So I was working on looking through old sites I played on that had went dead, and started thinking about the admin, "If this was how they were going to let it end, why did they want to do it in the first place?". The reason I was looking through the old sites is because I've wanted to start my own site for a while now. I want the experience of running one, and it seems like a fun thing to do to me. I figure, with the way I've seen boards progress, that the reason you start it plays a big role in how it ends. So, I want to know why you started a board, and if it has come to it's time, or not, what effect that first choice made.
I love creating. It's one of those weird idiosyncratic quirks that define who I am. Whether it's a website or a piece of digital art, a turbine or pump, putting together a desk or writing a book, I'm at my happiest when I'm able to create something. Even cooking and baking fills me with much joy. Random aside, I hate demolition. Destroying stuff makes me very unhappy. Whenever I work around the house, I usually allow other people to wield the sledgehammers; I'm more than willing to clean up and build afterwards. My enjoyment in creating things can be hard because I feel that sustaining something isn't always part of the creation process. I have to be very careful not to undertake and manage too many projects, otherwise I'll find myself unable to dedicate enough time to support my prior ones. I tend to take my obligations very seriously, so I'll work myself ragged trying to maintain everything at once. It's also why I probably like serving in a moderate support role and helping others. I get to partake of the creation progress and I get to feel like I'm contributing, but I'm free to back off afterwards and proceed to the next project.
I start boards because the world I want to play in doesn't exist. It's just that simple. At the same time, though, I understand that life happens and I sit on board ideas for a long time to let them stew in my mind to decide if this is a passing phase or if it's really something I'm going to dedicate myself to. The first board I had to create I did end up walking away from, but I left the keys to it in the hands of people who were still interested. It's been almost a year since I left and the place is still thriving. That's awesome.
A mixture of boredom, having lots of free time and needing RP hunger satisfied, the lack of existence of sites that fit what I want out of an RP site, and probably a little bit of being a control freak. I'm sure that has to be a part of it somehow. Usually I get real pumped up about making a board after seeing a new movie, reading a new book, watching a new series, etc etc. and my creative juices get flowing and I just want to do SOMETHING with the fandom. Since I can't draw to save my life, rping does it for me ^_^.
I have several reasions that I started my own forum... On the forum before I was only a global mod and the admins had vanished. Given that I was only a mod, there were certain things I couldn't do that were necessary for sustaining a site. Sure I could ban misbehaving members, but if we were getting flooded by spambots/fake accounts? Nothing I could do. If we wanted/needed a new section on the forum? Couldn't do that either. I didn't want to let the community die entirely, I mean we were friends that had grown close over a period of years. So instead of just succumbing to imminent death, I created a new forum where I could do everything necessary. In doing this I also gained significantly more features thanks to the new host I chose. (I don't regret choosing that host at all. If anything my only regret is not making the new site sooner.) I wanted to create a different type of site than the previous one. One that would reflect the changing tastes of our members and better suit us to grow in the future. (Plus prevent us from being chained to a certain, fairly narrow, topic/theme.) Thus giving us more adaptability and longevity. I wanted a site with more freedom, where I could set the rules and could decide how best to serve the community. And I wanted a site just to kick back and relax with everyone. As for my site? It's been going for 2 years now and keeps growing. I have no plans to close it down... My only plans so far are for expansion and improvement. What will the future bring though? Hard to say. A lot can change on the spur of the moment. But so long as I can run the site, I will.
Because I hate just being a member. When I'm a member somewhere, I nitpick everything to myself and I'm constantly unhappy with the site. When I'm just a staff member somewhere, I get irritated with my opinion having little pull. That, and I never can fully trust in the abilities of others to make a site run for a long time, but I'm confident in my abilities to do so. This is why I pretty much always make my own boards instead of just joining an existing ones. Yes, I am kind of a control freak, but eh. I live with it.
Thanks for the answers everyone. Keep them flowing, and if there are any that have a site where it DID end, please mention it and why you think it happened.
I've made plenty of sites. I do the real-life genre; nothing fantasy, nothing based off of a book or movie universe. So, when I want to make a boards, it's for one of the following reasons (or a mixture): Boredom. I can't seem to join boards anymore; I'm accustomed to being an admin, and nothing is exactly as I want it on someone else's board. So if I can't find it, have a hankering to RP, then I'll make something up with a friend. Wanting to bring back a fantastic plot with a close friend. Or just wanting to RP with someone again, to have that experience again. A burst of creativity mixed with exorbitant amounts of free time. Typically, if I do it just because I'm bored, it doesn't get much of anywhere. The mood is over before I can even finish making the site, in most instances. Or I'll forget that the person I chose to ran the board with doesn't do much with the start up, and I get overwhelmed. When my sites close, it's normally because I don't have the time to keep it running, or the interest doesn't seem to be there. I don't exactly have the patience to wait it out and see if people join when I'm losing interest myself. After initial start up, sites can run their course. Maybe the other admins, or even veteran and important members, have to leave. That can definitely be a wounding blow. I love creating sites. I love watching them grow, and I love the excitement whenever a guest is lurking on your brand new board. It's great, and sometimes I just miss that feeling.
If I have free time (the utmost important thing!), sure, I'll make a board- if I also have a good, solid idea! That said, I do make private RPs 'on a whim' with two friends, because we all understand each other's needs/schedules/whathaveyou, so there's no problem if we have to pause, etc. It's no big deal. It would be, if we did this in public, with strangers. XD
I suffer from a syndrome with boards (some others might have the same-time thing) where I'll want to make a board, I jump right into it....but after a few days, I realize it was a 'spur of the moment' type deal, and I'll drop it mid-construction, or never get around to opening it. The oldest site I currently run is my Xmen site. I LOVE it to tears. I started it because I was Xmen-site searching about 3 months ago (when my site first opened) and I just couldn't find any other site that quite fitted my interests/needs for characters, so I decided to make my own. Same deal with my fresh, brand new HP site. I love the HP book/movie whenever umbridge takes over the school. I went looking for a little bit, couldn't find an umbridge-era HP site, so I decided to make my own ^_^
Why I started a board? Because I had a story to tell, and because the previous board, on which I had been a moderator, had been closed by the administrators, despite my efforts of not letting it die. And, once started, I want to prove that I can do it, that a site can last, if the administrators do care and remain involved. Well, almost two years later, I have proved something... but in order to prove everything I wanted to, I'd need at least one more year What would I consider that it has come to its time? As long as we are at least two people writing on it, it will not be closed. If I find myself unable to run it anymore some time in the future and there is still interest, I'll pass it along to those still interested. Why some boards I staffed or I was a member of closed? For several cases, the administrators didn't care anymore. They got new interests and this was it. For two cases, the sites hadn't taken off from the start, and keeping in 2-3 was disheartening for the administrator.
I created my site mostly due to boredom, but with a hint of one of my close friends asking me to make them one because they couldnt find any good rp sites
My reasons are a mix of Lily, Virus and Metaphorical's reasons. The world doesn't exist, I don't like being a member, and I want the board my way. Like Lily, I tend to let a board sit and cook for some time before I open it up.
I installed software. Okay, that may be oversimplifying it, but that was what got it started this time round. I then had to see how a game would run on the software and we reached back into our rolepaying past and dug up some ideas we'd been toying with previously. I don't necessarily want to 'admin' a game. Or create a game. I just want to run the software, and write.
I decided to start my own board because I'm a control freak XD Honestly, I am - there were too many little things on other boards that I disliked. I'd find myself going 'these rules/guidelines are great but I'm not interested in the setting' or 'this setting is awesome but the rules are too restrictive' or I wouldn't like the board's atmosphere or there weren't any characters I was interested in ... I'm just too picky. So I decided to just do my own thing instead of whining about how nothing fit me. I'd thought about it off and on for a while, even when I was happy on another board, because the particular scifi 'verse has been stewing in my head for years and I'm very attached to it and I love playing in it myself. I started out just poking around with invisionfree's software (because I'd only used smf before), half-heartedly doing writeups for races and stuff, but I really committed to it when a friend of mine said she was interested in it. So a big part of why I actually did do it was so I could play with her, hahah. We've fallen into a slump now and I suppose if you were lurking on my site you'd probably wonder why I bothered in the first place, but I don't see it as dead. It's inactive, sure, but the 'verse is still alive in my head and once I feel better I'll kick it back into action :3
My board [soon to be 2 boards] came about because I could not find exactly what I wanted somewhere else. There were others in the same line as mine, but I did not really agree with how the staff were running things. I come from a business background and felt that there needed to be more accountability of staff to members and more responsibility and delegation than what I saw going on. The site needed to be fun for everyone, not just a select few who happened to have an inside with staff members. This led me to create a site with 3 others in... 2006, I believe it was. Due to real life commitments and the person hosting the site growing bored and control-freakish with everyone [all staff got booted aside from her], the site was shut down. None of us who loved it had the ability to bring it back at that point and we all went our separate ways. Had it not been for a site owner who got bored and frustrated when people protested cliques that were forming, I believe it would have lasted a lot longer. As I found myself in a position to re-open the site, I did so earlier this year. It's been quite popular, and I took what lessons were learned the first time through and made sure to apply them to the site. I know that I'm dedicated and will not go anywhere, and as long as I'm there and willing the site will also be there. The secondary site that I'm only now getting the finishing touches done on [I sat on it for a while before opting to make it, just to be sure I was serious with it] was created because I hadn't seen exactly what I was looking for in a superheroes game... Either the character [or power type] I liked was taken, or the admins were similar in behavior to those I'd run across with my other site... and I had no desire to subject myself to that. As an aside - I find that I do better in my own environment, where I can thrive and tweak things as I need to [or the members ask me to].
The board I'm about to open came to me kinda from nowhere actually. It was more of an idea that suddenly exploded into more ideas. I kept thinking about it all the time and building up on it until I decided that I HAD to make it an RP. I couldn't stop that momentum I had going.
Well, I guess I was looking around for some new RPs to get involved in and I actually found one that I was really interested but it was completely dead. At that point I decided that I was frustrated and tired of looking for an interesting place to RP and decided I would simply make my own. Of course, now that I have my board to the point where I am able to start allowing in members it is proving to be more difficult than I thought to get them, ha ha.
Sanctuary: I made this site because I love the show and the characters and had the time. I was interested in what happened with the characters when the show wasn't running. I wanted to see the WHOLE world around the tv series rather than one single crew within it. That love and passion drove me to open it and then honestly my members drive me to keep it alive. I love my staff and my members like a family there. Saying goodbye to them would suck. Sanctuary did die down however when I got busy in real life and then I came back and put full steam ahead into it again. (Plus I have to do a full face lift because of how the tv series ended so there was all of that which made me fade off because the change was intimidating but now totally worth it.) A lot of my other sites I have started because again I just HAD to tell a story and I wanted to tell it with others and share it. A lot of my sites die down because no one rp's on them or we just don't get many members because it was more a plot I loved and no one else was interested in. A few of my sites I have deleted because there was no draw and no reason to come back to an empty or inactive site every day and wish. I think one of the only sites I refuse to let die is Sanctuary because again I feel that place is my baby and I have had it for a while now and love the stories happening too much to end them.
Its interesting how a lot of the reasonings here seem to be on the same frequency. In both instances where I have decided to open and run a site it has been from my personal desire to have a project to baby, a lack of being able to find what I am looking for elsewhere, and/or me not agreeing with the way things are being run on a site I am currently on. In other words, I arrogantly think I can do a better job it, lol. I strongly believe in the motto of "if you don't think something is being done right, then stop complaining and go do it yourself." The last time I came to that conclusion, my site ran for five years and only really died when college and my plans for my future became all encompassing and I couldn't find anyone willing to take over my responsibilities (wish I had known about RPG-D and its employment center back then! if it existed? haha). We'll see what happens this time around!
