Switching off the Respirator

Today marks the closure of a community website Paul and I started in late 2003. Beta Bulletin Board, originally named iDarkSide was created as an alternative to the large community we were moderators of. Somewhat perturbed by the age and immature nature of the site's main audience, iDarkSide became our 'we can do better' project. As the larger community we left collapsed, we happily plodded along. While small, it's interesting to note how the logs show us getting almost one new sign-up every day - so we did something right.

Unfortunately 'something' is often never enough and the number of active posting members was relatively small. We often pruned the forums of non-posting members who we assume had signed up for the hope of downloading copies of Microsoft's next operating system, Windows Vista (formally codenamed Longhorn). While left with a core membership, the project never quite took off in the way we had hoped it to.

Several months ago Paul and I discussed closing the site down. Rather than do it there and then, a 'forum revival group' was created from the regular members most committed to the community. We left it to them to come up with new ideas for their community and bring them to me for implementation. The agreement was that we would close the site in late November/December if this group didn't produce anything. Nothing has happened and there are only a handful of active members left, few of whom actually post anything.

So today the site closes. It's a shame but there's no point in us continuing something we are no longer interested in. The two of us have moved on from when Longhorn was an exciting buzzword and have other interests to pursue. A forum will be left there for a short while letting people know what has happened. We'll also give them a chance to say they wish to know when our next project launches. And believe me, there's another one coming.

Watch this space!