I was a member of both forums. I watched the whole thing go down and participated in the discussion, including a short correspondence with Steve.
The GP is correct in his characterization, as was Steve in his post. Steve had been mulling over the 'forum problem' for some time, not really sure what to do with it. The discovery of the alternate forum was what finally tipped his hand. There was a sense of betrayal and it pervaded his posts and his actions in the last few days before he killed it.
The other forum itself was, as the GP put it, a very private, invite-only community. It remains so to this day. They started it because of a disagreement in how the board was being moderated. Many long-time Pavlina posters were disappointed when very personal posts became fodder for vitriol and they perceived that nothing was being done. After about a year of this, they voted with their feet and went to the new place.
I witnessed a very curious dynamic in the last few days. The members Steve was complaining about with the "sense of entitlement" and the members who'd started the new forum were exactly the same. There were lots of hurt feelings flying around and a lot of things were said that would have been better left unsaid. Steve wielded his ban-hammer with little concern, perhaps because he'd already decided to shut it all down.
I detected a bit of unacknowledged self-serving-ness in Steve's blog post concerning the shutdown. Everybody was cool with Steve's benevolent dictatorship, but after awhile he'd just moved on, not posting much if at all. I guess he thought that the king could leave the castle for years and the subjects would just welcome him back with open arms when he finally steps back in and hands out royal decrees. His blog post swept a lot of stuff under the rug, that, honestly, probably should have been, but he didn't take responsibility for any of the bad stuff and just pawned it off on the new forum.
The situation definitely needed to be rectified, but his handling left a lot to be desired.
I was going to go search through the forum archives to find relevant threads, but he took them down. Though, if memory serves, he'd deleted most of that ugly firestorm anyway, particularly the parts that one could use to paint him in a negative light.
The GP is correct in his characterization, as was Steve in his post. Steve had been mulling over the 'forum problem' for some time, not really sure what to do with it. The discovery of the alternate forum was what finally tipped his hand. There was a sense of betrayal and it pervaded his posts and his actions in the last few days before he killed it.
The other forum itself was, as the GP put it, a very private, invite-only community. It remains so to this day. They started it because of a disagreement in how the board was being moderated. Many long-time Pavlina posters were disappointed when very personal posts became fodder for vitriol and they perceived that nothing was being done. After about a year of this, they voted with their feet and went to the new place.
I witnessed a very curious dynamic in the last few days. The members Steve was complaining about with the "sense of entitlement" and the members who'd started the new forum were exactly the same. There were lots of hurt feelings flying around and a lot of things were said that would have been better left unsaid. Steve wielded his ban-hammer with little concern, perhaps because he'd already decided to shut it all down.
I detected a bit of unacknowledged self-serving-ness in Steve's blog post concerning the shutdown. Everybody was cool with Steve's benevolent dictatorship, but after awhile he'd just moved on, not posting much if at all. I guess he thought that the king could leave the castle for years and the subjects would just welcome him back with open arms when he finally steps back in and hands out royal decrees. His blog post swept a lot of stuff under the rug, that, honestly, probably should have been, but he didn't take responsibility for any of the bad stuff and just pawned it off on the new forum.
The situation definitely needed to be rectified, but his handling left a lot to be desired.