A look back at the past 2 years

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NiborDude
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Joined: Sun May 23, 2004 12:00 pm

A look back at the past 2 years

Post by NiborDude » Wed Jun 21, 2006 12:55 am

The biggest thing I have noticed that soakerdom needs to stay alive is stability. What happened two summers ago? Why did we all of a sudden see the loss of so many members and a huge loss in veterans? Well, I’ve talked to Dux about it, he knows what im talking about. There were a couple of things that ended an up slope for us.

The first huge thing which was the catalyst was the fall of WWn. WWn held so many veterans and members, when it went down we lost many regular people. Most of them knew about SSC, everyone did. However there was a sort of cold war waging between the boards. Not that Doom and iSoaker were fighting for supremacy, but the members at that time were very divided on what forum they used. When WWn went down, so did many members. Some did not want to go to SSC while many others were lost and confused now that it was gone. There were members who made the transfer to SSC, but not enough in my opinion.

Many people know that the iSoaker forums were created soon after, however no one knew about them at first. iSoaker wanted to ease in the forum as apposed to throwing it out there. Many old members did not stick around long enough to discover the new forum, and we lost many during this time.

While this is occurring, many soaker websites are up. When WWn fell there was no more communication. People did not have a reason to look at their websites. As they left the websites died too.

What else happened? A lot of things that occurred at SSC turned away many members. First of all was the change from .org, to .net. Many people were confused after this. Some actually never came back. A few, not a lot. Next was the change to vBulletin. I for one had to get my password changed after the switch, and didn’t bother doing it until a couple months after. Many members hated the new feel of the forum which turned many of them away from it. Many other members just never got their password renewed. With this, many SSC members were lost.

So what am I trying to say with this mini article which looks back at the history of the past 2 years in soakerdom? Stability. Mainly on the part of the forums. I’m not saying we need a lot, but the ones we have shouldn’t make huge changes. What I highly suggest is that we don’t make huge changes. Keep everything the way it is. It’s how SSC and WWn thrived and it will be the reason for the return of large membership.
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<span style='color:EEF2F7'>Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes! -Leonardo Da Vinci

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