Can we save DevBest?

[Blasteh]

I've been on this forum since 2013. Some of you have been here longer than me. The forum's popularity is due to Habbo, we cannot deny that. Sadly, the Habbo community has been dying off since 2013 and bringing DevBest with it. This forum was literally competing with RZ in its peak years in my eyes. Now? A new start-up can compete with this. Although it is not about competing, there's no drive for new users to stay around and interact in the community anymore.

We need to team up and think of a way to save this forum. With the recent resignation of @Wess, I don't really have that much hope. However, that shouldn't stop us from trying. I mean no disrespect to any of the staff members that volunteer time out of their day to moderate and administrate the forum, but this is and has been a shit hole. This is not the forum I signed up on, this is not the forum it was 3-4 years ago. I'm not even talking about the activity. I'm also not saying I could do a better job but there are several people in this community who deserve to be heard and added to the team. To add to this, this forum was my childhood, it meant a lot to me and it still does. Many of you may laugh, but I can guarantee, it was for you as well.

In all seriousness, why are we running 2020 awards? The management never even distributed 2019 banners. I recall a few of us saying in the shout box that we'd make the banners if a PSD template was handed to us as someone on the team confirmed there was one.

If we don't do something, this is going to be a blank webpage with dust falling from the top instead of snow in the future.

 

[Weasel]

I'm going to be brutally honest here because, in all honesty, I don't care anymore. For multiple years I've put loads of effort into DevBest, trying to keep it active. I've done countless suggestions, proposals and tried to get people to act, including the community, and move DevBest forward. In these years, my experience has been that the issue isn't moderation, but Josh. And I'm very sorry, Josh, don't see this as a personal attack, but I'm speaking my mind here. The breaking point for me is that I've been (or we've been) utterly respectful and patient towards Josh, including when he just disappeared and left DevBest without any care. Besides that, I've tried countless times to approach Josh in private. 99% of the time, I was ignored. Not even a response from him. How are you expecting to save DevBest, if Josh doesn't even have the decency to respond to his staff when we ask him something.

A few months back, we had a meeting, set up a Trello board with things that we agreed should happen. Once again, I put in a lot of effort. A few tiny things happened (for example, removing the Habbo shoutbox, something that takes 20 seconds). We got a new theme (that we even had before), and the Frank bot was removed. In reality, all that takes about 5 minutes, but it took him 2/3 months to act on it. I actually resigned from the staff team about 10 days before I publicly announced it. I didn't even get a response, and even now, I've publicly resigned, I'm still a Super Moderator. He didn't even have the fucking decency to send me a personal message; the only thing I "heard" from him was a fucking YouTube video on the resignation thread. And I'm not even the only one; this was literally the only response I got when I posted my resignation in the staff chat:

Brad 11/23/2020
Haha good luck with that, I’ve been trying to get demoted for over a year, maybe 2

I'm just done with it. Besides the fact that I don't want to be part of the staff team when DevBest dies, I also feel completely disrespected by Josh himself. If he doesn't care about DevBest, he should come out and say it. If there's any other reason for him to completely fuck up DevBest and ignore the people trying to keep his site active, he should also come out and say it. The only reason I've stayed on as long as I did and tried to help the way I did is that this place for me is full of friends. I also considered Josh as a friend. But I can not imagine this is the way you treat people who are helping you out or the community you've built up.

For now, this is all I have to say that comes to mind. There's much more I would like to add, but I'll see how the thread goes.

EDIT: As I still have my moderation rights, I'm going to use them too. I've moved this thread to the community section and stickied it, so it gets more attention.

 

[Joe]

The answer is simply, no. It's a shame as the community has been around for so long, we've all formed close bonds between one another, I joined here for Habbo, that's pretty much it, DevBest started to thrive when there was active development threads going on. For example, when RevCMS was being built, a long with Uber and what not, people were excited, interested and wanted to own their own retro. It's the same when Sledmore's edit of Plus Emu was released, people were all over it, the development threads he did, the community started to thrive, but as there's nothing left, retros are dying and Flash is about to end, the end looks near.

 

[Owen]

nope. It should have changed hands owner wise years ago to save it. It's been inactive that long to a point it's not saveable. It had plenty of potentials but with the bonus of flash dying, the possibility of the retro scene going with it then there's just no point.

 

[Haid]

Imo the whole conversation of "DevBest dying" is exaggerated massively, as someone who's lurked and been semi-active on Habbo related things since it was more active heres my take..

This has never been a 1000 post a day forum. It managed to attract people for the RevCMS development (how I found DevBest) and some more when Otaku closed but it's always been a small development community, the activity just follows how active Habbo retros are because that's all Devbest ever managed to attract really. It's not some new thing so it's seems kinda harsh for Rasta to be getting personally targeted for something which has been a fact since the forum took off.

Maybe he could do more, would it do anything? Who knows, but he probably has real life and a living to make. DevBest and habbo were probably hobbies for him which he's less interested now. At the end of the day, whether you were staff, a loyal user or just a casual lurker of DevBest - it's perhaps best to just remember your fond memories and move on.

 

[Weasel]

Imo the whole conversation of "DevBest dying" is exaggerated massively, as someone who's lurked and been semi-active on Habbo related things since it was more active heres my take..

This has never been a 1000 post a day forum. It managed to attract people for the RevCMS development (how I found DevBest) and some more when Otaku closed but it's always been a small development community, the activity just follows how active Habbo retros are because that's all Devbest ever managed to attract really. It's not some new thing so it's seems kinda harsh for Rasta to be getting personally targeted for something which has been a fact since the forum took off.

Maybe he could do more, would it do anything? Who knows, but he probably has real life and a living to make. DevBest and habbo were probably hobbies for him which he's less interested now. At the end of the day, whether you were staff, a loyal user or just a casual lurker of DevBest - it's perhaps best to just remember your fond memories and move on.

I get what you mean, but as most members can confirm, the other sections used to be WAY more active. The shoutbox too. The Habbo section is currently the only part that's still gathering some form of attention, but mostly help threads. Loads of loyal users are signing off, and almost not coming back, or just sporadic show their face. Way more could have been done to keep the forum active. But if people don't even get their support questions answered (such as change of DOB), people go away.

 

[Sarbaz]

Why don’t somebody with some care for it purchase it? Problem solved.

 

[CosmoPeak]

Why don’t somebody with some care for it purchase it? Problem solved.

i doubt it's for sale, and there's also links between devbest and findretros which probably still makes a little bit of money

 

[Blasteh]

Why don’t somebody with some care for it purchase it? Problem solved.

If only it was that simple.

 

[Legion]

I do believe we all have lives outside of DevBest. I posted way more, much like a lot of people, when I didn’t have a job and I was just in school. Life has gotten very busy and we all don’t have as much time for dedicating to a forum. I still read a ton of what people post and glad that some still find enjoyment and have the time to get that many posts. I hope DevBest still continues on and that we can keep it civil. Yes, some staff has left and that’s fine. I wish them the best on their own adventures. But I’m here to follow DevBest as well.