Why are the forums being shut down?

[Donatas Kaulinis]

I have read the blog post but I still don't understand what happened. Does anyone have information on this?

[BillyTheAdult]

Angela banned? You can read this thread but honestly I don't think anything is going to be much more clear when you're done.

[apsinvo]

Although steve pretends to be super spiritual, I think ultimately his ego just got super crushed because a few regulars decided they didn't much like it here anymore and the oppressive moderating regime so they started a new forum. I think steve's quite shocked at just how many people joined this new forum and just how quickly they did it. Don't get me wrong, the new forum looks like an even bigger ego-fest but hey - it is what it is.

[Brutha]

For a while Steve wants to spend more time on face to face interaction and less time on online interaction.
He tried transfering the admin job to Erin but it didn't really work and Erin's involvement in the forum sank as well.

Steve then made the decision to seek another person for the role of the admin. Getting someone from the outside would have been a bit strange. After a bunch of months Mariana Trench volenteered to take over the role.

At the same time a new forum called PDforYou get's opened up by the forum member LostMyMap.
He invites a few members of this forum to join him on his forum. Among them Angela and supertom. Steve has a quite complicated history with Angela that's to long to retell completely.

Angela and Supertom write PM's on this forum to invite other members of this forum to PDforYoo.
A lot of those members get an account on PDforYou. Some of them such as Mariana Trench in turn invite other members of the forum. In total around 60 people join PDforYou.
People like Mariana quit the forum because they don't like it's exclusity.

Nobody of them told Steve about the existence of the forum. Suddenly someone informs him about the existence of the forum. Steve feels betrayed by those members because they didn't tell him and used the PM system of this forum to advertise the new forum. He makes his decisions without talking to those people from whom he feel betrayed.
Giving the forum to Mariana to administrate doesn't seem to an option for Steve anymore.

Steve also thinks that the forum isn't worth perserving if so many people of this problem have so issue with going elsewhere without telling him. Instead of spending more energy on finding a solution of how the forum can exist without him spending time on it he decides:
"At the moment I’m not in a place where I feel particularly concerned about others’ feelings. [...] At the moment I’m not in a place where I feel particularly concerned about others’ feelings. [...] For me this is a matter of self-love and self-care."

He makes a decision to be done with the forum and end it's existence.
Midnite offers to take over the adminship but it's too late, Steve made a decision to end the forum and doesn't take up the offer of someone else running the community completely without him.

[BillyTheAdult]

If I recall correctly Steve had insinuated that he was through with the forums and may shut them down several times in the past 6 or 8 months or so. I think it just never got any special notice from most.

[Ink]

Well that sucks. Give adminship to Brutha Steve, please! There are plenty of people who love this place still.

[Ceoarob]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

What happened was that Steve had a sudden fit of irrationality and went nuts. He imagined that his moderators and other long-time contributors were launching some complex and elaborate conspiracy against him.

When he regained some semblance of calm, he felt too embarrassed to back down and admit that he was wrong. So he quickly said that well, he had wanted to close down the forums all along. That is probably true as well, but disappointingly he has failed to apologize to his hapless ex-moderators and other long-time contributors, whom he had impulsively banned.

Now his less-perceptive and less-informed fans are mollycoddling him, instead of pressing him to face up to the growth opportunity staring at him in his face.

To admit that he was wrong. And to apologize for his attacks on the good character and integrity of his victims.

I like to tell the story straight. The fawning and mollycoddling is for the weak-willed and those who don't know the real facts any better. But for what it's worth, I will speak up for those who have been unfairly accused, unfairly banned and unfairly maligned.

[Erin Pavlina]

I don't think it's wise to give the forums to anyone else to own or administrate simply from a legal standpoint. That's handing over thousands of email addresses to someone who was not the person with whom the members originally agreed to give their addresses. Know what I mean?

When I sold my business, VegFamily.com, I had forums. And my lawyers told me I couldn't simply transfer ownership to another owner. Every member of the forums had to re-sign their forum agreement under the new owner. She lost a lot of people but most came back.

[Bliss Sage]

Originally Posted by BillyTheAdult

Angela banned? You can read this thread but honestly I don't think anything is going to be much more clear when you're done.

It was all very clear to me after I read that thread - ok, I didn't read all of it, it is huge.

I totally agree with you, by the way. This forum, in fact, was very cliquey right from the first time I dared to post on here, and I was never accepted in with them. I think we should feel complimented not to have been invited. I do. I would even suggest that if some of those people had left much earlier, especially Angela, these forums would have been a much more pleasant place.

[Brutha]

I don't think it's wise to give the forums to anyone else to own or administrate simply from a legal standpoint. That's handing over thousands of email addresses to someone who was not the person with whom the members originally agreed to give their addresses. Know what I mean?

Deleting the email addresses is no problem.
The forum can run without having email addresses of the members.
Steve could simply delete them from the database and hand over the database.

Every member of the forums had to re-sign their forum agreement under the new owner. She lost a lot of people but most came back.

Making people resign forum agreement is no real problem.

[Andreas]

Steve,

When you make the forum read-only, would it be possible to allow us to log into the read-only forum if we wanted to PM a member, at least for a few weeks after the shutdown? That way, it would give longtime posters who've been busy during the holidays a chance to exchange contact info.

A good friend of mine did this when he shut down his forum, and it worked very well.

[Laurenaus]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Deleting the email addresses is no problem.
The forum can run without having email addresses of the members.
Steve could simply delete them from the database and hand over the database.
Making people resign forum agreement is no real problem.

Did anyone consider this??? There has to be a less destructive solution to this problem.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Laurenaus

Did anyone consider this??? There has to be a less destructive solution to this problem.

This has already been addressed in other threads.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Savage

This has already been addressed in other threads.

Yes but the font is so big, I think we should address it again *insert laughing emoticon here*

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Yes but the font is so big, I think we should address it again *insert laughing emoticon here*

Or perhaps I could respond with:

This has already been addressed in other threads.

[The Backward OX]

Apparently lots of people seem to think they can't exist without a forum. Christ. What a bunch of losers.

[brendannz]

Originally Posted by Brutha

. He makes his decisions without talking to those people from whom he feel betrayed.

I think if he had talked those people (or us) about it, he may feel a bit differently about it,

but at the same time, I don't think he really owes anybody this time.

[Plays With Life]

Lol @ the big fonts.

[garentee]

Originally Posted by brendannz

I think if he had talked those people (or us) about it, he may feel a bit differently about it,

but at the same time, I don't think he really owes anybody this time.

Not so much that he owes anybody anything, though in the spirit of Personal development a more holistic approach to communication may well have avoided the problems with toxicity that we see here...

[Books]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

I don't think it's wise to give the forums to anyone else to own or administrate simply from a legal standpoint. That's handing over thousands of email addresses to someone who was not the person with whom the members originally agreed to give their addresses. Know what I mean?

When I sold my business, VegFamily.com, I had forums. And my lawyers told me I couldn't simply transfer ownership to another owner. Every member of the forums had to re-sign their forum agreement under the new owner. She lost a lot of people but most came back.

Well the lawyer is wrong. The forum members agreed to give the email addresses to the forum. It's an entity. All you would have to do is give notice that ownership of the forum is changing and give them a period of time to react to that. In that way it's an opt-out instead of an opt-in.

[NickW]

Originally Posted by Books

Well the lawyer is wrong. The forum members agreed to give the email addresses to the forum. It's an entity. All you would have to do is give notice that ownership of the forum is changing and give them a period of time to react to that. In that way it's an opt-out instead of an opt-in.

Yes, this whole question re email addresses is nonsense, which frankly, I'm surprised to see. It's a total non-issue. GrowdGather, Inc, a publicly traded company, is in the business of buying forums, and owns dozens of them.

A few months ago, GrowdGather bought a forum of which I'm a member. The change in ownership was near-transparent. No members were "spammed." And obviously, with all the legal restrictions and oversights on publicly traded companies, I'd assume GrowdGather tends to behave itself.

Here's a list of the forums they own:
CrowdGather--Forum List

Here's an example of a recent forum purchase--not only a forum, but a database with tons of writer-editor-publisher info:

CrowdGather Adds Writers.net to Portfolio of Forum Properties
Writers.net Founder and SEO Guru Stephan Spencer to join Advisory Board

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., Jun 27, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

One of the leading networks of forum communities on the Internet, CrowdGather (OTCBB:CRWG), today announced it has acquired the domain name, website, and assets related to Writers.net. Created in 1994, Writers.net is an Internet directory of writers, editors, publishers and literary agents. The site's founder, Stephan Spencer, will also join the CrowdGather Advisory Board.
CrowdGather--Investor Relations-News Release

So please flush this garbage about "email addresses falling into the hands of spammers."