Earlier today I posted an article from DesperateNerdLife’s blog about the closure of the Modding forum Bacman Forums, which I had been a Moderator on almost since the beginning and then left about a year ago.
I, like many others, was shocked to see the 404 Can’t Be Found page when I went to check in and then later realized that he had pulled the plug for good. And to be all honest, I had mixed feelings about this because though it wasn’t a surprise that it had happened, it was the closure of a chapter in my life that I had helped write and now no one could read it.
I mean, I agree with him to some extent that the scene just isn’t there anymore on a large scale and to pay for something no one uses is a bit of an unnecessary expense, but the way he up and pulled the plug and the amount of work people had put into their build logs for future reference I think was a personal statement and a spiteful “F-You” to those who had issues with him.
And that’s just the thing, in my opinion, this wasn’t a closure because the scene was dying as he led others to believe, but because the amount of push back he was getting both internally from his Mods and the community as a whole. He mentions the degradation of the community and if it’s not there, there’s no reason for the site, but it’s hard to keep a community when you alienate even the longest term members because they have a disagreement with you. You can’t be expected to keep a loyal following that way and it became apparent to me a year ago (or sometime well before that really) that unless the he came up with the idea or didn’t do something the way he would do it, it was just wrong.
So this is the reason that I surrendered my Mod title of a forum I had been loyal to a fault and had spend a lot of time to make one of the best console modding sites on the net. It was unfortunate and sad but I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere by staying and it was time for someone else to take the reigns. And in less than a year, it’s gone.
Though, in my previous post, there is a link to a full cached version of the site which he was kind enough to share. It’s 3 Gigs of a zip file but it may be worth it if you put the time into a build log and you’d like to get it back.
So what do you think about it? I can’t have any loyalty to a site that doesn’t exist so the cards are on the table now. He was a good man to me for a majority of the time I worked with him, but his faults began to show and grow and that eventually crept it’s way into the site and it’s content…which then has lead to it’s demise.
Downing's Basement 