dory36
Early-Retirement.org Founder, Developer of FIRECal
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2002
- Messages
- 1,841
You all have probably noticed I have been decreasingly active here over the past year.
I haven't been particularly happy about that -- but to be honest, the non-social aspects of a forum like this -- backups, software updates and fine tuning, tweaking things on the server to keep performance optimal, tracking down a user's lost account info, and so forth has become a lot like (gulp!) WORK!
What began as a labor of love has become just labor. So what do you do in that situation? I actually considered shutting it all down a while back, but thanks to all of your help, I was able to keep going a lot longer than if the moderators and many of the members weren't here to help.
Besides, I wanted to dump the labor and retain the love! I've been trying to figure out how to do that for a while.
As all of you know, one of my passions has been cruising. I discovered an interesting forum on that topic (http://www.cruisersforum.com/), and have lurked there for quite a while. I discovered that the cruising forum was well run and moderated, but also discovered that it was being managed by someone who was using that and several other forums as a way to achieve his own financial independence while living as a perpetual traveler. He had taken that forum over from its founder, improved the software, and grown the membership without losing quality.
So for him, managing that forum (and others) wasn't an onerous extra duty, but a serious investment (as well as his own passion), to be carefully tended and nurtured, just as if it were any other investment.
He and I started chatting a while back, and he has agreed to take over the server and forum software management work that I have been doing, allowing me to take a "demotion" to so that I can again enjoy the forum.
Soon he will move the forum to his own server and to his own software, which seems to have a lot more features than what we have here.
I don't think a lot will change, except that we'll see much more attention to the features of the software that members want (such as an "ignore user" feature), quicker updates when the software changes, and so forth. Since Andy's own FIRE depends on him doing a good job with the forum and retaining and attracting members (whereas for me, the forum was an obstacle), I think the incentives are in the right place.
While I appreciate the tremendous support everyone has given me over the past several years, I also know it wasn't the man behind the curtain, but the stuff all of you have contributed that has made this forum great. I look forward to it being even greater!
dory36
I haven't been particularly happy about that -- but to be honest, the non-social aspects of a forum like this -- backups, software updates and fine tuning, tweaking things on the server to keep performance optimal, tracking down a user's lost account info, and so forth has become a lot like (gulp!) WORK!
What began as a labor of love has become just labor. So what do you do in that situation? I actually considered shutting it all down a while back, but thanks to all of your help, I was able to keep going a lot longer than if the moderators and many of the members weren't here to help.
Besides, I wanted to dump the labor and retain the love! I've been trying to figure out how to do that for a while.
As all of you know, one of my passions has been cruising. I discovered an interesting forum on that topic (http://www.cruisersforum.com/), and have lurked there for quite a while. I discovered that the cruising forum was well run and moderated, but also discovered that it was being managed by someone who was using that and several other forums as a way to achieve his own financial independence while living as a perpetual traveler. He had taken that forum over from its founder, improved the software, and grown the membership without losing quality.
So for him, managing that forum (and others) wasn't an onerous extra duty, but a serious investment (as well as his own passion), to be carefully tended and nurtured, just as if it were any other investment.
He and I started chatting a while back, and he has agreed to take over the server and forum software management work that I have been doing, allowing me to take a "demotion" to so that I can again enjoy the forum.
Soon he will move the forum to his own server and to his own software, which seems to have a lot more features than what we have here.
I don't think a lot will change, except that we'll see much more attention to the features of the software that members want (such as an "ignore user" feature), quicker updates when the software changes, and so forth. Since Andy's own FIRE depends on him doing a good job with the forum and retaining and attracting members (whereas for me, the forum was an obstacle), I think the incentives are in the right place.
While I appreciate the tremendous support everyone has given me over the past several years, I also know it wasn't the man behind the curtain, but the stuff all of you have contributed that has made this forum great. I look forward to it being even greater!
dory36
