Re: Welcome back …
Here:
Hello LPBack in 1995, I created a discussion forums website to bring together our online community. We morphed from pak.org to paklinks.com and now gupshup.org. Sometimes around February 05, 2006 you decided to give it a try and over time accumulated some 121469 posts! Now that’s an accomplishment in itself!
I will come to the point. Times have been difficult. Without your participation, this green tree of knowledge is withering. You made your last post on November 23, 2016.
Before I ask you, I will admit that along the way, I made terrible mistakes. Working behind the scenes, I did not engage in the day to day management of the forums and decided to let the democracy and will of users govern the site. The Directors and Moderators were chosen from among you, the site patrons. But when I stopped innovating and giving them the tools to succeed, they could not carry on the mission. Some bad decisions were made and the forums traffic started to decay rapidly. The abundant use of ban feature annoyed many of you and restricted free speech. I am not pointing fingers at anyone but myself. Many of you have volunteered your time as a moderator or CM at this place and I am very thankful to you for your sacrifices.
Over the last few months, I have pondered if I should shutdown GupShup and call it quits. Every single time I lean forward to take this action, I am reminded of the millions of posts made by contributors like YOU. This is an asset and window into time that I cannot simply take away from the future readers. Over the 22 years of operation, your posts have generated several Billion page views for readers all across the world. This treasure is too precious to abandon or let it sink into the depths of cyberspace. Yes, you cannot swipe through it and it does not come with fancy apps, but browsing through endless forums and posts is not much different from wandering an old school library. And just like books and libraries, GupShup is a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom; created, articulated and explained by YOU!
I fully understand that life happens. We grow up and move on. Interests and priorities in life change and time is always short. And on top of that, why would you engage in a place which lacks modern technological appeal and where big name alternatives are abundant?
But if you come back and start posting again, I will make a promise; I will personally get involved and start innovating like we used to. I have the following 5-points plan to revive this old tree:
- Modernize the look and feel of forums to match the available technologies.
- Relaunch native IOS and Android Apps for easy mobile usage.
- Integrate modern messaging platforms (text, audio, video).
- Reassemble the admin team with a clearer focus.
- Integrate with other social platforms like Paklinks.com and Facebook, etc.
Together, we can make GupShup the shining beacon it was once again. Your seed posts will encourage the newer generation to engage in discussions and learn from you the art of debate, persuasion and artful commentary. I am hoping you would not want to miss this chance to propagate your skills. Humanity is about sharing and passing along your knowledge after all.
Please come back.
Azkar Choudhry
Ps: I have started a welcome back thread where you can announce your continued presence.
Pps: If you have forgotten your password, please click here to have it reset.