Rich,
I have waited a few days to see if anyone would jump in to answer your question, but so far no responses. I would not be comfortable to hazard a guess on why other people have left this site. I wish I knew. But I will say that the only time I became uncomfortable with the site was a few years ago when we had a young guy and a young girl (don't remember their names) that were having problems with the first shop that you eventually took you Z to up in the panhandle. I know those people were young and probably did not interface well with the criticism that others on this site may have given, but I was not comfortable with the interaction (in both directions) on the posts that was describing their problems. The fact that it made me uncomfortable, just meant that I avoided those posts for a while, but it did not drive me from the site.
I also thought that Shadow (I don't know the guy and would not if I bumped into him) was a big contributor to this site. I don't understand, nor is it important to me, what caused the rift that took place where he left the site. But it seems to me that when Shadow left the site, the activity also seemed to go down. That is just a perception on my part.
Other than these couple items, again, I have no clue why the activity on this site has become so poor. But, I will say that the activity on most of the Vette sites that I frequent is not near what it used to be.
I hope this helps, even if it just spurs some conversation!
Rich
I guess that "young couple" you are referring to is Chris and Kelli Harwood. So that whole saga with then screwing me over made you uncomfortable? Perhaps others too? Interesting.... I supposed the experience I had with Aaron Scott had the same effect? So people here would prefer to just not read about such things at all? Is THAT the mistake I made? Not realizing that people only want to read "happy times" posts and things that only make them smile?
I guess my attitude has always been that the truth is the truth, no matter what. If the truth being made public harms someone, then so be it. It's not the airing of those truths that were the problem, it's the facts that those truths disclose that are the real issue. But perhaps "Corvette people", or maybe simply limited to "Corvette people in Florida" really would rather remain oblivious to such issues. I've always wondered why the Board of Inquiry forum here is a ghost town. With my own experiences, I was beginning to think I was the only one who ran into some bad apples in the business, since apparently no one else was suffering at the hands of people who appeared to do them wrong. On one of my other sites, the Board of Inquiry forum I have there is by far the most popular of the forums on the site. Is the relationship between customers and businesses who take advantage of them really that different between the reptile related business and Corvettes in Florida type affairs?
I guess that in itself would be an interesting topic to dissect.
But the truth is, I noticed things took a definite nose dive here when I was going through all that crap. Not really sure why, but maybe that does explain it somewhat. I thought perhaps people were just embarrassed at ME for being too darn hard headed to just throw in the towel and admit defeat, rather than detailing one disappointment and injury after another here. People just couldn't bear watching ME getting screwed over time and time again. Or perhaps that I was just too damned dumb and/or stubborn to cut my losses and quit.
:shrug01:
And as for Shadow, we just had too many disagreements and subsequent confrontations about how this site should be run. When it became apparent that he was going to start up his own site with the help of another member (which DID, in fact, happen), I decided he could no longer be a moderator here with that conflict of interest, and that made the attitude issue even worse. Yes, he did provide a lot of posts here, but I run several sites and have personally witnessed other sides get torpedoed QUICKLY by rogue moderators who cop an attitude about the admin/owner. I am not saying that Gordon would have done anything of that nature, but I'm sure the owners of such sites who had one or more moderators DELETE as many threads as they could before being stopped, thought the same thing. I just could not take that risk. So I did what I had to do.
But in retrospect, maybe he was correct and I was wrong. Certainly I can't say I know better than he did looking at the state of this site right now. But then again, his own site has died on the vine, so who knows? :shrug01: Maybe this idea of a Florida centered Corvette site was just a poor idea from the very start.
Oh well... When I first created this site, I was simply posting my own stuff for quite a while before anyone found this site. Maybe I'm just hoping for too much to think that people would be interested enough in my own interests to want to join me here and talk about such stuff. I had no misconceptions about this site ever being a money maker for me, and that certainly hasn't changed. So perhaps MY attitude needs to change and just not give a rip whether anyone else hangs here or not. I post things that interest me here, and if no one else has a similar interest, then so what? I'm retired, and fact of the matter is that I really don't HAVE to give a crap what anyone else thinks about what I do or think. So perhaps just treating this as my own personal blog with participation by others completely optional might be the best perspective I can take of it.
I happen to enjoy Corvettes, and I enjoy living in this state of Florida. I find this soothing to have a place to talk about such interests. Not sure what I was looking for anyway in thinking more people coming here and interacting with what I like would mean to me.
So screw it. Best thing is apparently that I just stop caring about it.
That way I can just stop worrying that I'm some kind of failure at running this site, hoping that it would be "successful". "Successful" in this context meaning that a lot of people participate here and enjoy being here. So apparently my expectations are just faulty and need revision.
Heck, I feel better already.......
