Update:

I wanted to add to the status post above.

A few long time team members (and very strong contributors) are not happy with me and have become inactive recently. The reason for this "unhappiness", in my view, is the fact that trying to manage difficult issues like retooling and remodeling a site like this requires more than just communicating via text messaging. The team members I talk with on the phone (by voice) on a regular basis and I do not have any misunderstandings. Misunderstandings often arise when people only want to communicate by messaging. Ultimately I have to make the changes the site needs. We cannot continue as "rusty, legacy forum". When we complete building out the new Live Chat and other new systems, I plan to disable the legacy infraction system forever.

Recently I bought a condenser mic so I could talk to people while working (taking a much need break from coding) and have been trying to talk to people by Skype, What's App or Line (by voice) more so there are less misunderstandings. Ravinder and I talk on the phone at least once a month and by chat often.

Recently one of our most beloved long time contributors left the site, who was someone I dearly loved, because I typed something like " we need to bring in new moderators and not only have the "old guard" moderators" , which I thought at the time was a kind of endearing term, since I'm also getting as old as dirt myself and like to make fun of the fact we are all getting older and need to be more accommodating and responsive to the needs of the younger generation(s).

If we had of been talking on the phone, everyone would have heard my voice and laughed, but instead, text messaging caused people to misunderstand each other and get emotional. Text messaging does not work. The leadership team must be willing and happy to talk on the phone, and often. Later this year, I may disable the current private messaging system and use a variation of the new chat features I'm building now.

This is the problem when we are making big changes. Text messaging. I am really getting disappointed to see how people are so set on living in a "text only" world. Text is cool; but we also need voice communications.

Moving forward, I want to build a closer community of forum leaders This means we will seek new team members who are willing to talk on the phone one-on-one or in small groups (because the time zone differences are too huge to conference all at once), and who will work with users in Live Chat (or something similar as we evolve) and who fully support our changes as we modernize the forums.

Today, in Live Chat a new member told me we had the best forum on the net and he loved the "dark mode" and our Live Chat support. That same user told me he had never had any site respond to him like we did today using the new Live Chat area.

This is our future.

Responsive, mobile savvy, new member focused.