Blog O' D00M

Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall

The title of this blog post has been in my title for years now. It is what Yoda says to Luke before passing away. The quote always stood out for me for some reason. As years went on, I thought about it more and more. In the end, Yoda died of old age after growing sick. But his decline was gradual.

Why the talk about a puppet from a movie? I suppose it's because upon reflection, this quote summed up how I felt for the past few years on this service. I presided over the gradual decline of a software, powerless to really do anything except shout into the wind. Every so often I would shake enough branches to get some sort of answer and be pacified for a time, but the pattern repeated over and over until I finally just gave up. Words cannot convey that feeling of frustration as I watched a once active community drop in activity over and over. As Community Administrator, I spent a lot of time and effort cultivating relationships with members on this board and introducing things to retain these members- activities, games, events, discussions. Over the years the board's layout has changed with the times- from tech discussion to serious debates to just an introduction/advertisement forum. I spent a lot of time planning things like the anniversary celebrations and the deal or no deal games, doing a superhero themed event and more. But as that activity dwindled and died, there was no way to move forward. You can't retain activity if you have none.

The fault for that falls squarely on development. Now I don't mean that to be cruel. It's just fact. There were NUMEROUS valid reasons why development suffered. The most obvious being our servers and the numerous attacks individuals chose to wage on other boards. But in fairness, I and others repeatedly brought up hiring a server admin or another full time developer. It fell on deaf ears.

I say all this as I reflect upon what is essentially the end of this service. I say it not to be mean, but to be honest. I have spent 14 years as a staff member- 15 as a member of this service. And I have always prided myself on honesty. I tried for a long time to push transparency and to be as open as I could be with the community- even if that meant saying I could answer because of confidentiality, at least that was a reason. And I have long believed that anything I typed I should be able to defend at any time. If one were to look into the private sections on this board, they would find a lot of topics on the issue of development- pushing for smaller updates more regularly, trying to get regular developer updates etc. etc.

Ultimately, the decision was made to sell to Taptatalk. And as a business decision, I get it. But it was also a perfect example of the chief frustration many have had with the owners- lack of communication followed by dropping grenades. But, we tried to work with it. We asked questions that we expected members to ask- one was what the future of ZetaBoards was. We were told it was fine. We were told there were no plans to fold ZetaBoards into Taptatalk.
We were skeptical. And we had good reason to be it turned out. But the evidence for this was not hard to locate. One need only see the decision to force IF boards to Tapatalk if no decision were made instead of ZetaBoards to see what the end goal was.

I say this not to vilify Tapatalk. Again, as a business decision, I'm sure it made sense. But in truth, communication and customer service should have been better. And we made those points.

I agreed that InvisionFree needed to end. Full disclosure: I had lobbied for it for years. The whole reason ZetaBoards was created was because InvisionFree had hit it's limits and the terms of Invision Power's license going forward prevented us from going any further. So we as a team made a decision: Create a new software. That would eventually be called ZetaBoards. Somewhere in the archives of this board is a list of the rejected names. But this new software involved a lot of trust that we placed in our developer. We endured a lot of criticism. We had people questioning it's existence and calling us liars. I spent many months for those two plus years trying to get people to believe us, placing my credibility on the line if it didn't turn out right. I did that because I had faith in our developer. I did it because even though I too had yet to see it, I trusted it was being done.

Those days were not easy. The Beta boards took a long time to come and we endured a lot of flack for things like the color choice and name at the time. And then there were the broken promises- no theme converter despite assurances otherwise. API delayed. RDB delayed. But they were always coming "soon". Eventually soon became mocked and we stopped using it because even we couldn't tell when it was coming.

I do not regret any of my time on this service. I do not regret decisions I made- I would defend every one of them. If nothing else, I know I tried my hardest at all times. I am immensely proud of the fact that I have fewer moderator actions than most of the staff who came after me. I have more Personal Messages instead because I spent a long time talking with users, trying to defuse situations wherever possible and find solutions rather than throw down the ban hammer right away. That said, there were times were I reached the ban moment and I never regretted that either as I had a laundry list of reasons to back me up by that point. Nor do I ever regret the messages I wrote there. I am still proud of some of the ones I wrote in fact. I stand by my words regardless of how that makes others feel.

I say that because my credibility and that of my fellow staff was destroyed by the most recent announcement. Without knowing, we were made into liars. And I am hurt and angry about that. I feel for all of the board owners who went through so much stress these past few months only to go through it all over again. I feel for the numerous theme designers and coders who put untold amount of hours into their work only for it to essentially be erased months from now. I feel for the RPG boards and others that use attachment URLs that may well be useless soon. I get the anger. I can't defend the decision. I don't agree with it.

It's for that reason that I have chosen to share exactly what I have written in private regarding this matter. Understand, my loyalty was to ZetaBoards. The software I helped create. The software that was the result of the blood, sweat and tears of far more than just one person. There was the Documentation Team, the Graphic design team, the staff who bug tested, the creators of the ZB CSS and the default theme, the numerous members of the support and community teams over the years. And lastly of course- the members who took this software and made it their own and shared their talents with us for years.

When the decision was announced, my reaction was much like everyone else's I believe:

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Frankly, you have shattered what trust is left and alienated what's left of your customer base. You have made liars out of all of us and destroyed our credibility.

You were asked about this multiple times for over a year and denied or flat out lied to us.

I cannot convey enough how disappointed and hurt I am by that. You have been given a massive amount of loyalty from us. We have frequently gone above and beyond to defend you only to get the floor dropped out from under us.

Please tell me why I should continue to volunteer my time where I and others have been made into liars and fools. Please tell me why anyone should trust us enough to continue using this service.

Because in the end, it doesn't matter if the new product blows ZB away. Because by then, we may not have enough customers left who care. And I can't blame them.

Understand, I do not fault you for the decision. I fault you for not being up front much earlier and stringing all of us along. That's not ok and to me, feels incredibly disrespectful. We aren't stupid. We saw the writing on the wall for some time- yet you continued to mislead us. How do we trust you again?

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This is not an upgrade. It is a downgrade. And I will not pretend otherwise.

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I thought you would have learned your lesson from this entire InvisionFree debacle. But apparently history is only doomed to repeat itself.

1) People invest a lot of time and energy into their board. If they are going to lose customization they made, they do not want to move.
2) People don't want to re-learn how to use basic features. It's why many of them flipped when forced to tapatalk. At least ZB preserved most navigation.
3) People don't like being forced into conversions. Don't call it an upgrade- it's not a new ZB. It's a new software. I can point you to many an angry Personal Message or Facebook message about how people felt about being FORCED to convert to Tapatalk and not having the option to go to ZB.

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I think you confuse unhappy with PISSED OFF. Take your staff as a sample size of what you're going to get.
This is several steps backward. And your word, frankly, means nothing now. As does ours. We have a MASSIVE public relations problem thanks entirely to your actions. No one here has any credibility to speak to this service. You have had a history of missed deadlines, broken promises, dropped projects and in general over-promising while SEVERELY under-delivering. And this is my constructive criticism. Please don't ask how I'm really feeling right now after putting up with this for 14 years.

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If the features are not there on day 1, people will leave. Not even a question about this. It's a guarantee. And if themes are going to change and can't be converted to a new version, think about that as well- we had that issue with ZB and the promised converter that never materialized. Codes- consider as best as possible a way to avoid breaking as many codes as possible. Attachments and urls try to avoid to much changes there because people linked to those urls for themes, codes and other images. Over 10 years, that could cripple a board if lost.

Keep in mind that if you can't defend a decision to us or answer our questions, you don't stand a chance against the rest of the user base. Every decision will need justification or this will fail. That's not a matter of opinion- it stone cold fact.

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I think of the various communities we have and lack of themes would be an immediate deal breaker. Lack of some of the codes they had- also likely a dealbreaker.

But then I think of other boards, like RPG boards that might have thousands of links to ZB attachments- that could cripple a board and render YEARS of history useless. These are the things to be aware of when moving forward.

In my mind, the focus should be on transplanting all ZB features into Tapatalk. From there, you can add new features and already planned features. But if there is a feature ZB has that Tapatalk doesn't, then there will be problems. Even something as stupid simple as an avatar gallery might be an issue for some boards. Dismissing any feature ZB has- in my opinion- is not a risk worth taking at this stage.

Why share the above? First of all, to be clear, some of these are selections and not my full quotes because they reference the posts of others. I will not break confidentiality. But nothing listed in these quotes is confidential. Indeed, nothing in these quotes is even confirmed. None of these quotes were answered by development either. So in terms of 'leaks', this is nothing that I would not be comfortable posting in a public forum. And these quotes aren't to hurt the developer or Tapatalk either. As indicated in the quotes and in this post, I don't necessarily disagree with the decision. I disagree with the way it was made and delivered. I disagree with being strung along and expected to support this decision and pretend all is fine.

I am therefore sharing these thoughts for two reasons: Transparency- I know our credibility is shot. It is my hope that perhaps by sharing these posts, we can start to rebuild that. Because without that trust, this service will not survive the transition. When a developer loses trust, they lose customers. And I am more than aware that that is already happening. I may not be able to restore the developer's credibility, but I will do the best I can to preserve that of my fellow staff who, like all of you, had this dropped on them. Second, I share this to encourage board owners to foster discussion with Tapatalk and developers. You are the customer. You have the ability to affect change if you are persistent and vocal. For instance, if you can present a decent argument about themes, perhaps a solution for either using or converting ZB themes will emerge. But if you choose to wallow or take your ball and go home, then that indifference will be interpreted as consent to the changes you are currently facing.

I am also not saying to grab a pitchfork and march on the castle. I am hoping that we are well past that stage of grief. We need to move on to acceptance and start working towards discussing what matters. What must your community have to survive this new phase? What is essential and what can you live without? I encourage you to think long and hard and then share that.

Lastly, I want you to know that the staff and I have always done our best to function as your advocates and we will continue to do so for as long as we are able. It has been an honor and a privilege. But after 15 years, I am ready to move on. And while this is not the fate I wanted for ZetaBoards, at least it is moving forward- which it had to do. Now though, you all need to weigh in on just how it should move forward.

May the Force Be With You... Always.

1. Comment by Pete B, May 18 2018, 01:37 PM

   Thanks Stephen for your post. You have shown exemplary loyalty to IF/ZB over the years. To me, and I hope to everyone else your credibility is rock solid.
   
   Thank you for all your hard work over the years supporting this community.

2. Comment by Tony, Jun 13 2018, 09:28 AM

   *hugs*
   
   Though Zathyus may not have our respect anymore, you do. Move on to bigger things!

3. Comment by NickB, Jun 20 2018, 11:55 PM

   Excellent post Stephen. Despite my inactivity within this forum itself, I did keep tabs, and was very active in the snow globe. With that said, I wanted to comment on what I have seen from the distance. Every time I visited this forum, you were THE leader of this community and a respected administrator. I noticed this just from visiting, and not even interacting much with you personally, if at all.
   
   I think I can speak on behalf of a lot of the community when I say that your transparency means a lot. I do not think your credibility or trust has been broken despite the outcome of ZB. I am one of those that spent hours upon hours of my time developing content for other ZB users to take advantage of, and like most I was angered when I first saw the TT announcement.
   
   I respect your commitment, honesty, ethics & your transparency. Thank you for representing the community as you have.

4. Comment by ChanceOL, Jun 21 2018, 12:05 AM

   I seond what Nick said.

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