out ingame. Then proceeded to forget about it, built a city and then remembered to check it out about 5 months after joining.
minestatus.net back in March 2011, was like 20 pages back and saw the pictures of the spawn at the time, got on, here I am