I want to firstly start this off on a positive note before I get into the not so good talk that this article is focused towards. Webmastering is a great experience for me and it has been something that has taught me a lot, gave me more mature people to speak too and just generally helped with life. Without webmastering I doubt I would be anywhere near where I am today in terms of maturity and eye for business. Over the past six or so years I have come a long way and I think it has all been for the good reasons. Occasionally I have made slip ups but overall everything has gone very well and I have learnt a lot! It has been a really good experience and I have met some amazing people over my time of been in this field as well.
Now lets get into it, I really love the hobby/job itself even though it can become a really hard task at time to manage a forum correctly. What I do not like so much about it is various other webmasters and admins that take part in topical forums for webmastering. In previous years that is where I spent the majority of my time – jumping from admin forum to admin forum to promote, share my views ect. Not all other admins are bad, of course not. There are many great ones who I talk to and hopefully will continue to talk to for the long future as well. But, there are some admins that take part in these communities just to cause arguments, hate on other forums (to bash the competition) and just to get there own name heard.
This really annoys me. Some people join an admin community, promote there forum as much as they can pushing to the limits of spam and then jump on to hating another users forum to try and knock down the competition and get more noticed. Many webmasters tend to look at forums that do something different and hate on them too because of hidden jealously in some cases or just because the webmasters do not like when you change something in a forum software.
I have seen this issue many times. Webmasters want something new and know that forums need something new to make it in this day of age. Then when they see a forum with a new look on something, trying to push the limits of the software and make something new that people who are not admins will understand and will be able to use – they hate, because it is wrong and not the classical forum software with a million features and a huge confusing index.
I somewhat feel that many webmasters do not understand that the webmaster number is very small and when you are in a niche such as talking about gardening, the majority of the users you will get will not be very tech savvy. However webmasters tend to continue to complain, fight the battle and say that you should not change it and make something simple for that sort of audience because they do not like it. Why? Well mainly because they think changing a look of a forum is wrong.
I know a few people who have pushed the boundaries of a forum software to make it less like a forum and more like a friendly environment for people who are less in the know about how forums work and then end up getting bashed and hated on for this.
That is something I do not like about the webmaster scene and I think there are a bunch of people who will agree with me on this. There is too much negativity. I understand and accept projects wont be perfect and I have no issues with constructive criticism but when someone hates on a project just because it is not something they are used to and wont take the time to adapt from the old forums they are used to seeing is just wrong!
I really feel like I would enjoy webmaster forums a lot more if it was more so based on the element of discussion about methods of promotion, management ect and less about bashing projects and having a selfish community on a webmaster forum that are only interested in making there forum bigger.
If you have any views then please feel free to share them below.
I know where you come from, Martin.
There’s a lot of backstabbing in the webmaster circles, like it is in real life. I have stopped caring years ago about how others try to trash my name or cause issues. Just mind your own development and life. They can badmouth you as much as possible, but they can’t stop you from becoming better each day. Which you have already proven, by all the huge progress you’ve made. 😉
oh come on, who cares about morons like that? haters gonna hate 😀
best regards!
Thank you for the comment. I know where you are coming from but sometimes it can be easier said than done to ignore such comments.
I agree with you in that someone who acts like this is being rude, but to be honest I’ve never actually seen this sort of behaviour on any admin or webmaster forum I’ve been a member of.
Never seen it on Top Admin, on Admin Talk, on The Admin Zone… Don’t think I’ve seen it on the likes of Sitepoint or even Digitalpoint either.
So while I do agree that anyone who did act like this is being immature and a jerk in general, I do question the idea that this sort of behaviour is that common in the webmaster community. Because I haven’t seen anyone act like this on any forum I’ve ever been a member of.
Good post, Dojo! I notice there is a lot of this going on at the ‘bigger’ webmaster forums out there. It seems everyone anymore is too worried about competition and less worried about actually building a solid foundation for their forum. However, people like me and you pass them by pretty quickly because we are focusing on our forums instead of the drama!