Ryan Trunten
I call zombie bullshit on that.

Message board forums
3 February 2010 in Uncategorized | Comments enabled

So I felt like being nostalgic and reminiscing about classic times I’ve had online over approximately the past 6+ years, however, I don’t expect to be able to remember all the details regarding my times at every community and so I’ll leave comments open if any of my old acquaintances wish to add their thoughts. Keep discussion civil and mature, or don’t comment at all. I know I’ve been involved in my fair share of drama, however, I was not the cause of every bit of drama either. I’m just writing all of this so people can try to understand why I’ve begun getting bored with new communities. I’ve been around so many it’s just started getting old. But I’m only going to write about ones I cared most about though.

My first experiences with managing and running an online community message board forum began in roughly 2004 (Aussie Ben can correct me if I’m wrong) with Next Tech. To my surprise the first one was a success in my book, and we grew rather large and active. We had a great staff, and even had a bit of uniqueness with radio disc jockeys and an online radio. We had a CMS (content management system) running our front page and had active news and news posters. I remember it was around this time my friends Chris123NT and BlueScreenOfDeath (Ryan Price) were brought over because they had closed down their own community, Next L3vel. We had a very solid group of staff members for this community. I can’t remember how long we had our good run (Aussie Ben might remember), but after a while we got nailed for the mistake of using piracy regarding our copy of IPB (Invision Power Board, our message board software) and our CMS and we temporarily shut down.

We soon re-opened back up as BetaXP somewhere around February 2005, if I remember correctly, and it was then I brought on-board my good friends, Nic and Thomas among others. BetaXP had a great run as well, as was also a bit more experience for Nic because Ben sold it to him after Ben decided to pursue other interests (he has a bit of a thing for cars, mainly Toyota Corolla). BetaXP continued having a niche with Jase’s “Naro Network” which at the time had potential by offering a suite of  products and services (I don’t remember them all, one was an instant messenger, another was a web browser named “Pipeline”, and there was another one I still don’t quite understand what the heck it was at the time but I looked at it like a p2p network including media functions). BetaXP was also rather unique in its design with Jase being a very talented and proven coder and designer in my eyes and we never ran out of ideas for the cosmetic department for the site. Unfortunately, BetaXP and Naro parted ways due to differences in opinion, chain of command, and activity slowly begun to drop eventually leading up to where we lost our host due to security problems and again we closed up shop. Not only did our hosting company go under, but our actual host himself later died as well, unfortunately, so obviously it would be too awkward and uncomfortable restarting BetaXP.

After BetaXP, I believe I begun passing time and enjoying forum life as a regular normal member at other communities such as joejoe.org (I gained a bit more experience here as well for a short time as a global moderator) and my friend William’s The Vista/Win Forums (more experience in moderating here also) and JCXP until about March 2008 when I caught word of iWinUX. Now iWinUX could have been the next best thing for myself and Nic since Next-Tech. It was not a replacement for BetaXP or even a hostile take over. We didn’t ask for positions, but we did kindly offer our time and services, and Sam accepted us when he didn’t even have to. Why Sam actually did take Nic and I on I’ll never know exactly for sure… perhaps he felt bad we lost our past communities, or was impressed with all of our past experiences, or just really needed more staff at the time since iWinUX was still establishing itself. Times were awesomely great, and I continued the roles I had been doing since Next-Tech and BetaXP such as installing modifications to the board to add more features and services as well as general administration and moderation keeping the board organized and clean. Over the next few months, bad times begun to happen after we decided releasing inactive staff members who didn’t keep up communication with us. My own staff and members begun questioning my motives and actions and this eventually in time lead up to drama and stress which further lead to my decision to take some time off to get away from it all until it blew over… and so I demoted myself in our administrative control panel. Little did I know there would be an issue and big deal about bringing me back when I wanted to return and people would forever think I bailed out on them. This begun a downward spiral with more people leaving after I demoted myself, eventually including Nic himself as well as Sam the founder himself. I admit it was bad enough I made the mistake I did, but I didn’t want others to follow suit either.

In time, all the mess became water under the bridge, and by the Autumn/Fall months that same year (2008) iWinUX was being run by Chris and Ryan (Price) and they were running it well. I was back into an administrative role as a supervisor and things were going well until about the winter when they decided to move on to GeekSmack to pursue other interests and opportunities and then eventually Nic and myself regained control over our site. However, GeekSmack and iWinUX were basically competition and conflicts of interest to some people, and rumor had it GeekSmack was pretty much an iWinUX replacement. iWinUX never did re-open with its second clean state and restart in December last winter because of this since Nic and other former staff were enjoying life anew at GeekSmack and having great potential and success there. I was actually happy for them, and proud of them that things were going rather well over there. Drama and stress seemed slim to known… on the outside anyway. Even I was happy there as a smaller role as a news poster… I couldn’t argue with whatever staff spot I had as I saw it as more experience to learn and gain and always something fun to do. My role as news poster didn’t last, however, since I had little to no previous experience with said position, and that was okay because it was still good times in my opinion. I continued being an active member regardless and still had responsibilities at The Win Forums where Nic was also having a wonderful time as a pod-caster.

Now it’s a new year, and Nic and Sam want to reboot iWinUX a third time and I was “invited” to come back… but come back as what exactly? There still appears to be a bit of paranoia… I don’t want to say trust issues just yet, but paranoia indeed. Sam is no where to be found and hasn’t replied to my email. Nic is going to be selective about staff and only start off with “certain people” until it grows back up again. I might possibly return in a global moderator role again, but probably not anything in administration again. Perhaps it’s most likely time to move on, maybe I’ve burnt out and gotten too rusty… or maybe there are trust issues and too much doubt and people too afraid to be honest with me. I don’t know, and to be honest, I don’t care either. I’ve been around message boards and forums for almost ten years now and it’s just more of the same over and over again since 2001 when my true first experiences with online communities began with Neowin in 2001 as a regular normal contributing member of an online society and carried over into Next-L3vel shortly after where I got my first moderation experiences and learned what it’s like to be part of a website’s staff. It’s not that I am concerned or worried about repeats of history and having more failed projects, it’s more of I am just bored and tired of it all. I still believe in Sam and Nic and wish them nothing but the best of luck and sincerely do hope they are successful this time around (third time’s a charm?) and I might still register and visit from time to time. But as far as being staff, I just don’t know any more. If anyone knew me well enough as a good friend and a reliable and dedicated and trustworthy staff member, it’d be Nic and Sam, but to say they don’t want me to be a founder again this time around just kind of hurts and maybe I do take some offense. But I’m not going to sit and debate and argue their decisions because iWinUX is Sam’s site as he’s the original founder and creator and Nic is the current domain owner. I’m not even their host any more, therefore I don’t have any say in anything since I don’t hold ownership to anything any more. However, the point was we used to be a tight knit group of friends, in some aspects we were a family, we had gotten close. I don’t quite follow their mindset 100% just yet as to why they’re calling the shots they’re calling. I guess I’ll give it time and cross said bridges when I come to them and wait and see what the future holds. If they want my help again, they know where to find me. As for now, I’m staying back and watching from the sidelines. Nothing’s set in stone just yet, so I hope the left hand can know what the right hand’s doing this time around.

There’s other things going on in my life right now, most importantly college and work and a relationship. I have a life outside of the internet that gets top priority, and even when that’s settled I’d rather enjoy my leisure in an online gaming community because I often find that more enjoyable and less stressful. Nic and Sam, for what it’s worth, you have my blessings and support with iWinUX, but I hope you both can understand if I don’t exactly come running back with open arms any time soon… it’s nothing personal at all… I just felt it may be time for me to let it go and move on. Don’t get the wrong idea, as I said, I may still register and be an active normal regular member, and I’ll probably gladly accept a staff role if I’m offered one. However, due to so many differences and disagreements over the years I’ll take my time in joining and I’ll wait out the first few months until the bumps in the road are patched. I do have a reputation and tradition to uphold with the portable traveling wallpaper topic anyway.