We have some great members here, Lever for example is a fantastic writer and intellectual, if forum management started sending him PM's telling him to change his posting style I would quit along with him! That is how forums are destroyed, administrators must realize that there is a "members club" out here too!
Why don't you tell us, yfs .... oh lemme guess, to throw us off? Nice try lol Show me anything any regular member has ever done over there that was significant and who hasn't jumped of the sinking ship. My point: all the good people started leaving a long time ago from there. Didn't you get that? lol
You really are coming off as a prick Mike...The link to Shawns thread was a joke. You know, the things that cause you to chuckle once in a while. Whether you have an axe to grind against someone who was involved with SEOChat is completely up to you. I don't care if you ever liked that forum or not...In fact, the very fact you are so vehimently against any mention of it tends to make me like it even more. Like I said to your comment of who cares:
yfs, there was no value and hasn't been any value at seochat for anyone except a small group. It was a selfish place falsely advertised as an expert community. My problem is not so much the business that has used it as an investment, but rather those who allowed themselves to be used to keep the image alive.
Mike I just don't get why you so vehemently dislike that place... You are coming across as a bit of a prick... Why don't you point to a thread of yours on here where you actually said something useful?
Well, you are basically calling anyone involved after 1993 selfish which I think is pretty high and mighty of you. That does include Shawn (and in regards to your earlier question I know exactly why he left) You really have a bug up your ass. Someday you will realize you only hurt yourself when you paint a community with one broad stroke. I made my views about ownership well known and thought the example would serve as an interesting one. The fact that you feel every person involved in that site for the last 13 years is selfish shows how little you really know.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://seochat.com http://www.whois.sc/seochat.com Whois History: 153 records stored Oldest: 2003-07-14 Newest: 2006-02-03
Not sure why this is suddenly about me I'm not including anyone that has silently left and decided it was time to stop supporting a community that falsely advertises itself as one that is helpful and useful. Those who bowed out gracefully I can respect. Btw, hasn't this thread been started so that shoutwire and digg could "mysteriously discover" alek's story while pointing to your blog entry? You can't always play both sides and expect people to agree with both. Seochat was pathetic, doesn't have anything to do with me or anyone else individually.
OK, a lot of people think WMW and WPW are pathetic too, all of it is just opinion and none of it will bring down any forum! Threads like this simply give them more publicity and we have already given them many links and free advertising, so you decide how this hurts them!
And there it is...I knew you had a reason for being so irrational. (You can be so transparent) Heres the whole truth. I made the blog entry...Alek emailed me and said he found it interesting and asked for my permission to start a thread about it. I said sure. He found the discussion even more interesting and dugg it. I know you have a beef with Alek but really...Can we be a little more adult about things?
yfs, I don't care about that. I'm trying to determine your reason for your determination. Get on shout and digg all you want. Just don't compromise your credibility in here.
Without going into detail, it looked like an obvious outcome to me. Ads covering the whole of the top fold. Beeping noises, slow pageloads. - (These are warning signs that decisions are being made not by those using the site). Its clear that users experience was secondary - Im confident that wont happen to dp (unless of course its sold).
What exactly are you trying to hint at...Come right out and say it. I stand by everything I have said. If you actually have anything meaningfull to add about Member Retension in Forums, now would be the time to add it. Cmon Mike, don't leave us on pins and needles
What I particularly like about you Mike is the way you insult people, and when asked to back yourself up you just stop posting... That's so cool.
Anyway, just so this thread doesn't disintegrate entirely I was never looking for if people thought SEOChat sucks or not. Whether you personally have an attachment or not to the forum the intial issue is an interesting one. Forget its SEOChat. From now on the forum for the case study is forums.cookie-recipes.com On this baking forum the ownership basically made drastic changes without letting Mods or Members in on it and the truly tragic part was they had contempt for those who dare question it. That same baking forum lost 90% of its active membership (And the fallout being a loss of Visitors over time) in the span of two weeks. Certianly there is a lesson there for those of us who work day and night to build our own community.