Just clean the forum and ban the trouble makers and send a mass email explaining the situation from the Admins point of view and stating that the forums are back to normal, some members will return and gradually the things will return to normal. Else you always have the threads and can attract new members.

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India Travel Forum | Why most forums fail within 1 year! | Free Travel Directory

What I can't comprehend is that they actually posted photos of the staff! Why was that even tolerated, and where did they get them to begin with???

It's amazing to me that the whole thing started because of a change in calendar permissions! You must have very passionate members in your forum!

I's not clear if good members still post or if it's just the troublemakers (as Ryan pointed out) but in case you decide to keep your forum open, then I'll write a bogus "change of owner" announcement, then clean everything up (delete offensive posts, banned offensive members) and perhaps even get a new skin. Sometimes a change of look is all you need to say "let's start again."

The forum is now offline. We are cleaning, getting a new skin and all that.

We were offline when a member posted some images about ourselves. When we noticed it we cleaned it and locked the thread.

Everyone could post but only the trouble members did. They had the warn bars on the max.. They were about to get banned when we decided to put the board offline.

These members are too complicated.. and our staff is supporting them. It's the friendship thing. So, if we ban the members, our staff quit.

Do you think that if we reset the board it's bad?

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Sorry, but personally, if it were me, I would just leave those forums all together...It's not worth the trouble. Both the staff and the members sound corrupt the way you are describing it.

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In your staff, who decided to close the board and who supported the trouble-makers? Maybe your problem is that you have too many mods. The bigger the staff, the harder it is to be in unison. Or maybe you didn't make the intention very clear for them.

I agree with Ryan, it sounds like your forum has been corrupted from all sides. But I also understand your reluctance to simply delete four years of hard work.

Ban or demote the staff that are taking the problem members side.

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India Travel Forum | Why most forums fail within 1 year! | Free Travel Directory

Nowadays the staff has only 4 members. The Administrator closed it. One staff member support the trouble users and the other has no opinion.
Yes, it's corrupted. We are aware of that. Our forum has been ripped by former staff and attacked. The only reason it hasn't been closed before was the respect for the members who were active and visited us everyday and for the person who was dedicated to.

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