What are you thinking RIGHT NOW?

[FlipMode]

Moka drove away most of the active users so he might as well pull the plug. It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though. Even if they screw up, the site will end up closing either way, right?

[WildSimba]

But if the admin doesn't work on driving activity, then they can't expect activity to come.

Well, it did for the last 6 or 7 years, didn't it? If Moka was super involved in keeping up activity over that time, I guess I wasn't privy to it.

If he wanted the site to survive, he'd had several ways of marketing the site on a backlog (most sites that get big or want to get big, generally have a marketing team set up). Honestly, I don't think there's anything at this point, not even anything that Moka can do to drive up activity.

Really? I've been on fan forums for a long long time (whaddup OG InvisionFree squad) and have staffed/run no shortage of them myself, and dedicated marketing/external advertising teams are a rarity in my experience. Maybe in the early phases, sure, you make a concerted effort to reach out to other fan sites to draw users, but most forums self-propel once they hit critical mass.

I guess my thinking is that Moka is, and has always been, technical. Were I him, I would assume that the role of moderators/non-technical staff is, at least in part, to drum up activity, think up/execute innovative forum activities, etc (I don't think moderating is actually particularly time consuming, assuming the staff is appropriately well populated for the activity level). I mean, no offense, but if the green name is supposed to imply community leadership, why haven't I seen a green name post in the last, what, month?

In general, though, I do take your point. Admins typically function as leaders. But I don't think Moka has really played that role as long as I've been here, so I don't associate him with it. To the point about archiving, I suppose it all depends on whether or not Moka is willing to continue to finance the place and keep the lights on.

That is most certainly what moderators are meant to do, but from all of the time I've been here, aside from a few people, I never saw much of people drumming up activity. I'll just be honest here, this site had poor management in general. It wasn't really Moka's fault, because as you said he never was completely a leader so much as the technical portion. He put his complete trust into the wrong people here and it backfired. This is what happens when you let your friends run a forum, with no true grasp on how to spike activity in a site. (To be fair even I wasn't a good choice for that, being that I didn't have any experience doing that.)

[Azdgari]

Moka drove away most of the active users so he might as well pull the plug.

That seems harsh. Why do you say that?

It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though.

Lol. Bring back Kitva.

[Azdgari]

Whoops.

[Regulus]

Moka drove away most of the active users so he might as well pull the plug. It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though. Even if they screw up, the site will end up closing either way, right?

Who would want to run a forum like this one? xD

[FlipMode]

It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though.

Lol. Bring back Kitva.

I was thinking more like SuperBabySimba or that guy who used to say "hye wanna ro". Kitva is life, though. He'd make MLK great again.

Moka drove away most of the active users so he might as well pull the plug.

That seems harsh. Why do you say that?

Well because Carl's thread he wrote about it, even though it reads like the scrawlings of a mad man, does make some points. And I do still talk to most of the active members who left and part of the reason they left is Moka. Like you said yourself he was always more on the technical side of things, but then suddenly toward the end of last year there was some ruckus and he took sides within it, thus driving away a ton of active users in the process. I mean don't you think it's a little odd that KK, Shadowfax, Buffy and Carl were demoted or stepped down but didn't stick around to continue contributing as regular active members? Around that time a bunch of other active members also either left or were banned in the process. Moka has said himself multiple times that MLK is a low priority for him these days, it was really a matter of time.

But at the end of the day, here's the thing; even though this site is near dead, the community of friends it created is mostly still very much alive. Member meet ups still happen and I still keep in contact with members who either left or got themselves banned, you just don't see the activity on here anymore because if you do that stuff on here then you have to deal with people who are just out to ruin it for others. If only we had an admin who actually cared enough to help deal with it... Or just take away the mods ability to actually moderate, that's cool too I guess.

[Azdgari]

Well because Carl's thread he wrote about it, even though it reads like the scrawlings of a mad man, does make some points. And I do still talk to most of the active members who left and part of the reason they left is Moka. Like you said yourself he was always more on the technical side of things, but then suddenly toward the end of last year there was some ruckus and he took sides within it, thus driving away a ton of active users in the process. I mean don't you think it's a little odd that KK, Shadowfax, Buffy and Carl were demoted or stepped down but didn't stick around to continue contributing as regular active members? Around that time a bunch of other active members also either left or were banned in the process. Moka has said himself multiple times that MLK is a low priority for him these days, it was really a matter of time.

Admittedly, I've had a very 'member-facing' experience with that whole thing (and everything, really--I think that I'm one of the only long-time people left that was never on staff/actively involved in any 'dramatic' sequence... and I'm sure this colors my perspective of how Moka/MLK staff has handled situations). I've never had any interactions, or seen any member-facing interactions, where Moka seemed to be in the wrong.

Sure, after Carl's post I associated his departure with him. However, KK, Shadowfax, and Buffy's departures I did not associate with him. So I guess I probably don't know enough about whether or not they left because of something he did--if you can say that's what happened, and that he was in fact in the wrong, then that's new to me!

[Gemini]

It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though.

Lol. Bring back Kitva.

Isn't it weird to think that that guy's prolly like 18 now?

[it means no worries]

It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though.

Lol. Bring back Kitva.

Isn't it weird to think that that guy's prolly like 18 now?

Quite a few people have said stuff to that effect, what was up with Kitva?

[Regulus]

It wouldn't hurt to let someone else try to run it, though.

Lol. Bring back Kitva.

Isn't it weird to think that that guy's prolly like 18 now?

My. God. 0_o

That's a funny thought.