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October 27, 2005
Disillusionment.
These last few weeks that Ive been online have been quite hard on me physically. Ive struggled to physically sit down at the computer what with the infection on top of the pain and everything, and last night I had a bad bout of leb twitches aka the jerks. In other words I am on the computer too long again, and need to cut back for Ill have another seizure.
I am so disappointed by it all. I hoped I could manage it. Ive not been on the pc itself anywhere near as much as I was a year ago, but even this reduced amount of time is seeming to be too much.
On top of this I am just getting totally disillusionment by the whole ostomy site. For example. Halloween is coming up. I never used to do anything for the halloween night in the chat room, but quite a few years ago ppl were saying that I should make it like a party night. Kind of hard to do on an IRC chat channel, but Ive tried my best for people, got them to use spooky nicknames instead of their regular, talked about spooky things theyve seen or heard of etc, any ghost stories they have etc etc.
This halloween will be the third "annual ostomyland spook-tacular", except now theres talk of some people boycotting it because they dont like to celebrate death, or baby sacrifices etc etc. The spooktacular is NOT about that but noooooo theyve got to keep blabbing on saying its a celebration of death and paganistic rituals, when all it is is someone sat at home in front of their computer talking in a chat room with a name like "frankenstein" telling ghost stories! Christ, you'd think I was webcamming a baby sacrifce or something. I myself do not like halloween, never did. But its not because of religious reasons or anything. I just dont really like it, its kind of a non-event in the UK up until the last few years when its started to get more americanised. However, that doesnt mean I slam the door in the face of trick or treaters, or make them out to be pagonist executioners.
Theres also other things involving other ostomy sites that are causing aggro at the moment, but I will not discuss them here.
All of this combined has made me realise that I am just not enjoying being part of the site anymore. It feels like everything I do is under constant microscopic inspection and being used and abused by other people for their own gain. So, I think the time has come for me to leave the website and online ostomy community totally.
I am not sure how best to go about it yet, so im not going to just rush into it. I could just delete it all and say goodbye. But Id hate to do that. All my work would be for nothing. I could hand it over to one of the existing high level regulars, someone who knows HTML and how the net works inside out and the new developments etc of it so that the site can continue to grow and develop. But I really do feel that it is no longer a job for just one person. If it wasnt for the hard work of the boards moderators and chat room ops, the site would nowhere near be as strong as it is now (which is another reason why I feel I cant just delete it, as it would be an insult to their hard work).
Another option, maybe, is to try and get one of the big ostomy companies to take it over. A ready made community of ostomists from around the world with a pre-existing chain of command and support structure, along with a very healthy hit count, it could certainly complement any existing company website and be an exclusive opportunity for one company to benefit from that. But then, if that happened, Id be breaking one of the sites biggest golden rules that Ive stuck to since I started and that is to keep it all unbias and not chained to one comapanies specific products when it comes to offering help and advice.
I just dont know what to do for the best of everyone, including myself. So, im going to spend the rest of the year thinking about it carefully and see what happens. Maybe in the new year I'll feel different, but I doubt it. Ive been disillusioned by the site for a number of years now, and the last week or so's worth of problems and slapbacks have been the straw thats broken the camels back. All the various ostomy sites all seem to have got the same group of people as admins and moderators now, and while each and everyone of them do a great job, and are the real stars of "the show", it does mean that I feel there is no privacy in my management of the site. I get worried about talking about new features and ideas etcwith people to just sound them out and to make the site even better for people, because I know its going to be discussed with other site owners (not maliciously though), and also I feel like every decision or judgement I take on the board and chat room or users is being analyzed and scrutinised.
Its also slightly frustrating to see the people Ive put my faith in and spent hours training on how to run a board or chat room etc are then recruited by another site, and then another, and another. I feel this is bad for the online ostomy community in the long run. So many sites will split the community, and a moderator having admin so many other boards and so on means they are more stretched in the time they can spend on each individual board. I do no tknow how people manage to admin multiple sites boards as I know I have my hands full coping with just the one - and thats WITH all the help the mods / admins have graciously given me. If I were starting the site over again then I would probably do things differently. Anyways its all too late now for changes to the rules etc.
I think the biggest worry though is for the community as a whole. People only have a finite amount of time online. The growth of the internet is unstoppable at the moment, and there will be an explosion of new sites as more members of the computer generation face an ostomy for their condition. And as more and more sites come along and people add them to their list of favourites etc, eventually each site/community is going to get less traffic/hits and less of the quality responses and support that it deserves. On top of that newbies will be thinking "umm which one is best to post to then? This one? That one? The other one? The white one? The black one? etc". Choice is a good thing. But too much choice in this situation in my view is as bad as no choice.
Its been an uncomfortable night with the pain, and needless to say - as youve probbaly guessed from this post today - the depression has well and truly got its feet back under the table with no intention of leaving in the immediate future.
Im going to get a drink, and have a lay down I think before I throw myself back into the site once again....
.... better make it a stiff drink.
Bye for now,
J.
Pain: 5/10
Depression: 7/10
Posted by Jason at October 27, 2005 10:01 AM