Now what? (Moved to Ramble)

[A Black Falcon]

In a very real way, OB1 has been the fuel that has kept Tendocity's fire burning for the past year or two. We've been bleeding badly here for a long time, people have been leaving and the people that are here have been posting less and less. Now, every single potential post maybe by OB1 is gone, which is likely a good 25% of the posts made. That's big, but it does deeper than that. Think on this for a moment: how many posts did OB1 generate INdirectly. A large portion of ABF's posts were arguements with OB1. Now those posts won't be forthcoming anymore. A large portion of MY posts have been in direct response to something OB1 posted. Now those posts won't be forthcoming.

Yes, this definitely is a problem... either we have to accept a big drop in posts, or find more members. And I don't like the former, and the latter... well, I don't know, how do we go about doing that? And getting them to actually STAY, and contribute...

OB1 is likely the single most important member to keeping TC alive aside from Ryan. Without him, there's going to be a lot of slack to take up and I just don't think there's enough interest from other members to do it. There's a real danger here that, maybe not in one week or two, but perhaps in four or five months, that TC could become a ghost town.

I would not go this far, however. A good half or two thirds of his posts are junk posts that only you reply to... the rest of us won't much mind those being gone. :) So no, not 'the most important person'. I wouldn't identify any one person as such. But a major forum member with a massive number of posts, yes.

You know, OB1 has left for weekends, or longer, many times. The post count goes down. But the forum doesn't suddenly completely die or something.

I'm not going to pass blame or judgement on anyone here, that would just be pointless, but I think we need to step back here and look at the future of our little forum. TC's on life-support right now and is fading fast, even quicker now than it has been for past year, so unless something happens soon...

Why am I not surprised that it's GR who defends OB1?

Sure, it's too bad he left, but with his temper, it was probably bound to happen eventually... and you've got to admit, the issue he chose to go out on is a pretty minor one.

Now, OB1 leaving is bad in many ways, yes, but I wouldn't call him the life blood of the place. He started arguments with ABF, yes, but considering no one really bothered reading them that doesn't really count for anything does it. I tend to have discussions with lots of people, it's just that for most people it doesn't trail on for pages on end. OB1 offered a lot of good things, but the countless pages of arguing was not a good thing, even indirectly.

It counts for something to me...