[AzH]

Adminfusion was the first community administrator forum I joined. That was back in 2006 at the time of Ryan, RedMatrix and Moelman. We had a really good group of members. The forums LOOKED great and the place was lively, active and a challenger for the top forum administrator community.

Then it was sold and it all went to shit.

Many of us stuck with the site and tried to keep her going with both activity and ideas/suggestions to the new owners. One thing that the new owner was good at was ignoring the suggestions of the people who actually made this forum what it was; the members. Arguments ensued and one by one people slipped away to other communities. SOme of us drop by from time to time, but it is never for very long. The forum is beset by spammers. It looks old and cluttered. The only activity seems to be people trying to palm off domains or hosting or score backlinks.

Whoever it is who bought this forum, I sure hope you got a great deal, because I'd struggle to justify $100 on it. Maybe there is some traffic, maybe there is a bit of post-rank, maybe there is some well indexed Google pages.

But none of that matters if the core of a community has gone.

The core of this community has gone.

Now, Adminfusion, once the shining jewel in the internet's many admin forums, has withered and wilted and is beset on all sides by challengers and contenders.

TAZ goes from strength to strength. AdminAddict is doing well, and new forums are springing up to fill the void left by Adminfusion, such as AdminExtra.

If you have a defeatist attitude you might as well pack your bags, close the boards and go home. Because this place is not going to get any better without ALOT of hard work and some tender loving care.

You had/have a GREAT resource; one that the previous owner failed to grasp and utilise. The members themselves! You have a community of community managers! What better basis do you need for making a success of Adminfusion? The people who used to frequent this place will probably return if they feel they are going to be listened to. Admit the place is failing and ask for help, Goddamn you!

People WILL rally to the Adminfusion flag if they are called by a confident and influential leader. Someone to inspire and value the opinion of the forum members.

Is there someone out there who will do this? I don't mean someone who comes in and makes a few posts here and there. I mean someone who will create discussions, provide content, provide personal support and suggestions to new forum owners. Someone who will lead by example. There must be someone who is prepared to do this.

If there is someone who is willing to listen to the members, allow me to start with a few suggestions.

1) CHANGE THE LOOK. Ideally lose the front-page all together and get back to your forum-roots. Give us back the old styles of AF Red and AF Blue. They are in there somewhere, I can feel it.

2) ENHANCE POSTFUSION. You have a unique hook with PF. Something NO OTHER site has. Use it.

3) NEW STAFF. Get people in who are passionate about forum administration and passionate about Adminfusion.

4) NEW RESOURCES. Update the templates and add hacks/plugins to the offered resources.

5) GET INTERESTING. New articles, new interviews, create a buzz.

6) MARKETING. Let's see Adminfusion on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In etc.. Get down with the Social Networking vibe.

7) POST MORE. Content is King. Content is King. Content is King. Say it, repeat it, believe it, live it.

8) ADMIT THINGS SUCK. Tell us that you understand how we feel. That you know the place has gone to shit and that you are PREPARED, WILLING and ABLE to restore Adminfusion.

9) BUILD BRIDGES. Contact the old members. Tell them things are changing. Invite them to give help and advice.

10) I DON'T HAVE A TEN. But I didn't want to end on nine. It's considered unlucky in some cultures.

Adminfusion CAN be restored. The only question is have you got the balls to take on the challenge. If not, please tell me and I'll stop wasting my time here.

[Mikey]

Good post, I have a tenth one to add to the list

10: remove useless mods which make newbies and guests feel excluded, such as "To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts."

[demojames]

Yep it’s me, did you miss me? Probably not, there’s no one here anymore.

I have to chime in here because I'm laughing hysterically right now. I was one of the first members here way back in Oct of 2005 and I haven’t posted since June of 2008, what does that tell you?

I have to agree, this place has become a joke. Spam has taken over this place, hosting companies pawning their shit, and wordpress themes (even though some of them are nice themes). Since Ryan and Lee sold, this place a taken a nose dive and like AzH the community has all gone and it will take tons of work and plenty of time to get it back and from what I see the new owners aren’t doing anything about it. The new owners are just out there acquiring forums here and there.

They recently purchased vBulletin Setup, at least there the former owner is active on the forums. At AF there hasn’t been an active Admin or Moderator since Ryan, Red, Moelman, and a few others were here.

And whoever is this admin jschneier person is keeps asking what you would like to see here, what you are most interested in. Question for you, do you know anything about how forums are run? Do you even have experience running forums? I won’t tell you how to do your job, but c’mon. You keep saying you’re not the owner, so where is the owner, sanjay? Oh let’s look, he hasn’t been active since November of last year, enough said about that.

It’s funny to look at a poll about vBulletin 4.0 and will you upgrade to it, you have a membership of over 9000, probably 8500 are legit (500+ are spammers), and only 3 people voted; that is a joke.

I look here every-so-often just to see if things have changed, and you know what, it hasn’t and as far as I can see it never will unless you bring in somebody that knows what they are doing.

Put it back up on the market and I would be interested in buying it, but it’s certainly not worth anything near what the new owner (sanjay) and the former owners (lafsunlmtd/MrKielington) paid, not even close.

Put out an offer on the table and you never know I just might bite. I was going to partner up with someone the last time it was for sale, but it was so outrageously over-priced that it would have taken years to make our money back.

So there you go, if the price is right, I’ll buy it and take it off your hands. Put it into someone who has experience running multiple forums, has a great track record here and is respected throughout the forum industry and community. I’ll bring a dedicated team in and make this forum thrive once again.

It's out there now, don't let this opportunity slip away like the once thriving community that is before you has.

[jschneier]

Thank you guys for making this post. It is so encouraging to see that people really care about this site and want to see it thrive. Believe me there is nothing I find more frustrating than making a post like "will you upgrade to 4.0" and having only three people respond. This seems like the kind of post that people should be excited about talking about...

I would love for this place to be a thriving location where people are able to get the resources they need. I know it is something that Crowdgather has been discussing over the past few weeks. I want you to know that I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about what you would like to see here and being so specific about it.

I do have a question, instead of purchasing AdminFusion would any of you that responded be interested in taking a more active role in AdminFusion? I know it is a labor of love to give your time to a forum but more than anything I think AdminFusion needs people that care and understand to devote their time and energy. Of course I would need to discuss that with Sanjay but it is just a preliminary idea...feel free to say no way

I am going to circle round with Sanjay and see what we can come up with. Again thanks for responding and please continue to post ideas....

Obviously we have a long way to go but there is no time like the present!

[sanjay]

Great post AzH and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I knew that AF was near dead when we bought it which is why I have been waiting to see who (if anyone) was left that might care or help.

We took care of basic concerns such as the fixed-width style and repairing the post-fusion engine so it works. We also added our CrowdReport CMS and have been working on creating new content for the frontpage- mainly in order to try and bring in new members in order to revive this community. Recently, we also purchased vBulletinsetup and are trying to think of a way we could combine the strengths of these two communities.

There was a concentrated recruiting campaign by the owners of one of the admin forums you named and I decided to ignore it and rebuild since people are free to do what they like. I am completely open to finding someone who is inspired to lead this community as a volunteer mod or admin, but nobody has stepped up.

As far as support and help to forum owners, I have actually had quite a few exchanegs with AF members but mainly over the phone or PM's and I have gladly given personal advice when asked. I had hoped that this would inspire them to post on the forum more.

Joanna and I will look over all of your suggestions, but believe me when I tell you we want to make this work and are looking for a way to jumpstart things. I am even open to buying a young growing Admin forum that we can merge into AF and use to get posts up.

Fixer-uppers are always tough to salvage, but it can be done in time. Please keep the ideas coming!

[Mikey]

Good to see you posting Sanjay, I go by the same name on vBulletinSetup, where I'm staff, so I know you're not a bad person at all, however you do buy up alot of forums, how do you ever keep track of them all, it seems you leave some (such as AF) behind.

This is all well and good if they have an active moderating staff, but AF literally had nothing when you bought it, and it still has nothing now.

I'm all for people (even me, I'm sure AzH would offer also) helping out, however, what would these people be expected to do? How will it help out AF? Do you have an idea in mind where you want to go with this place? Some sort of roadmap, cos you cannot continue this way.

Currently I only visit once every few months, but if this place were more active, I'd visit here more, I think the same is true of many of the members. Get some mass emails, some newsletters out there, let people know that AF is still alive and needs them to come back.

[Flashgear]

Good Post AZH, i'd love for AF to become active once more, i've been a member for like almost 5years now, i remember the good times

I hated when we moved to the current design, the AF BLUE & RED was awesome.

I'd be interested in more of an active role in AF, also are you the owners of the Growd Gather Network?

[jschneier]

Sanjay is the head of Crowdgather....I know he would love to hear from you if you are serious about taking a more active role. Feel free to PM him!

[Nick R]

Hey guys, I'd like to add my thoughts...

I just want to throw this out there first though: I am not a long-time member of this site. I never took part in it when it was active; I only signed up when the last owner was still around (lafsunlmtd or something). I could tell this place used to be the number-one joint for forum admins by looking back at older discussions and such.

When this site was put up for sale by the last owner, I got really excited. I knew that the site had so much potential but in its current state had very little value. I wanted to buy it, I had a friend who would have pitched in, and I thought we could get the forum for a decent price.
But the bidding quickly went into the thousands and it seemed so ridiculous at the time. It still does. There is no way this place has that much value (it was only generating chump change per month, according to the seller).
Anyways, CrowdGather won the bid, and I thought "Okay. Perhaps they can turn this community around, as that's what it's about; not who "owns" it, but who can make the changes that are needed." Time has passed, and the forum is still dormant. I don't even understand why somebody would pay so much for the site to just let it continue to rot.

At the same time as the site was up for sale and the bidding was going on, I was launching AdminAddict. I knew I had to put in 110% of effort, time, and energy in order to surpass TAZ, which was the niche leader at that time.
I am very proud of what I accomplished, because with countless hours of promotion, discussion, thread creation, and of putting myself into the project, AdminAddict became essentially an overnight success, seeing approximately 1,000 posts per day for its first few weeks of existence. I'm not trying to brag; I'm merely showing that I knew what needed to be done, I had the energy to pursue my goal, and overcome any speedbumps or obstacles that came my way, and I succeeded.

Anyways, I so-badly wished that I could obtain AdminFusion. I probably would have ended up merging my new-and-thriving AdminAddict community into AdminFusion, and put all of my energy into this site, to make it the success that AdminAddict is today.
I would have much rather been the hero who saved a community with a history (AdminFusion) and with members who wanted to see the community be revived, than start a new one.

My point is that if the last owner actually cared about the site, he would have delegated it, for a reasonable price, to somebody who could have done something with it. Somebody who had the energy and passion, like myself. But I didn't happen to have several thousand dollars to invest in something that wouldn't be able to produce a ROI in a timely manner.


Jschneier, It's nice that you're trying to round up members who would be interested in taking on a more active role to help restore this community. But I am confused by one thing: Why would CrowdGather purchase the forum if they had no intention of doing the work themselves?
It seems that you are now trying to find somebody to take a leadership role and make the site a success, while still maintaining full ownership and control, and most likely any profits that come with it. Essentially profiting from everybody else's work.

If that is not the case, then please explain to me what is the case, as I'm highly intrigued.

[jschneier]

Originally Posted by Nick R

Jschneier, It's nice that you're trying to round up members who would be interested in taking on a more active role to help restore this community. But I am confused by one thing: Why would CrowdGather purchase the forum if they had no intention of doing the work themselves?
It seems that you are now trying to find somebody to take a leadership role and make the site a success, while still maintaining full ownership and control, and most likely any profits that come with it. Essentially profiting from everybody else's work.

If that is not the case, then please explain to me what is the case, as I'm highly intrigued.

Just to clarify, I personally am not the owner (I am not even an employee) of Crowdather...I do have some insight because I have done work with them for a while but I am here to contribute content and to help think about a path for AF.

Crowdgather works with each community on an individual basis. As Sanjay mentioned, when they acquired AF it already had very low traffic. There are many reasons for this happening to a community (as I am sure you know.) Sometimes when this is the case and there is a new owner old members will come back and get more actively involved again, sometimes as in the case of AF that does not happen.

Crowdgather has in the past, when an active member arises and wants to take a more active role, been able to make it worthwhile for the member. But one thing that they have learned is that if there are existing members it is best to work with some of them if they are actually passionate about the success of the site rather than bringing in some one new from the outside. I am sure you can understand why that would be so.

That of course does not mean they are not willing to do the work. We have in fact prior to this thread been in discussions about AF for awhile and have, as Sanjay mentioned, been looking at some different avenues to revive this site.

Also, on forum sites that are not populated with forum owners I would probably just jump in and start making the changes I thought necessary. But as there is a wealth of knowledge among the remaining members I feel like it is best to not overlook that and to allow the members here to participate in providing feedback and possibly participating in the new direction we would like to see AdminFusion go...I am sure you would understand why that would be so.