I've paused on my project to help a friend with theirs, considering it's a genre I actually like and WOW, the learning experience is real. It really helps when you have more than one head at work and bounce ideas off each other! It's also nice getting used to Jcink's control panel; dare I say it's personally easier to understand than Proboard's. :eyes:

This! Having been working more recently in the jcink control panel, I found coding so much smoother or at least easier to work with than recently when I did code something in proboards. It's interesting to discover how preferences have changed. Rp me of 10 years ago would have never stepped foot into jcink. 🫣

Ouroboros of "the site failed because of lost interest" to "interest was lost because of lack off members" to "new members didn't join because of lack of interest" and rinse and repeat. I really wish a handful of members was enough, because we had some great members, but it makes it that much more impactful when one or two members becomes inactive and it's just a domino effect from there.

That's why I aspire as staff to also be an active member so that we hopefully never run into that problem. Lead by example and all that.

This is an old refrain we all know the lines to, but culture is set from the top, so I think it's very important staff members are excited to post on the site they staff.

Imagine a site where the first thing you see on Discord is the admin posting political memes. You'd be more likely to also post political memes. On the flipside, if no one ever talked except to link their latest post, you probably also would be hesitant to talk, even if nowhere it's said you cannot use the Discord for idle chatter.

In a game, one of my friends decided he'd start a guild, and he gathered a bunch of us who weren't much of social butterflies and who predominantly solo'd in the game. But because he was always organising groups and getting people to play together, at some point it became natural to follow his lead on logging on, saying hello to everyone, asking if anyone was doing content they wanted a partner on. 

I'm sure you had the best intentions, but this comes off as "well you should have been more active. get good.". It's not helpful, and can come off as rude and presumptuous.

One site my sentiment was about was one where most events were just me and the other admin participating, for example. We were active, but, for whatever reason, the premise didn't resonate with other people. A lot of work goes into being an admin, and if that work doesn't result in engagement it's human to start feeling like the costs outweigh the rewards. There's a point where you just have to accept that and move on, and for me that's when a site starts to feel like it's essentially a public 1x1.

I also want to stress that the way I view it is: It's disappointing, and a little sad, but I don't regret it. I'd rather try and fail over not trying and not getting to experience what fun I had while it lasted. Hobbies can be ephemeral and that's okay.