October 20th, 2015 at 12:20 AM
(October 12th, 2015 at 1:17 AM)Joe Wrote: Any plans on reviving this place and bringing some activity in?
I had thought about it, but I suppose the hardest part for us is that we ended up becoming like any other general discussion forum that advertised on a lot of promotion websites, other general discussion forums, etc. There wasn't much that really made us unique. We had some cool people here for a while, and honestly, it was worth running it at the time. Those people don't hang much anymore because like myself, they have become pretty busy as well. However, even though we were never really "big" or fancy as a community, it was still fun a little while back. I've always been a bit of a laid back admin, and even as a member here, I kinda liked the simplicity of it a bit.
My personal life got very hectic over the last year or so. Job switches, two new cars (my current still breaks down and needs a lot of attention), and now, just got some court stuff finally taken care of (all charges dropped this morning) and am doing tons of paperwork to go back to school. Needless to say, I have had trouble even loggingg on to this place. What's more, there is a good chance I will not be paying for internet when I move again in a few months for school, so trying to revive activity here would be a little tricky in that situation.
However, with all of that said, I don't delete projects I have spent a lot of time and energy on. Whether I have internet or not in coming months, I will still be able to maintain everything from my phone or from my computer anywhere where there is WIFI (my workplace that I would be transferring through has WIFI, so that would be easy), so I don't expect us to go anywhere. I have every expectation that makestation will remain online, and would not want to see something I have invested so much time and energy on (or, may I say, "we," since it was a community effort since day one), simply disappear.
I actually have an itch to do a website again anyhow. For me, makestation was always gonna be the place where I shared the things that those I know in real life would not appreciate so much. Anything from philosophies, to photography, to art, to music, and everything in between could be shared here, and everybody was welcome. We have a lot of people with aspergers or autism here that have more creative minds as well, and MS was always going to be a place free of any judgment where anything and everything was welcome.
I'm still in love with the concept. If I could overcome the "we need more members, we need more posts, we need MOTMs, we need a new theme, etc. " mindset of forums, and get some cool people back in teh community, I'd find a way to keep MS active, as opposed to just being online, but I really think that the key to a successful community has everything to do with the people, and not the administrator, the staff, the software, or anything else.
We'll see. I'm still in love with the original concept that MS was after, and if I figure out how to overcome the barriers that keep it from being about the community first, MS may thrive again in the future. It's no secret that most people don't really check in here that much anymore, but if anyone wants to contribute and is just as in love with the concept, let me know. I always thought of MS as a community project. I almost prefer to take the back seat as a facilitator when it comes to running forums. We're too small to make the administration complicated anyhow.