Hi,
This is LobsterMan. Let's get straight to the point:
I know I've been barely around here, and that many things in this site need fixing. I know the site is being repeatedly hacked.
We all started this site with all the best intensions in mind, but obviously not everything happened the way it should have.
Maintaining this site is more complex then one may imagine, and it's double tough when you have a full time job and a living to make. I've stuck around through many people giving up on this site, and save this site from totally falling apart technically a few months back. I pay the super expensive hosting fees for this site out of my pocket, while the site hasn't had any real income in the last 6 months or so.
I understand why many of you are upset at me personally, and unhappy about the way the site is running.
Bottom line, that is the situation, but I hope to be putting more time into this site in the near future. If there's anyone that has ideas or wants to get involved in any way, I'm always listening.
Anyways, thanks for listening, the stage is yours, bash ahead :)
Open Designs Forum » Site News
Open Letter to OD Members
(45 posts)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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How about selling it? Several members expressed interests.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Joe, I totally agree with you that things didn't happen the way we all wanted back in December 2006 when the site was started to present day, but IMHO this situation with the site and you coming and going on a seconds notice is really starting to be a broken record and a roller coaster that's not fun or exciting anymore.
Why is it that only at the 11th hour when people start talking about leaving the site or they actually do leave you pop up and attempt to do something?
LobsterMan said:
If there's anyone that has ideas or wants to get involved in any way, I'm always listening.
A lot of people expressed a lot of interest in wanting to get involved and help you and the site, both before and after I left as a site admin. People expressed these same thoughts once again when you came back into the picture many months ago. What ever happened to Ethan helping you as an admin? He seems to have run away too.
I personally know from being an original admin on OD with you that it does take a lot of work to manage the site and keep things running smoothly, so I understand where you are coming from, however I think all things considered, it would be in your best interest to either sell the site/domain or start to actually be involved out in the open with the site and let some members help you and give them some real access to do so.
Posted 1 year ago # -
LobsterMan said:
I hope to be putting more time into this site in the near future.
I'll believe it when it happens.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Joe...unfortunately, this letter is far too late & you've lost the trust of the members. Your word is no good anymore. If you hope to keep people here, start doing something & start accepting some real help ... TODAY.
I offered to take over the site, I also offered to help with some coding.....over 2 months ago
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm not worried about the trust of the members, I know what I put into the site, and I don't owe shit to anyone. If someone wants to leave the site, go ahead. I posted this message because I felt that I owed an explination. Take it or leave it, I can care less.
Personaly, I like the site, and want to keep investing into this site because I like this site. Some members have offered their help in fixing up this site, but I didn't even have time to review what is to be done and pass things on.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm not worried about the trust of the members.I know what I put into the site, and I don't owe shit to anyone.
What you have to realise Joe, is that if you dont have the trust of the members, then they leave and you dont have a site worth anything. You will have lost the community which makes this site what it was. Without that community, it becomes just A.N.Other free template site with nothing special about it to make it stand out. And you do owe the people who have been keeping this site going for you since you took it over in January/February because without them this site would be as dead as a Dodo.
I posted this message because I felt that I owed an explination.
Unfortunately, this explination was needed 6 months ago. you could easily have come on here posted a quick note just to let everyone know you had real life problems and situations to take care of before you could do anything here.If you had done that, then most would of understood. You managed to post other stuff so why didnt you manage to post this?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Wow. Today is the first time I've checked out OpenDesigns in well over a year and I see very little has changed.
I'm not in the habit of bashing anyone, but I do ask - why do so many people register and start websites like this one knowing full well that they are not going to be able to manage it once the newness wears off? I've seen this many times. Heck, I myself have registered a good 10 domain names over the last several years, each time with the full intention of doing something productive with them. Then, sometimes literally days later, I find myself shrugging and moving on to other interests.
Failure seems to be the one thing many people are most capable of succeeding at. :)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Wow indeed!
I'm not worried about the trust of the members, I know what I put into the site, and I don't owe shit to anyone. If someone wants to leave the site, go ahead. I posted this message because I felt that I owed an explination. Take it or leave it, I can care less.
Posted 2 years ago:
Welcome to this forum, a place for OWD members to talk while the OWD forum is down. And hopefully discuss the starting of a new fully comunity-based website. About a year ago, MonkeyMan left OSWD for this same reason, and now they seamed to have removed the forum in OWD. And now the same thing is happening to OWD. What we need is a community site not privately owned by anyone, and a larger number of admins. Please share your thoughts. Joe (LobsterMan)
This is my last post.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Joe....WOW
I understand that you must be frustrated by the crap being thrown at you right now, but that was just giving the finger to the members in your last post. What a shame.
Please remove me from being a moderator. I don't want to be part of this any longer & consider my offer of assistance to be withdrawn.
See the rest of you folks at GFWD.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I love tomw's post. Hope that one stays here for a long time in the failure and emptiness that was just invited.
Unfortunately it is time to let the site die just like many others
Posted 1 year ago # -
Joe, how dare you publicly say you don't give a shit about us? I can't believe it...That was very rude and you don't deserve to have the support of the community. As others have posted, without your members, you don't have a community, you have a shell of a site that will just gather dust now. Oh, wait...it already is!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Oh, wait...it already is!
Nice one!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hey guys, I just came back to check out the drama. I was planning on posting... but joe...
I'm not worried about the trust of the members, I know what I put into the site, and I don't owe shit to anyone. If someone wants to leave the site, go ahead. I posted this message because I felt that I owed an explination. Take it or leave it, I can care less.
Personaly, I like the site, and want to keep investing into this site because I like this site. Some members have offered their help in fixing up this site, but I didn't even have time to review what is to be done and pass things on.
LOL, inb4 RAGE!
but really, joe, i know it must be frustrating but i would rather have an admin that came back every so often because he cared about the community.. not one that doesn't give a shit. someone with that mindset doesn't deserve to be an authority of any establishment. anyway, have fun approving spam templates and filtering/notfiltering porn threads... whatever you are into. good day.Posted 1 year ago # -
Joe, how dare you publicly say you don't give a shit about us? I can't believe it...
I guess it is the smell of power ...
Posted 1 year ago # -
Well all those last posts in the forum and especially this last reply from the "keyMaster" himself must tell us that the site has been totally taken over by Russian hackers, then again maybe Joe is just telling us all to отвÑжиÑÑŒ! (F.... off) in his own words. Hum, I didn't know he wrote Russian....
До ÑÐ²Ð¸Ð´Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ Ð¸ Ñкатертью дорога
"Goodbye and good riddance"Posted 1 year ago # -
I have dealt with the spam, but more will come.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I for one apperciate what you have done Gnome. Sorry to see you go from here. At least we've deleted the russian spam links for now. Thanks.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^ what is that? Keymaster is not Joe, since the account has no power, but I don't know what it/he/she is talking about.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Wow...
I will admit, I left this community before it ever went south without a backwards glance. I've been following the page by checking in every once and a while, how sad...I remember what a great community this was. If it wasn't for way back in the day (OSWD for all you newbies) I would never have really pursued web design. I learned CSS simply by hacking through designs other members had posted. I continued refining my coding with great help from members like Sean R., and eventually ended up teaching a class my senior year of high school to other students, spreading my knowledge of design coding. Now I'm perusing a degree in web design and development, all because about eight years ago my friend pointed me in the direction of oswd.org.
This is getting pretty petty, almost depressing. This was a great thing, it's so sad to see it spoiled in such a way. This community literally set me on a life path that I couldn't be more happy about. I don't have time to code for fun right now, but I hope that changes in the very near future. And when it does, I really hope I have a respectful community to engage with again...
Posted 1 year ago # -
keyMaster, who the hell are you and why do you keep posting pointless messages?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Well Jason said he was leaving on 3rd December which is tomorrow. Once he's gone, this site will be a ghost town. Are there any other moderators "or should I say Spam Killers" still active. What a waste.....it's incredible
Posted 1 year ago # -
Whatever happened to the GFWD forum? I thought they were supposed to roll that thing out back in September or October. It's now December. Kinda disappointed in that aspect of things.
Posted 1 year ago # -
papab30 said:
Whatever happened to the GFWD forum? I thought they were supposed to roll that thing out back in September or October. It's now December. Kinda disappointed in that aspect of things.
Yes, it's still coming. We had some delays with personal/business things, but Aaron and I just talked and have finalized a few things, so be looking for the GFWD forum in the next couple of days. Thanks for your continued support and understanding.
Posted 1 year ago # -
PHP error reporting has been turned off and the search page returns blank. LMAO.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm just following up to my comment from earlier today that we are rolling out the GFWD forum in a few days. I'm just waiting to hear back from a couple of our prospective moderators, so keep an eye on our blog for more information.
Posted 1 year ago # -
* plam forehead *
Posted 1 year ago # -
I feel like in a sci-fi scene. Who wants to play the police officer?
Posted 1 year ago # -
So... the spam links have been gone and replaced by a hidden:
<!--LiveInternet counter--><script type="text/javascript"><!--
document.write("<a href='http://www.liveinternet.ru/click' "+
"target=_blank><img src='http://counter.yadro.ru/hit?t52.6;r"+
escape(document.referrer)+((typeof(screen)=="undefined")?"":
";s"+screen.width+"*"+screen.height+"*"+(screen.colorDepth?
screen.colorDepth:screen.pixelDepth))+";u"+escape(document.URL)+
";"+Math.random()+
"' alt='' title='LiveInternet: показано число просмотров и"+
" посетителей за 24 часа' "+
"border='0' width='88' height='31'><\/a>")
//--></script><!--/LiveInternet-->Posted 1 year ago # -
Hello all,
I am new around these parts, I was googling around for some web design template ideas and came across this thread. Is the person currently in charge of this site/domain looking for somebody to take it over? Or buy the site? I own a technology solutions and consulting company and would like to inquire about purchasing or taking over this domain if the person in charge or anyone else is interested. I don't want to spam this site or include my email address (to prevent spamming to it) so please reply to this post if you want to get in contact with me. I will be periodically checking over the new few days to see if there are any replies to my post so if you reply, I will see it.
Posted 1 year ago #
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