MI, Pitchfork and digital disappearances

[Necro Red]

The Wayback machine is the only way to get it as far as I know. The closure came completely out of the blue even to the mods - we were certainly never told in advance. I asked CT if it could be reopened for a bit to get the Hall Of Fame threads saved but it was a no.

I think he was fed up paying for a site that didn't have a huge amount of engagement towards the end, plus it took so much time to run, and for very little payoff really.

you'd think he would ask one of the mods then if they wanted to take over the site? I understand why he didn't want to do it anymore, but I'm sure someone else would take it on as a labour of love

[Eoin McLove]

Sure who would want to have run it back then? It  was dead as a dodo for two or three years. Nobody posted on it as I think everyone had moved to Facebook. It's a pity some of the writing was lost but the activity on this site in recent months is in no way reflective of the activity of MI before CT pulled the plug.

[hellfire]

I think he was fed up paying for a site that didn't have a huge amount of engagement towards the end, plus it took so much time to run, and for very little payoff really.

I don't think he planned to close. Just got sick of the shit one day. He'd asked for my help the week or two before to remove a ton of base64 malware out of the damn thing. Don't think he knew himself he was closing it until he closed it.

[ochoill]

I feel like I am repeating myself here but he was trying to sell the site, ultimately, that is why it went the way it did.  I'm sure there is deeper reasoning behind it but that's the crux of it in the end.  And he couldn't sell it then to top it all off.

The big lesson from MI- and ye can all tell me otherwise but I won't believe you- is that certainly towards the end all anyone was interested in was the forum.

Yeah this is the height of it too.  The site was good for anyone who actually read it but it lured nobody in and the whole thing trundled along off the forum itself.  Even offline discussion of MI was around the forum, if anyone brought it up elsewhere it was the forum, the actual site was up to nothing as far as anyone was concerned.  You can thank FB for the likes of that really, and just the way people want to consume media nowadays.

[The Butcher]

We had the vinyl revival era, perhaps now there's the...forum reforming era?

[Mooncat]

Sure who would want to have run it back then? It  was dead as a dodo for two or three years. Nobody posted on it as I think everyone had moved to Facebook. It's a pity some of the writing was lost but the activity on this site in recent months is in no way reflective of the activity of MI before CT pulled the plug.

I do think the nature of the site's disappearance galvanized a lot of people into realizing what they had, hence the activity on this forum now.

We had the vinyl revival era, perhaps now there's the...forum reforming era?

It's already back via Reddit. So many good subreddits out there for every niche, with great discussion, respect, and activity. Aside from little hidden gem forums like this one, it's the best place on the internet for discussion. In recent times I've almost entirely stopped using social media and mainly just use reddit. With it's anonymous nature it also takes a lot of the narcissism out of online discussion.

EDIT: For the record, I would love old school forums and blogs to become the norm again...