And then...they kind off slid.
I woke up at 7am, went for a good 3-mile walk, and got a scone for breakfast.
Came home, got dressed and ate the scone, and opened all the drapes to let in some light. (Kept the blinds closed for insulation - but it wasn’t so bitterly cold that I felt I needed every layer of thermal blocking I could get.) Last night I had written down some ideas for an alternate name and domain for my project, and this morning I got online and found one of those domains’ .com version to be available. I also visited an industry forum, got in my “reservations” for their upcoming showcase (hopefully that will drive me some clients), and all was going well…
...and then another forum, one that I visit and enjoy largely for the community, took another step towards implosion.
It’s a forum that started as a “fan site” of a certain brand of makeup (Brand X, for convenience’s sake). This forum has a pretty good moderation team, some lively contests, lots of activity, and lots of news about the products - both old products and upcoming releases. There’s minimal overt cliquishness, not a whole lot of backbiting or bear-baiting that’s tolerated, and people are very supportive. Since its adoption by Brand X’s company as a “semi-official” site, there’s been even closer communication, and users have been able to send more direct feedback - positive and negative - to corporate. However, recently, Brand X hasn’t put out much that’s particularly amazing. There’s been some overlap, some duplication, and many items that are too similar to previously-offered items. Another brand, which has some competing and some complimentary products, has launched several new things this month. Lots of people on the forum are talking about this other company’s products. Apparently, this has some noses out of joint. The moderation team announced a clampdown on threads about Brand Y. People got upset, felt betrayed, asked why policy was being reversed (lots of history - there was a forum created specifically for non-Brand X discussions, and now even that’s being curtailed), and wondered if they could pay to offset costs if they could then be allowed to have their non-Brand X discussions. Everyone was hurt and angry. There were some reactionary postings.
I had been thinking of starting my own makeup blog (because, yes, Virginia, I need another blog), and I decided to throw out the idea of having these non-Brand X discussions move to a new forum that I would host. I got the domain, set up the forum, and sent around private messages to the most outraged participants of this particular thread. This forum won’t have any of the “community” aspects that the main forum does, like the off-topic discussion areas, the contests and games, the updates about all new items. I’ve also instituted a policy that if someone’s topic is 50% related to Brand X, that they start the thread back at Forum 1. Hopefully this will keep the main body of the community intact, provide a “pressure release” for non-Brand X posts, and keep things from imploding utterly. If the forum ends up not being used, I can always just take it down.
Now we’ll just have to see how everything shakes out.
I actually think that this latest furor will die out, and people’s interest in Brand X will resume when new and unique offerings are made available. The repeats and dearth of new toys to play with is what makes the discussions about Brand Y [And Brands A-X, come to think of it] stand out all the more.
