Look alive kids, look ALIVE

And that's my feedback! The forums are dead!

*activity*

Yep.

I've tried for the last few months but it just kept going down and down. Not even the actual staff seem interested. There are even semi-recent staff topics which didn't get any feedback, and nothing sucks the life out of running _anything_ than when the staff themselves couldn't give a damn.

Sucks to think of it, especially when this site had a very good few years. It's actually annoying to read some posts about how tight-knit we are, yet (without mentioning names), messaging some people on Facebook went ignored. That wasn't even with a mention of the site, just a general "how's things, not heard from you in a while".

The most ironic thing though, is the activity faded out gradually WHEN development actually picked up after that huge hiatus. I don't think there's anything necessarily to that, just a coincidence, or bad timing.

On my part, i've been holding back from making a few topics very recently because i'm tired of posting something and it going utterly ignored despite people still actually visiting the site. I also don't like seeing a huge column of "Diagmato" in every category.

I'm certainly not one to stop people doing what's best for themselves, but if you are going to 'move on', i'd rather know, and I wouldn't get in a huff about it. All I get the impression of recently is people saying what they think I want to hear. At least then I can put every ounce of effort into two other sites i'm involved in - one which seems to be doing surprisingly well despite it blatantly not being updated since last October, the other as part of a team i'm moving to London to be with in a few days (which was going to be a topic in it's own right). Long story short - I am happy to work on this site if people genuinely want it to be here.

Regarding development - one person actually came out and said he "will never use the blog system - doubtfully anyone will. There are too many constantly developed sites out there for that". That was more helpful than "wow, i'd so use that new system, good job!" - and then nothing (this is just an example, not specific to anyone). The result now, which should have been BEFORE the blog system had anything done to it, was the much quicker goal of just mirroring other blogs, whether the content showed on this site or not. That would have taken a weekend - not trying to fit a huge overhaul into how long it has taken. Also the idea is that the article system should have been THE biggest priority because it's the content of the site people elsewhere actually used. Thinking about it now, that should have been common sense, but acting on the extremely limited feedback I did have, it was pushed back. In short, if you aren't going to use it, don't sit there telling me how exciting it will be, because it takes a HUGE amount of time and effort just to find out no one actually did want it - think about it. If you spent ages building a tree house for someone who said how cool it would be, then when it was done, they ignored the fact it ever existed, you would flip.

I've said this a few times recently, but I would rather BAD news than NO news. At least with the bad news, I know WHERE I stand with things. With NO news, I can only guess, and sometimes very wrongly. It seems, silence makes me paranoid in an angry way (which seems to be a trait developed this year).

(on an interesting note, almost every forum I used to go on has died or closed, or close to it. Hopefully Social networking didn't kill the forum concept because they are both good for different reasons).

It's been one of those booms for a while, that we have ever and anon, and now we're back to silent again. It's annoying, but i don't really know why it happens.

I dunno. I would, like i've allways said, hate to see the forum dissapear when there's still something left of it, because it's been around for bloody ages. Somehow though, it seems to dissapear though it's still online. I would love to see that b0ps meetup happen, maybe not in its biggest grandure, but at least with some of the classic b0ps-people

About the blogs planet system, actually i thought that was what you were making all along :S Maybe that was just me not paying attention, but i think i asked for a planet feuture long ago. And now that it's here, it's gone so much time so that now i don't blog anymore.

BUT, saying that, like i've said before, the forums to me is the whole point of b0ps, the rest just is there, maybe llike something that others maybe would like to use, kind of. It's the forums i'm around for all these years for, i still check them every day, they still have a bloom and then a gloom...

Aye - regarding the meetup, that was part of the annoyance. On one hand loads of people seemed interested, now there's just a couple of us showing any interest in there atm. Although that could be a number of reasons - perhaps even all that's been said before still stands, or until something more than talking about it happens, then it would be more successful.

With the blogs - the planet system is there, but I spent a while making the ability to create blogs actually local to the site. Without that, the system would have been finished by now. All that's really left of that section is mirror blogs (which is pretty much the major feature of that section, heh).

The last time we had a downspike this bad was summer 2005, where it went from the typical number of people, to nothing overnight, which lasted about 2 or 3 weeks. It picked up and then some afterwards, and then new people joined - briefly. Then something happened which drove them away.

But yeah - regarding silence - I never know whether to take it as a good or bad thing when there's something to be decided. It could either be silence because someone agrees and can't add to it, or silence because "bugger that". Writing that out, it seems more likely to be the former, but it's still only my guess. Or instead of "people saying what they think I want to hear" is actually people saying it because they think it's right, but personally they wouldn't use it.

I guess that it's worse now that this topic is in feedback and the first thing people see when they log in is us discussing how silent the place is That's really the last nail in the coffin, ain't it? Preveously this kind of talk has been in the private areas.

You know, this site ain't gonna be something with 10 active topics every day, it hasn't been so for ages. But when there's something to tell, it's nice if people pop back and tell it, and check in ever and anon to see if there is something new. I guess in practise, that's how the site's been used the last ages, appart from the peaks now and then

Aye.

I haven't even checked on the site in a long while. I spent a lot of time earlier this year trying to get _some_ input from anyone - a couple did, but other than that, nothing. Then weeks went by with nothing, I moved, and actually forced myself not to visit. Eventually I more or less forgot the site was even here. To put icing on the cake, and the cherry on top, I actually went to download a backup of the site to finally pull the plug, without any warning, back on the 1st August. What stopped me was that I'd end up keeping the hosting anyhow, and don't need the extra space atm, so taking it down just wouldn't be a win situation anywhere.

I do have news, at least to say what's happened the last month or two, probably better for the relevant topic but it's partly responsible to here. I've been working insane hours on the company's project. The spec I was given was nothing compared to the full one. The deadline of 2 months is an absolute joke for what's now the feature set, especially for one person. I'm not allowed to reveal anything, but there are some very ambitious and challenging concepts. I'm not saying any of this is a bad thing - it's let me get on with what I want to do in life, and write code, only this time in an environment built for developers - not office drones who see developers are simple office workers who write something for a client and never see it again. In general it's all good news.

I didn't come wading in and post about it because the last update went completely ignored. That FAST gets boring.

With work and the leisure balance, there is no way I can fit working on black0ps in. and frankly, if it's going to go ignored, then I would personally rather work on the company project which has a team who are excited about it every day. It would also be a spit in the face to spend some hours focusing on my own site when the focus could have been spent on the project, especially when the deadline is severely overrun.

I guess I know what a few people really think about the past when I either go ignored on a facebook pm, or the response is "yeah, i'll try and go on black0ps" - without me even mentioning the site. Other than that, a few people I spoke to on msn would reply about three times, then go offline, or set to away without even a "sorry gtg". The actual replies they would do were very "heh, lets say something to appear as if i'm bothered". Again, nothing about the site, nothing even bad - a general how's life? The tight-knit isn't here anymore, and I just can't be bothered sending life updates to an empty cupboard.

If the "new focus" for the content is to write articles, then i'm cut short again. I don't really have the time to write a good article about anything anymore. If I did, then it would be on my personal blog.

In my book, the site doesn't need to be here anymore. In fact, even writing this has brought back bad feelings which had gone for a good month since I had been away. It's a stark contrast to a couple months ago, but getting out of my parents house and seeing the world, and meeting people "irl" who give a crap, really made me realise how poor it was trying to clutch straws. I can't blame anyone for actually leaving.

Ok, a change of mood.

I won't retract what I said previously, but since the last post I had a night out with the colleages and mentioned spending time on my own sites. The answer was "why not?"

I can't give a solid date as the project load is really booked up, but perhaps we can work something out. When we eventually get more developers, I _might_ be able to pull in the teams resources and really bash something out in a controlled environment. At least for the foreseeable future, I won't have plans to just pull the plug - horrible to say that rather openly in the first place, but given the state of things over the recent past, I couldn't really sit here and say "ah things will be fine" etc.

Earlier the site served as a way for an old friend to contact me too. If one things remained a constant for the last 6 years, it's that this site has been here for a blast from the past kinda. There are a lot of people I would hate to lose contact with - it's nice to hear from people even if we haven't heard from them since god knows when.

All I can literally say is, after getting such a vast change of scenery, I can't blame anyone for the old "life taking priority", especially if it's not that individuals interest to create websites.

I didn't know what to reply to your skyride topic, much like you probably didn't know what to reply to my summercamp topic, but it was nice and interesting to read anyways, don't feel like a hole, it's interesting to keep up with your life and stuff.

Meh. I dunno. Like allways, i don't see the point of deleting it, and usually it's used again ever and anon. Don't take it like a gigantic thing though, don't depend your social life on it, it's just somwhere it's nice to put some stuff and occationally get some talks about something and comments on my life and updates on others'..

To be honest, I really only come here to chat to you guys, I don't use any of the "features" on the site.

Plus, the reason this site is so dead is probably the same as mine - it doesn't really have a specific purpose. I think it was made for Steam games or something (hence name), that's all I was aware of, but judging by the forum index it certainly doesn't give off that kind of impression.

The biggest forums/communities I can think of that I regularly go to - SABRE, TT-Forums, Sonic Retro, and the Minecraft forums, are all popular because they have a specific subject to talk about. On a general forum nobody really has much to say, do they?

ironically enough this is my 404th post

404th under your new user, that is. You actually have some thousands more, don't you?