Stuck on the Palmetto , one of my favorite Miami blogs, is closing down with a poignant song and a goodbye message from Rick. There was an incident about the anonymous blogster being outed by another blog. We have lost two strong blog voices -- Rick and Alex -- with the loss of Stuck. Category 305 also closed down. Blogs are dropping like flies.
You might be "stuck" with only us soon Miami readers! Rick's message:
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The Off Ramp
Hey, now....talk about a tough week.
I had written a long and rather pitiful post for today, but the more I read it, the less I liked it. So this is going to remain short.
I don’t think there’s a person out there who read SotP who didn’t realize that it was written with a passion and a dedication that was reflected in just about every one of the over 5,800 posts that we did. It’s for that reason that these last 5 days have been a bit of a challenge for Alex and, especially, me.
I want to thank the folks who wrote us and expressed their concerns and offered their opinions on what the next course of action should be. Believe me, we mulled things over again and again hoping that SotP could be saved and still be effective in one format or another.
But after considering everything that was said and implied this week, we realized that it could never be the same. Not for me and Alex. Not for the blog. Not for readers. There would always be those people who would have seen it fit to bring up these ghosts in the heat of an argument or use them, again, to somehow, in their minds, win a debate down the road. In the end, it was the person who will forever know me the best who reminded me of what is really important and helped me arrive at this decision. And to her, a sometime-reader of SotP, I say thanks.
I’ve been the reader of blogs that have closed down suddenly for any number of reasons and it’s never a good feeling. This is certainly not the ending I envisioned for SotP, but if it’s one thing I’ve learned in my 46 years, it’s that life rarely reads like a fairy tale.
2 comments:
I liked this blog too. I am going to miss it.
Anyone who has run an internet world for any length of time knows that there are attacks and there are downtimes.
I have a site that has 3 owners. Our site is 9 years old. The only boards we have had BAD luck with are the opinion boards. It seems that folks just can't be grown up about facing an opinion that is different from theirs. We took those out of our site for several years, and recently one of my partners added it back. I don't go there very often, as I am disgusted with the behavior of the "adults". I let the other managers deal with the bans and the clean-ups of the foul behavior... We have strict guidelines and I am not shy about using them.
I am sorry to see Stuck go offline. I hope that the owners will take some time, heal and regroup. Our managers and hosts for our community regularly take breaks from their jobs. They have to stop and deal with the real world from time to time. Too many folks who frequent net communities have no other responsibilities and their relationships with others online and management becomes ultra-real, distorted and over shadows their real life. And it is always the site owners who take the grief.
Just for the record though, we have had at least 10 people get along so good, that they got married... and we are not a social website!
Good luck Alex and Rick. Come Back with more insights and staff to help shoulder the load!
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