I simply don't care

I've complained about my site here(and on other admin sites) a few times in the past and the venting felt good. And yet more problems have arose to the point where I've discovered, I really don't care anymore.

Our one year birthday is next month(Yay, he says in a monotone cheer) and I just realized so much has happened

1. lost the original site due to the attacks of my competitors.....30,000 Posts and about 1100 members...Had to restart all over, re-establish my community and start anew.

2. Suffered ddos attacks for months and crappy hosts...my current host is fine(thank god)

3. Member drama....which became personal to me and a site war broke out a few times and i've even had some influential members lead a "rebellion" causing a mass exodus of members...once again threatening me to lose my site..thankfully in all situations, i was able to fix that(after a LOT of asskising when i was not even in the wrong)

4. Drama with staff....Member wants to be staff, i give them the opportunity and then within 2 weeks they either do absolutely nothing or simply quit without notice.

I have a huge problem with people not giving me a headsup if you are going to be gone for like 3-4 days so i can plan around it.

5. Member's who complain and whine....24/7.
I'm 17 years old...I do not care to hold the hand or be ANOTHER 16 or 17 year old's therapist. I am there to listen to you about your problems but for the love of God, stop treating the site like a therapy session. Stop bring it into chat and then making chat depressing because you keep sighing(literally typing sigh in chat or typing.....) so people are forced to pay attention to them.

6. Posting and Chat....
It annoys me that people can spend 6-8 hours in chat and yet somehow ONLY manage to contribute 4 posts in that 6 hour period. Let's not realize that a forum lives and dies by it's discussion topics. No big deal....let's just NOT post and sit in chat.

I would remove chat but let's face it....They'll go to FB or tinychat or other chatrooms so may as well keep it on the forum. At least they log in

^that's been going on for a year now and i've spoken to my staff and promises were made and apologies were given and then nothign was changed.

I've come to the conclusion that i simply don't care anymore. I understand as Founder, I have a huge load of responsibility and i accept that. I've actually officially begun to hate my site. Not the members exactly but the site itself. I don't want to log in. I don't want to post. I simply don't want to be there.

I've wanted to pass my site on to other members for them to take over but of course they wouldn't take it(even though they "love" the site so much) so i am forced to keep it.

It's gotten so bad that I really don't even want to pay the five dollars a month for hosting. It's just five dollars and I don't even want to pay for the hosting.

I am so sick of the excuses of people who claim to care and want to help but they do nothing and when i voice my opinion on sadness, tiredness, isolation, neglect, disappointment, anger and a bunch of other things i feel...i'm being uneasoanble.

I don't want my site to die but at the same time I really no longer want to be responsible for it.
I was told to ask for help(since they said i never let them know what I needed, even if it was obvious) so i ask...i get nothing except excuses or blame that it is my fault.

Has anyone ever gotten sick of their site? What do you do? I really just want to walk away and just let the site die or live on its own. But at the same time this site has been my life for a year and as much as I want to walk away, i don't think it will be that easy.

 

Those excuses really do suck and get into an admin's mind frame. You don't want the site to die, yet you don't care for it anymore, and don't want to be responsible for it? I don't like selling forums, but what forum software does your community run? I think we could make something happen if we merged or something along those lines. You have a great core of users, they wouldn't allow the site to just run.

You've built a great community, members care. $5/month isn't much, and I'm sure I can help float that for you or something. When the users don't care, well some may not, then its obviously, they don't care about the health of the community. They're in it for fun, they don't want to support it in the long run.

You have to think to yourself:
-I've been doing this for a year of my life, should I keep on going?
-What do I hope to accomplish by keeping this community open?
-Is it better to sell, merge, or just close down?
-Is it worth my time to keep going?

Which is why I've never implemented a chat to begin with. I don't like them, I prefer forums.


I think you've probably answered a few of them already, and man, I would say keep on pushing, but if you're not happy anymore[which happens, then pass it on, and/or give up and/or sell it]

 

Thanks CPVR

It's not being able to afford the $5 a month...I just really don't even want to pay it because i feel like i am paying for nothing.

I run an IPB forum though I am thinking of going Vbulletin with it in the future(Septemeber-November range).

it will be one year next month...i may be interested in merging/selling it...right now i am letting the members do whatever and not really caring much.

 

Well, I'm your man if you're looking to merge with. I can take good care of the community and everything. Keep me posted bro, I'll try my best to help ya.

 

Yeah your site is pretty cool dude Though are you sure you want to merge?

you'll be taking my
1. Whining 16 year old who wants to kill herself every 2 mins or cries because someone tells her that she needs to stop whining.
2. the 14 year old who whines about why nobody likes him(because he treats people badly), begs to be a mod and if you don't make him a mod who throws a tanturm

and let's not forget the multitude of weirdos on my site RR's community base is very...diverse yet very lazy
Since you use Vbulletin(should i decide to stick with my own site and convert) you can be a good help to me. Has VB5 had an official launch date/month announced yet?

 

We have members like that, we can deal with it bro. No worries. My community is pretty good at things like that, and helping those who need it. Vb5 doesn't have a release date yet. You could convert, would make it easier to merge as well.

 

As far as the chat option goes, I know vbulletin (at one point) had a chat option that would actually post all that content to a large thread.
Might be something to consider if the members want to use the chat still.

 

Could you elaborate more on this?

 

Well not really?

The chat (I think by noppid) would actually just be a long thread in the forums, but had a module or something that made it look like your typical chat box on top of the forums or on a portal page.

 

oh lol...i'll see if i can find it on vb.org

 

Oh damn, I didn't hop on this quick enough. I'll take the forum and whip those shits into awesome members.

 

As much as I want to walk away and leave, i also feel like i am turning my back on them and it makes me feel like a quitter and that's one thing I am not is a quitter. I just don't know how to

A. Get my community to get their heads out of the sand and do something
B. TO make myself care...before with all the stuff going on, I actually cared but now since September i really don't care and that's bad.

It's of course easy to sell or merge with someone else and wipe my hands clean....But then the part of me who has been there with those people for a year is like

1. Nobody knows them like I do
2. I doubt anyone would allow them to be as free(which has it's negative) and open as they are.
3. But most importantly, if I did sell or merge...the very basis i built the site on it's gone.

I honestly want to walk away(50 percent) but then at the same time i'd feel horrible turning my back on them...even though a lot of them have either used me or turned their backs on me.

I was never this sentimental before my site...I don't even like people most of the time I still don't like people but i do consider my members like family so it's such a tough decision.

 

Rip that band-aid right off. Start a new forum.

 

Don't feel bad about walking away as most of your members would gladly walk away from you at any point for any reason regardless of the costs or time you have invested into your website.

If you are feeling too burnt out or too caught up in the drama of your site look for someone else to assist you or at least take over a lot of the regular duties such as email replies, p.m. replies, maintaining the forum, server maintenance. If you are really tired or burnt out and sick of it all you should also consider getting some of your money out of it. There are more than a number of capable people who might be interested in buying your forum and that would at least recover some of your costs and money towards your time so that you can go into something you will 100% enjoy.

There was a time when I was under the impression that the forum members cared that I ran & hosted a forum for free for them to utilize but over time I came to understand that they were entitled to this forum and many of these users did not care whether I was there or not or if the forum even existed because there are a lot of other forums available.

At the end of the day you ultimately have to take care of yourself and or your family. When you sell your website you need to make sure you get the most money for it and you get the best deal which is in your favor. If you can walk away from the sale happy with what you got then don't look back just keep going.

 

Thank you both A lot of food for thought! Our one year mark is coming up soon so I am going to try and see if i can get my head right and see if this is just another hiccup or not.

Oh thank god for admin site's like this It's good to be able to vent frustrations to others who may have been in similar situations as I have been.

and i am working on a new forum...i'm using my current forum as a launching pad for it.

THe problem i have with my current site is that in the early days i was competiting with my competitors for members and they already had an established community so i would bend over backwards and sort of try to make everyone happy....

flash forward a year later....I've differentiated myself from my competitors and I've spent so much time doing 100 percent what my site wants and not focusing on things that i think would be good for my community

and the biggest problem is, I've grown so reliant on fostering a unified community and making sure that the members i already have are happy that i forgot...I need to always try and grow and not be solely reliant on the current members because let's face it...they simply don't care

 

Most members don't care unless you are embedded in their circle of friends outside of the forum. Then those people providing they like you may want to you succeed but I would say generally that most people are indifferent if you even break even, they just don't want to see ads and want free stuff.

 

Been there; done that. I am in the process of renewal. When I finish step one, I will update my blog about it.

 

What's your new forum going to be about? I know I blew past my competitors as well, but they never really stood a chance against me.

Yup, you always need to find new ways of marketing and driving new members in. Old members tend to stick around, but new members will always help give your community a bigger face, in terms of, posting, and driving their friends in. It's like a Catch-22 really.

 

It's going to be geared towards the LGBT community for the new forum.

I actually basically called a lot of my members out on their stuff last night. I needed to vent and i feel much better
I did so respectfully but firmly