Well, I have not been near a computer for about a week but it's good to see that the internet doesn't stay quiet. I am specifically referring to the exodus of members from the 9rules network. Now to all those out there scratching their heads and wondering why I am calling this an exodus, you'll understand soon enough. A little history for those in the dark or who don't actually care all that much about such things, 9rules is a blogging network that reached it's zenith (at least in terms of popularity) about a year and a half ago...give or take a several months. It was an incredibly vibrant place, with a great website and really active members. This was back when bloggers were rock stars....erm you know what I am saying, back when blogging was fresh and new as opposed to the norm in the web landscape.
I have not had the time to formulate my reasons (in a proper post that is) for leaving the network and all my miscellaneous thoughts about the process and aftermath (as I am in Japan at the moment and can't sleep), however what I would like to do is try and compile a list of all the 9rules members that did leave.
My reason for doing this is to address one of my main gripes about the way in which departures from the network have been handled, or as the case may be, not been handled. While a new site is celebrated, a departing site (or even original member departing) does not even warrent a small mention on the offical blog. While I can understand how the powers that be might feel like a failure that people would choose to leave, I personnally see this in another way. This should really be a time to wish everyone well in all their future endevours and thank them for being a part of the network (as long as those members were not kicked out for shoddy conduct, which I don't think any of the listed members were). In this particular case a least 16 sites have left the network, one of which was there from round one, I have been there from round two and several others have been extremely active members in the community (I doubt anyone will reach Paul's forum count, ever).
So with that in mind I would like to start a little list of the 9rulers that have recently left the network, it was an honour being seen in such great company as yourselves (if you have left recently and I haven't included you, please drop a comment and I will update this post):
*sigh..here we go again.
Maybe 9rules as just a blogging network reached it's zenith a year and a half ago, but that's the only way you could remotely make that statement true. Last I checked site is more vibrant than ever.
Still is and if you were around you would see the members are more active and happy to be around.
If we wrote about departures then would we have to write about everyone that decides to leave, or simply the people who are kind enough to thank us and be on our way? Some of the people make it clear on their blogs their departure and wish to spit venom at us, when we would never do anything like that towards them on our blog. So how are we to distinguish who we should write about? The members who shook our hands and said their good-byes or the ones who said fuck you with guns blazing?
We loved you here Khaled and you are still welcome within the my.9r community. Great members like you do deserve a good-bye, but with some of the people wishing not to be true men and women like yourself it becomes difficult. I'm sure you can see that. With the launch of Ali2 we made the conscious decision to celebrate the members we have (over 100+) and the new blogs we have been introducing.
As for your list I can't really say it is accurate portrayal of people that have recently left considering Binary Bonsai left in '06 I believe.
I think Paul Stamatiou left too.
@Seopher: yeah, Stammy left.
@Khaled: Lorelle should be out soon too, unless she has become more active in the forums/member area recently. When I left she wasn't involved at all.
I do remove people for other reasons and I did remove some during this time. Without knowing WHEN (evidenced by Binary Bonsai) or WHY they are no longer a member, you could really be embarrassing some people.
Good job...glad you thought that out Khaled.
And to those people: the guys and I are very sorry because you don't deserve to get sucked into this. There should be some privacy and one would think that would be respected. It should be private until someone voluntarily voices it because honestly, it's no one's business.
*******: if you come across this my sincere apologies. As all members know what happens in Clubhouse is supposed to stay there, that is the agreement members agreed to. It was extremely inconsiderate for Ben to say anything about your participation in a private forum.
And that's why we don't do this people. Someone ends up getting their feelings hurt.
I'm sorry Tyme, but the above really is far to melodramatic for my blood. Embaress people for not being part of the network? It is a network that one tried to get into. It is not the be it or end of everything. It was a place to meet people. For whatever reason people move on, nothing to be embaressed about, nothing to be ashamed about, these things happen. Like I said, I can see why you guys don't like to talk about it but rather concentrate on your new and existing members, fair enough, but people whom have been part of the network even before yourself Tyme, deserve something better and that was the reason for my post.
I don't have any venom in my words, nor mean for hurting people. My motives are very clear, how they are interpreted is really something beyond my control. Obviously you feel differently Tyme, but that is ok.
Melodramatic? No, because again, I know that I removed some people because they requested it for personal reasons and did not want to draw attention to themselves. The exposure to their blog was causing conflicts in their life. They made a request, I honored it.
If the ex-member wrote about it and you want to gather those links fine, but that's not what is going on here. If it was Bonsai and ***** would not have been drawn into this. So yeah, I apologized on the behalf of 9rules in advance because there is no way to know if privacy will be upheld, particularly since you left the comment about participation in a private area public...and that was completely under your control and completely unfair to her.
Your entire premise is that I'm done transitioning people. I'm not. I won't be done for at least another week or more so it would be moronic to do an "ode to the members leaving" when I'm not done.
Ok first of all, no idea that you are still waiting for responses from people regarding their future involvement or not. The post will continue to be updated as and when it becomes clear that they are out.
As for Michael's site, well I just noticed that he didnt have the leaf either and therefore included it on the list as well.
As for the last person, well I have hidden the comment for now, but everyone else on that list above has left due to the changes in the members agreement.
If they are not done contacting people your article is inappropriate even if you meant well. How do you know they weren't going to do something when they were done? Did you ask and the official word was no or is this an assumption you made?
I just stopped by and I must be out of the loop here, because these comments from Tyme and Ted appear to be blow out of proportion and misdirected. I guess I don't have the full story because I don't know who "*******" is, but before this thread continues in the direction that it's going, please let me offer my commentary as an outside observer who is just joining the conversation.
First, Khaled made a kind-hearted request that the 9rulers consider those leaving their network. In contrast to the heated posts that I've read today about 9rules, this is a welcome change.
Then, Scrivs stopped by to post a kind-hearted rebuttal, also a welcome change from the aggressive arguments that have sprung from such posts.
And then, Tyme stopped by. What happened to encourage Tyme's comment is a mystery to me. Perhaps it had something to with a possibly deleted comment by "*******"? It actually looks like Tyme is either commenting on the wrong blog or didn't read the entire post to begin with.
This is also directed towards Ted's comment, who also seems to be misguided.
Khaled has simply generated a list of bloggers who have either publicly stated "I'm leaving 9rules" or have silently stopped displaying the leaf on their blog. He never said "John/Jane Doe is leaving because of blah blah blah." He simply created a small list of bloggers who are no longer affiliated with 9rules. No one has been "embarrassed" or "sucked into" something they don't want to be a part of, and list is by no means "inappropriate". Those users chose to leave 9rules, and Khaled is making note of it. It's just a list of blogs which are no longer affiliated with 9rules, nothing more.
Tyme and Ted, perhaps you are both fresh off of one of those aggressive arguments that I mentioned earlier, but I ask you to please re-read and re-consider Khaled's kind request to consider those who are choosing to leave 9rules, rather than confusing it for another anti-9rules post.
This thing is so blown of proportion that I'm actually at a loss of words. Comments made here, on Chris site and on my own (and there are probably more out there that I'm unaware of) are of such a nature that I'm seriously wondering how on earth 9rules is supposed to work as a social network.
I can only say what I have said before, I decided to drop out of 9rules because I couldn't see that I would have time to participate in the manner expected of me. See? It's my own decision based solely on my own priorities. Was I wrong in applying for a 9rules membership in the first place? Probably, as I was completely unaware that there were "social" requirements besides providing "quality" content on my own site.
When I received Tyme's email regarding the new membership agreement I quicky declined it and let Tyme know that I resigned. How can this be a wrong thing to do? How does this warrant the kind of responses we are seeing?
Also, as a funny little sidenote, after reading the reactions I asked Tyme to delete my account on 9rules and "delete any cached content they might have". The result? Well, my user account was indeed deleted. When verifying this, I opened the 9rules site and tried to logon with my old username/password. Guess what happened? I got a BBPress HTTPAUTH logon box, that denied me access and I am no longer able to even open 9rules.com from my home IP. Clearly resigning as a member of the network, and not having a user account on the site should prohibit me from actually accessing it.
I'm sorry but this has way to much drama and tp much of a highschool "clique" feel for me. Hm, wonder where "clique" came from.
Reread the article. It says 9rules didn't give a proper goodbye. Tyme said it will be a week before he's done. If 9rules wanted to do something what can they do without getting on everyone's nerves? Departing members talked about this enough to be irritating. They aren't the high profile members. There was more sadness when they removed Rich from my9rules and more joy when he came back. I'm not trying to be mean but it's true. The articles sound like lovers that can't move on after a breakup. When Rich was outted there was an uproar by the community vs now the reaction is good luck. What's to miss? They weren't around. There is nothing to be sad about. They decided to leave.
He may have had good intentions but If 9rules did something it would have had more meaning. I think it's a fair question to ask if he asked them first since I bet even departing members would have preferred something from 9rules.
Erm Teddy boy, Tyme is a girl. As for the rest of your comment, well opinions are like assholes, everyone has got one. I do actually respond to comments so stop refering to me as him. 9rules as a policy does not mention about departing members,...ever. Don't take my word for it, go check out the blog and find something, please. I can't even remember if it was mentioned when two of the founding members actually left as well. Therefore it was real safe to assume that this post would never come from 9rules.
Ted, it seems like you probably weren't aware of 9rules before the whole social network aspect of it was introduced. Back then, it was more of an elite grouping of bloggers with great content and great design and the leaf was a badge of honour on their sites. Most of the blogs I read now come from that time.
The owners of 9rules have decided to move in a different direction and that's their prerogative. But I think the earlier members have a right to feel peeved at the way this has developed because I remember they were quite active in contributing to and promoting the network back then. As a long-time reader from then, I found this exodus more of a surprise than something like Rich being banned. I enjoy the notes feature but to me, 9rules was first and foremost about the blog content and I think its role has been diminished with every update. The new design is awesome but I can't actually find my way around the content. I can't even find out who are the members of the different communities.
So it's quite sad from my point of view that the network has broken up in this way. But I guess there was a divergence of priorities and there had to be a parting at some time or other. I picked up reading Broken Kode, Binary Bonsai and Chris J Davis from 9rules and there were exciting times, with work on the Shuttle Project for WordPress and K2 etc.
I think if you take a deeper look you'll find that the number of sites that have left is easily over 50 as of today. Many simple removed the flag after reading Tymes egotistical replies to posts in the clique and the old member house. There's even a thread in the member clique that covers the topic of the members not even knowing how many sites are in the network and I use the term network loosley.
I used to fly the leaf proudly but now it's just a dirty little mark that I try to forget.
I think all one has to do is start clicking through to some of the member sites and you'll find that many have removed the leaf. I'm going to guess that they are disgusted with the way they have been tossed aside. Member content is what made 9rules what is was and they turned their back on their members. It's no longer about great content, it's about who can create content for 9rules.
Weisheng, I think you've summed up my feelings too. I wanted to be a 9ruler years ago when it was about quality content. It felt good to be part of a group of people I looked up to and have people think I had something worthwhile to read on my blog too. Over time and with the next rounds I started to see more and more blogs being added and I felt kind of cheap, like it wasn't really about my content after all but I was just another member in a long list of recruits.
And when anyone did try to say anything slightly critical of 9rules there was a real defensiveness that came from the "Rulers" which you just don't see with real professionals. There was public arguments and bickering by The Rulers on blogs all over the place and it always seemed to say the same thing, something along the lines of "who cares what you think - we're 9rules and we're here to stay, so there." This is why I turned off comments on my exit post.
Ultimately, I have nothing against 9rules or its owners. It's just turned out not to be the caliber of network I can be associated with anymore. I'd love to see another content-focused network start up again in the model of the original 9rules, though I bet they'd never let that happen. I do miss the old society, the original first two rounders.
I feel exactly the same as the last few commenters, which is why I also made the decision to leave 9rules. While I came onboard during a state of flux (after Notes were introduced?), my desire to be a 9ruler was based on the reputation that the network had built up over the first few years. All this exodus/defensiveness stuff aside, were I making the same decision today I am not sure I would want to apply to 9rules with the direction things are going.
Long ago 9rules was happy enough to leech my rss feed for their content. Now they want me to contribute to threads such as these in return for the ability to display a leaf.
How Many Push Ups Can You Do?
Your Favorite Pizza Toppings?
Pop, Soda, Cola or Coke?
I think my time is better spent outside of 9rules.
As a former 9rules wannabe, I was disappointed to see their growth trajectory over the last year. I do have an idea for the name of the new club and hope my blog might be deemed worthy someday.
I won't go into the melodrama in the comments, but wanted to thank you for putting it out there. This is exactly the stuff that 9rules is and always will be to me. Cheers to what was a wonderfully positive force in my blogging life -- I hope to see everyone around the internets here and again. And here's hoping that Khaled will actually hop on IM maybe more than once every 5 years ;) Might even get started on that WP theme we were talking about centuries ago.
Wordpress theme? Kyle we have got much BIGGER fish to fry. I'm dropping you a quick line :).
Ohh, Kyle and Khaled sitting in a tree. H-A-B-A-R-I ;-)
Looks like you can add mangofalls.com to the list.