Yep, I lurked around for a minute or two. Sadly, your previous assumption for correct for the most part. What we've had over the last few years has been great, but I think it is time for me to move on. Nothing against any of you, I simply realized that I am unhealthily addicted to the internet, especially when it comes to forums, Digg, etc. People have mentioned that I'm more disconnected from real life relationships than ever and I agree. I can't remember the last time I just hung out at a friend's house, went out to dinner with some friends, or did something social not on a Friday night. It's at the point where I can only count the number of real friends I have left on two hands without starting over. In addition to that, my "dream job" is more of a dead-end small business thing. I need to reallocate a large chunk of my free time (if not all of it) to advancing my career, whether it be job hunting, studying, or networking with the people around MSU. I'll stop in from time to time to say hey and drop some knowledge right on top of you, but my days as an active member are, quite frankly, at an end. Again, I can't stress this enough: It breaks my heart I have to say this, I wish I could spend hours and hours a day on PVCF. I need to make a change in my life, and this seems right.
Good luck, andrew. Advancing your career should be your #1 priority at your age. The voodoo of compound interest will have an exponential effect on your financial wealth later on. JUST DON'T GET SOME CHICK PREGNANT.
Best of luck, Andrew. I know exactly what you mean on both accounts and I don't even post on the forums I visit all that much. Anyhow I'm still going to frequent forums, but instead of spending hours circling between them waiting for new posts or something interesting my goal is to just read up and move on. Go out and do something with friends rather than on my own. You're lucky you still have enough real friends to count on two hands. I don't think I've ever had that many real friends at any point in my life! I'm just not the most social person most of the time I guess. As far as career goes I know it's very easy to be content with what you have if it pays well enough. Myself I need to find a job that is more in line with what I studied for. Good luck with that also. Hopefully you can control the addiction and still manage to post on here when you really do have nothing better to do.
Good luck Andrew, what you say seems pretty sensible indeed. Let us know how you get on. Have to say, I've been having some thoughts on the matter myself. I'll be around a good while yet but long term, I may have to do the same. Don't think it helps that in quite pissed off with a number of things at the moment. Makes you wonder about changing a few things. Hmmm. Hmmmm indeed.
All this talk of leaving needs to stop. Once you have entered this forum, you are now bound to it. Seriously though, I hope you don't leave you big bear.
I kind of figured this would happen. Oh well, it was a nice idea that didn't really work out. I guess this is here if people want to stop by occasionally but it's never going to be what it was on the old site.
You give up too easily, dood! This place is great and quite some achievement. It just needs time to develop and build itself up. Andrew's musings just reminded me of some other musings I had a while back. I'm not disappearing soon, I want to help get this thing going. Pah, I shouldn't be doing pep talks when I'm pissed off - it just isn't right I tells ya.
When you were in elementary school and other kids wanted to grow up to be astronauts, did you think you would end up a janitor?
You have expectations for this forum to have maximum members at this early stage, which in reality it will take some time to get back to what we like. We need to get more threads up so Google link them, and then we will work on the main site and that will attract members if we do a good job. be patient man, being negative for this place is not a good thing. All the great forums started small and now they have high activity.
I came to PVC the last 2-3 years for the regulars. Most of the "new" were spammers or trolls anyway. Admittedly, Andrew is a big loss as a regular.
I feel the same way. I came for the regulars. It's disheartening that so many are bailing, and hard for me not to feel like this project was a waste of time. Andrew leaving is an enormous loss to the forum, and I feel the same way about AKS.
Well said phisix. We have a good core to build on and plans to make things bigger. It'll take time but we just need to build momentum. I'm sure we can do recruitment drives once we get things sorted too. Lots of possibilities and opportunities to come. I'm happy to contribute where I can and if we need cash, I'll chip in. I think cmdrmonkey is just a soft hearted bastard under that shit stained gimp mask.
You're definitely giving up too soon. How old is this forum, about 2 days old? Its not even fully dressed! You've got 20+ members who'll be supporting you. And the main site is yet to be set up. The best forums I've been on are the ones where there are relationships between posters. Makes it a more friendly and interesting place and I think people will see that once they start visiting. And we've got that in spades! Possibly buckets. So don't give up yet. If it's been a year and you've still only got 20 odd members, then that's the time to be depressed.
He just want's this place to be active and popular, same as me and everyone, but it will take time. If PVC got so many members for gaming and spec news, then our reviews should bring in more. If we can hit a balance with reviews, gaming and electronics etc news, and maybe even things like walkthroughs, we will have enough content and reason to bring in new members. We just need to work hard on the main website and in time we should gradually get some members. On my forum I had two random members who turned out to be really great and informative members, and I did not even have much content up. As I am now known as The Last word, here is my last word on the subject. Rome was not built in a day.
I just reported you. Also, now we have the forum clean, a bit active and the way we like it, we need to get a thread up for full time writers, workers for the website and contributors to start discussion and even starting work for the main site. The more we get done, the more content we have, which in turn we can open up earlier. Agreed?