Search the Community

Copied from chat. Is he right? Wrong? Delusional? Admin forums will always be around, always have an allure to us types that have dreams of having great social communities of our favorite subjects. Unfortunately, the new age of internet users aren't looking for this type of social experience. They want a place where you log into a site with your phone number. They want instant gratification. They don't want to have to wait for an email to be verified. They don't want to have be be suspected of spam with every new post they make, if they can even found out how to create a "post", or even sign in. They will choose shiny things over quality content. Everybody knows this, I don't think anybody has an answer. It's nobody's fault and everybody's fault. Forums are what blogs started to become 10 years ago. We just wait until the big asteroid hits and wipes us all out. lol (Oldest chats are on the bottom) ---------------- SneakyDave: The Tao of sheldon has spoken, lol 17 minutes ago Sandyman: hey @Sheldon what's the largest community you've ever built, just curious. Today at 9:25 PM Sheldon: I wouldn't want anyone's site hindered due to my name being in any staff list. Today at 7:24 PM Sheldon: .... and even then, I'd lean towards doubtful. Today at 7:23 PM Sheldon: @Paul , appreciate it, but I'll only even consider work on Flarum or XF.... it's s comfort thing. Today at 7:19 PM tracy perry: Bid's haven't closed yet.. @Sandyman, but I did get some 5 Vegas Triple A's in... they are a "knock you on your ass" strength. Today at 7:15 PM Sheldon: Then I got blasted for selling. Hahahhahah. Fuck you too. Lololl Today at 7:13 PM Sheldon: It's not a waste. I've already proven to myself what I can do. I made and sold everything I created personally from bottom up. Those that purchased, couldn't carry out what I wad doing... either their time or desire in the way. Today at 7:13 PM Dakota: Sheldon, you've obviously got ideas, and good ones. It's a shame to waste them, no? Today at 7:11 PM Sheldon: People might join.... then the "clique" would appear. I certainly don't feel the need to call them out on their lies and bullshit daily. Today at 7:11 PM Sheldon: I'm an asshole. No one will join anything my name is attached to. I don't know that I have the time, much less desire. Today at 7:10 PM Dakota: Just come join the club and show us all how it's done, Sheldon ;) Today at 7:09 PM Paul: You wanna be admin on Admin-Hub @Sheldon ? Today at 7:08 PM Sheldon: Sorry for the rant @SneakyDave , didn't expect to go that long. Hah. You can copt that into a thread for discussion of you'd like. Too hard on my phone. Today at 7:05 PM Sheldon: You old school admins need to wake up. You're driving the wedge between forums and new users with your archaic bullshit. Get over yourselves. Your not fucking gods because you have a fucking domain and a fucking database. Get passed that, you might start seeing a change. Today at 7:04 PM Sheldon: I love BASH. I'll be here until it folds, or @SneakyDave no longer owns it. Here, I can say what I want or post what I want (sans ignorant shit like family members, child porn, etc...) I don't care who reads what I say, as I still know I can voice my opinion. Today at 7:02 PM Sheldon: Open and closing threads on a whim? Denying links to certain sites? Fuck that. Eat my censored dick. Today at 7:01 PM Sheldon: "Moderating", 2000ish. No one wants to have someone looking over their shoulder when they post. Fuck you and your locked topic because it's "off-topic" in the fucking off topic section. Today at 7:00 PM Sheldon: They will continue to die until you do something to snap out of your current bullshit antics. Today at 6:59 PM Sheldon: This isn't 2000 dipshits. Your big board means two dicks right about now. Should have sold when you had the chance. Today at 6:58 PM Sheldon: Forums are dying, and these old-school forum admins are driving that. Today at 6:58 PM Sheldon: Need all this info.... hah. Facebook has a billion more users, yet the majority of fucksticks running forums want more info to register. Lolol. Okay. Today at 6:57 PM Sheldon: All these "demands" upon registration? Eat a dick. Not happening. They spend more than 20 seconds for that shit, it's done. They will leave. Today at 6:56 PM Sheldon: Not 300 fucking categories for you to browse through. No one has time for that bullshit. Today at 6:55 PM Sheldon: People want to get in, get out. The demand is to see what's going on in threads first. Today at 6:55 PM Sheldon: The days of 100 forums, 50 subforums is over. Today at 6:54 PM Sheldon: Ease of use is #1 priority. Today at 6:54 PM Sheldon: You simply cannot stay a site of you aren't willing to put in zero time or effort. Today at 6:54 PM Sheldon: Or, you could say "Fuck It", roll out drastic shit, huge ideas, spend your time on your site, be vocal, mix up what everyone thinks works (cause it doesn't)... and go at it. Why open any site if you aren't fully 100% in it. Today at 6:52 PM Sheldon: Could do like Admin-Hub... slow and steady, trying to follow the traditional layout and look of TAZ.... Today at 6:51 PM Sheldon: Could do like AdminsZone.... just hope people post, even though for some reason @Cloaked won't go at it 100% Today at 6:51 PM Sheldon: Could do life TAC, throw as much random shit together as fast as possible.... Today at 6:50 PM Sheldon: One Admin is notorious for that.... eh, Lee /Lisa/ whatever the piss you go by? Today at 6:50 PM Sheldon: You can follow TAZ lead, start something, get to 60%, stop, and hope no one notices.... Today at 6:49 PM Sheldon: You'll continue to lose to social media. Facebook, reddit, Twitter.... not necessarily in that order. Today at 6:48 PM Sheldon: You'll never get excitement, nor the "new" users with the same old same. Today at 6:47 PM Sheldon: More proof you say? Ok, Morganna goes to each one, they all die. Today at 6:46 PM Sheldon: Need proof? Look at the Admin sites. They are duplicates of each other. Same setup, same structure, etc. Today at 6:46 PM Sheldon: Why isn't anyone willing to take chances? The same shit over and over is stale. Today at 6:45 PM Sheldon: I know, for fact, I could come up with something a bit better for an admin forum. Today at 6:42 PM Sheldon: The entire concept is unoriginal. Today at 6:42 PM SneakyDave: Does seem like a lot of duplicate topics. Today at 6:40 PM Sheldon: I'd be ashamed. Today at 6:06 PM Sheldon: Is creativity that dead? Holy shit. Today at 6:06 PM Sheldon: "TAC: Where Creativity Oozes"

There have been a few new admin forums spring up lately, all with their own goals and ideas on what they plan to provide their members. Some of the forum administrators are registered here, so if any would like to plug their site in this thread, and provide a little bit of information about it, please do so.

Ok, so "trustworthiness" is a vague term. What I'm ranking the following individuals and forums on are: 1) Can I trust the admin with my email and IP information 2) Can I trust that moderation on the forum will be fair? 3) Can I trust that the forum will be around more than 2 years? A lot of forums are around, and this obviously isn't a complete list, so I'm just adding ones that the small group of membership will be familiar with. Feel free to add any I forgot. I'll provide my ranks and opinions on 5 of them. 1) XenForo.com. XF forums have a love-hate relationship with a lot of their members. They either love the moderation style, or hate it. I think it's been pretty fair overall, and I certainly believe the administrators would do all they can to protect customer data. They run a tight ship and don't allow drama. I haven't seen too many cases of moderation getting out of hand, without an explanation on what is, and is not, acceptable. 2) admin-hub.com and vulpea.com. "Paul's forums" are pretty new to this list, and I don't have much of an opinion on either of them. admin-hub.com is obviously a "pro" forum as Vice would call it, so I think management there would make sure to take steps to keep member emails and IP addresses corrected. They both use SSL so that obviously helps secure things a little bit better. My only gripe is that I don't know who moderates the site. If it's just Paul, that makes things easier, and more consistent. I don't agree with Paul's choice of one of his moderators, but that's the only knock I have. Full disclosure, I think I'm banned at admin-hub.com. 2) www.admin-talk.com - I don't even know who owns this site anymore, but it appears to be slowly fading away. I can't even comment about moderation, because I haven't seen it lately, but I think it had favorable reviews in the past. The only knock on it is that I don't know anything about the owners, or their plans with the site. 3) theadminzone.com. The Admin Zone has been the target of a couple of hacks lately, but the biggest threats are the inconsistent moderation, and going overboard on staff and administrator positions. The administrator won't allow disparaging comments about forum software companies if support personnel participate on his site. Full disclosure, I'm banned at this forum. 4) vBulletin.com. The official vBulletin site seems to get hacked more often lately, and little to no explanation is usually given as to how the hack happens, or how much customer information, if any, is stolen. Complaints aren't allowed on the forum, and are consistently removed, not moved, without explanations. 5) General-Discussion.com. Gary has a history of just wiping out his forum for little to no reason over a period of years. Lately, he's posted IP address information of one of his members, and has a strange method of banning and unbanning members for no particular reason. Full disclosure, I'm banned at this forum.