Changes coming...final update

I haven't talked about this for a while, and my projected 2013 deadline for moving the site has passed, so I guess that I need to let you all know what is going on. For those who haven't read the previous threads on this topic:

http://gladesgodeep.ning.com/forum/topics/changes-coming-part-1
http://gladesgodeep.ning.com/forum/topics/changes-coming-part-2

There were several reasons why I wanted to leave the Ning service, but the big driver was the membership limitation (150 members) which would cost an additional $180/year to expand to unlimited membership. I'm still not willing to do that - we just don't get enough traffic to justify the cost, and I don't want to have to run a fund-raiser every year just to allow an unlimited number of members to join, most of who would not add any value to the group.

When we first began to run up against the membership limit it really bothered me to have to remove inactive members to make room for new ones. However, the fact is that at any given time we don't have more than a couple dozen active contributors posting to the group. The vast majority of our members don't contribute at all, or they post one or two questions or remarks and then go silent. I have no advertisers to impress with membership numbers, and I'd much rather have a strong core group of a few members who care about sharing knowledge than a huge roster of silent names, so it no longer bothers me to remove these silent members from the roster, and I doubt that very many of them notice it when I do.

That being said, please understand that I mean no disrespect to those who have joined but don't participate, or that I actually enjoy deleting members from the group. Nothing would make me happier than to see everybody who joins become an active participant. If you are one of the silent ones, please feel free to introduce yourself, ask your questions, and share your knowledge!

So, it looks like we'll be staying at gladesgodeep.ning.com for the foreseeable future. If the EEN should grow in popularity so that we have full roster of active contributors, then I will either expand the membership or move the site, but I don't see this happening any time soon, if at all.

As always your questions and comments are welcome!

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Permalink Reply by Jay on April 30, 2013 at 9:57pm

Keith - Thanks for the update. As a webmaster for for two not-for-profit sites - I know the work that is involved and I for one appreciate your work to keep this site up.