Anyone Else Running A IT/programming Forum?

Discussion in 'Water Cooler' started by jmurrayhead, Mar 16, 2014.

  1. jmurrayhead

    jmurrayhead Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2012
    Messages:
    153
    Likes Received:
    113
    Location:
    Alexandria, VA
    First Name:
    Jason
    Just interested in seeing who else might be running this type of community.
     
    jmurrayhead, Mar 16, 2014
    #1
  2. AWS

    AWS Administrator

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2010
    Messages:
    1,616
    Likes Received:
    692
    Location:
    Joliet, IL U.S.A.
    First Name:
    Bob
    I closed my .Net programming forum when I closed my other sites.

    I still am an admin at http://www.xtremevbtalk.com which I sold a few years ago when Visual Basic was nearing the end as .Net was being introduced.

    I started my forum admin life with an programming site, http://extreme-vb.net. My first site needed a discussion area and I hacked a Frontpage extension to add threaded discussion to the articles. Soon after I used Mat Wrights wwwboard then wwwthreads and later UBB and finally vbulletin when the forum became the focal point of the site. So I moved the forum to http://visualbasicforum.com. http://www.xtremevbtalk.com is what that VB forum is now.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2014
    AWS, Mar 16, 2014
    #2
  3. jmurrayhead

    jmurrayhead Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2012
    Messages:
    153
    Likes Received:
    113
    Location:
    Alexandria, VA
    First Name:
    Jason
    What was your reasoning for closing it down, if I may ask?
     
    jmurrayhead, Mar 16, 2014
    #3
  4. AWS

    AWS Administrator

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2010
    Messages:
    1,616
    Likes Received:
    692
    Location:
    Joliet, IL U.S.A.
    First Name:
    Bob
    I decided to only run 1 community, this one, and either closed them or turned them over to staff to run.

    The .Net programming site didn't have any of the staff offer to take it over so I closed it. Sad really since it was very active and was highlighted on Microsoft's .Net site and Microsoft MVP site.
     
    AWS, Mar 16, 2014
    #4
  5. jmurrayhead

    jmurrayhead Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2012
    Messages:
    153
    Likes Received:
    113
    Location:
    Alexandria, VA
    First Name:
    Jason
    Ahh I see.

    That is sad, I would have loved to pick that up.

    I'm currently deciding what I want to do with my site. It's no mystery that sites like Stack Overflow are taking in the majority of traffic. What was once a pretty active forum has only a few familiar faces logging in each day and hardly any new posts are made - we mostly just chat it up in the shoutbox.
     
    jmurrayhead, Mar 16, 2014
    #5
  6. pixelek

    pixelek Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 9, 2013
    Messages:
    229
    Likes Received:
    85
    Location:
    Torun, Poland
    I am staff at ISP forum, but its Polish forum not English
     
    pixelek, Mar 17, 2014
    #6
  7. Cerberus

    Cerberus Admin Talk Staff

    Joined:
    May 3, 2009
    Messages:
    1,031
    Likes Received:
    500
    I am on staff on about 6 different botting/programming forums. Though, they mostly deal in automation and such. I tend to get bored on straight programming forums as there is not much to do there. Most of the time it is people looking for help with their homework on those forums.
     
    Cerberus, Mar 17, 2014
    #7
  8. jmurrayhead

    jmurrayhead Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2012
    Messages:
    153
    Likes Received:
    113
    Location:
    Alexandria, VA
    First Name:
    Jason
    My site actually branched off of forums.aspfree.com with a tight-nit group of people after it was bought out by Ziff Davis Enterprise. ZDE basically used the whole network of sites as ad farms and paid little attention to the needs of their communities. A few years later, a company known as Internet Marketing Ninjas, bought out the Developer Shed network with hopes of supposedly bringing it back to life. So far, all they've done is some awful styling with an update to vBulletin 4. It seems now that they are also just using it as an ad farm.

    I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the site I started, to it's members, was more than just helping each other with programming stuff. It was a community of friends that needed a new place to hang out. A lot of things have changed since 2008, though. I think the combination of social networks still exploding, the economy (people being more focused on their jobs), and sites like Stack Overflow changed things. People don't feel like hanging out anymore and/or life got busy.

    Either way, I'm left with the decision of continuing to pour time, money and energy into it or let it die.
     
    jmurrayhead, Mar 17, 2014
    #8

Share This Page