[Ruy Horta]

Thank you Kari for sharing your insight, I mean it.

I'll throw in my 2c.

First I appreciate ALL feedback, positive AND negative.

IMHO the foremost reason I could give is that its hard to find this forum if you don't know where to look. Currently there is practically no linkage and there are no meta tags facilitating search engines.

Those are some technical reason.

Secondly, there are indeed a lot of different places to go to, this forum is not unique...

Currently we have roughly 3000 posts in little more than two months, if we reach 4000 its break even with the old forum in terms of total available posts. The forum is on avarage visisted some 700 times a day.

Personally I do not seek to top the numbers of some other boards, I simply try to keep a number of people happy with the means to communicate their questions, answers and advice. If the majority of this community is happy the plan has succeeded.

Development has been slow, but bhind the scenes I had to solve a couple of issues before daring to continue. Those issues have been solved, so I must now go on. YOU can influence this development by telling me your wishes.

IMHO the old forum had three things going for it:

1. well known
2. easy access (fool proof almost)
3. illusion of activity (subject shifting)

Average hits 1200+ a day.

For those who wish for the old forum - sorry, these days are over (for me anyway).

To be honest I think that if you drew an objective list of pros and cons of the two types of forum, you'd be hard pressed to proof the old board superior, but that's IMHO.

But those who would like to stick around, participate with feedback, explain or better show examples, of what you'd like to see done with this community tool.

Personally I want to add a more interactive site, including (if there is any interest) posting of dedicated articles and even chatting.

I'll be frank to all of you.

Although the idea of leaving the old server.com forum had been around for a long time (in part based on community wishes), it was only in the middle of december that I found an acceptable sollution (out of my hobby pocket). As you remember the forum (as part one of the plan) went live only a week or so later around Christmas and we are now only two months further down the road!

One of the issues I must weigh is the pace of change, too fast and some are scared away, to slow and some are impatient. Either way I choose, some will undoubtedly be disappointed...

Also I must consider my time and accept the fact that I can never compete with some of these dedicated sites run by people who've made it into a business or with sufficient funds to let other handle the technical issues. This site is a hobby, that's my excuse.

Its not a show of support I am after here and the above is not an attempt to get your sympathy, PLEASE participate in this important disccusion and be as frank possible, its the only way I can learn from possible mistakes or improve upon certain (future) aspects of this forum/community/site.