My life as a prOn cop

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

In the last few months I've watched a major community suffer a complete meltdown. Harmony Central, with a huge number of participating musicians and an excellent database of equipment reviews, completely changed forum software and interface. The community was livid, as they'd lost many features. The owners were unresponsive. About half the members left in disgust, not to return. That's what all communities need to avoid.

I watched the exact same thing happen at the Fine Homebuilding forum hosted by Taunton Press. Changed the format for the worse, and chased away virtually all of their valued contributors. Funny thing is that the magazine relies on some of those contributors to write articles for the magazine, so they really shot themselves in the foot. The members set up a competing forum, but that doesn't have the draw of the magazine, so new new members can find the place, and it's in a slow death.