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[Japo]

Originally Posted by underdog

remember how they initially claimed it was a non-profit site? at least they removed THAT bit of ... creative reality... *ahem*

Do you think they're so evil...? They were just so lazy that they copy-pasted the Wikipedia blurb literally. Kind of dishonest, but if God favors the prepared, it makes sense that the Devil favors the lazy.

Originally Posted by Smiling Spectre

Japo, what I mean is that there are too many "shrinking" events, but close to nothing "expanding" ones. When engine was changed, we lost ton of non-standard-ASCII translations that never was fixed afterwards. Hardly working tag system added to this too. So, I believe, we own a lot of translators loss to that.

When most contributors/editors left (soon after that), it added to the site visibility too. I dunno why it happened, but it was negative.

Site owners totally _could_ improve state of it. Participating, fixing engine, communicating with admins, etc. Instead, they considered site as crumbling house: let's use it for advertising, and what's good else in it?

Indeed, I did not mean that disaster had no negative consequences in traffic too... I mean not 100% either way... anyway never mind what I said.

In my paranoid opinion, Studentis had the idea to turn the website into an advertisement billboard from the very beginning, and they care nothing about anything else. Likely the only problem they saw with the old website is that they couldn't fit enough ads into the every single page. So that's why they invested work in changing it, but after they were done hanging the ads and the website became non functional, they or Abovo never saw any need to spend a cent in fixing it.

So we have archaic site, close to none new reviews, no translations and almost extinct community. *shrug* Well, I am still here, and you too, so at least it's not our fault, right?

But if WE are around and the place is shit, maybe it's OUR fault?

[Smiling Spectre]

Um, I am always over-optimistic, and always give second chances, until I have any hope in it. So while site is still alive, it's hope!

Yes, yes, I know. :|

[Scatty]

Originally Posted by Japo

But if WE are around and the place is shit, maybe it's OUR fault?

Fun meaning aside, you've got to admit, that every regular member who stopped logging in years ago, basically inspired every other regular member to stop to log in, as well.
Not to put blame on anyone, it just happens, life and what not. But it's also a responsibility of all of us, to what happened to the site over the years, not just on those who are seen as carrying the main load. There's been so many people active at one time, but earlier or later, everybody thought, oh well I stop logging in now, others can still carry it.
Thing is, others felt compelled to follow that example and left as well. Now what we've got, is that no one is there anymore. It's just the fact, that everyone of us matters, making up the community. Only most choose to forget that.

[Japo]

Yes of course. And at some point so much momentum is lost, that the whole thing stops. But also the same people are in different times of their lives, so even if they don't leave completely, they don't spend as much time posting as they used to. And the Dissidents' stunts, as much as they added thrill and drama, didn't help to keep one friendly community together...

In any case a community needs some rate of replacement to stay alive. It can't be a private club of the same pals forever. Already one or two generations of regulars and staff had left while the community was still growing. And even after the website remodeling we had a good community and strong staff for a long time.

And again the remodeling of the website did not help... And as bad as it is now, at least everything works as well as we can expect. There were times when the website or the forums were completely or practically down for weeks and months (database error...)