- September 15th, 2020, 6:30 pm
#109471
Inevitably this day was always going to come, though it would be easy to think otherwise as the years have rolled on. This summer we entered our 18th (!) year of Carowinds Connection, but all things eventually come to an end, and the 18th year will be the last one for this website.
A lot has changed since I started this website in 2003 to track the construction of what eventually turned out to be Borg Assimilator/Nighthawk. Four people have joined me in running this website: Jay Miller and Max Cannon were the OGs, Doug Robinson came aboard in 2010, and Rick Barber in 2014. Max passed away in November 2014 and the hurt is still painfully fresh from Doug who we lost this past May.
Of our three remaining admins, I left for New Jersey and later New York 10 years ago, and Jay recently departed for Massachusetts. Needless to say, the interest in this site from the admin team has declined. Additionally, while Carowinds Connection has not changed much over the past couple of decades, the Internet has completely changed around it. "Social media" was not a term that existed when this site was created and Mark Zuckerberg was still half a year away from launching "TheFacebook." No Twitter, no Reddit, no smart phones. The way people use the Internet has changed, and as that has happened our traffic has declined.
The third nail in the coffin is that the software this site is built on is in need of a total overhaul. It is years out of date and there have been a number of technical problems (as I'm sure many of you remember) over the last few years that nearly took the site down entirely. That is a very large undertaking that I have no interest in taking on.
Over 1,100 people have posted on this site over the past 17+ years, writing over 100,000 posts. I am completely humbled by the response to this site and how long it has lasted. I've met lifelong friends through here and I know many others have as well. Our members have been fixtures at media days and ACE events over the years, and I think this community has been one of the best in the online coaster world.
The end will not be coming quite yet. The forums will remain active until the end of December of this year. From that point they will be locked to new posts and will be available as a read-only archive until May 2021. At some point in May the website will go offline for good.
Since I know someone will ask this, I am not interested in someone else taking over the site. I recognize that is somewhat of a selfish choice, but it is one I feel fairly strongly about. There are a lot of creative people in the Carowinds fan community and I have no doubt that there are only greater things to come. By keeping the site running for a few more months I hope that will allow our members to get some sense of closure and identify where the community will shift.
Thank you to everyone who has made this community great over the past two decades and I look forward to the final few months.
A lot has changed since I started this website in 2003 to track the construction of what eventually turned out to be Borg Assimilator/Nighthawk. Four people have joined me in running this website: Jay Miller and Max Cannon were the OGs, Doug Robinson came aboard in 2010, and Rick Barber in 2014. Max passed away in November 2014 and the hurt is still painfully fresh from Doug who we lost this past May.
Of our three remaining admins, I left for New Jersey and later New York 10 years ago, and Jay recently departed for Massachusetts. Needless to say, the interest in this site from the admin team has declined. Additionally, while Carowinds Connection has not changed much over the past couple of decades, the Internet has completely changed around it. "Social media" was not a term that existed when this site was created and Mark Zuckerberg was still half a year away from launching "TheFacebook." No Twitter, no Reddit, no smart phones. The way people use the Internet has changed, and as that has happened our traffic has declined.
The third nail in the coffin is that the software this site is built on is in need of a total overhaul. It is years out of date and there have been a number of technical problems (as I'm sure many of you remember) over the last few years that nearly took the site down entirely. That is a very large undertaking that I have no interest in taking on.
Over 1,100 people have posted on this site over the past 17+ years, writing over 100,000 posts. I am completely humbled by the response to this site and how long it has lasted. I've met lifelong friends through here and I know many others have as well. Our members have been fixtures at media days and ACE events over the years, and I think this community has been one of the best in the online coaster world.
The end will not be coming quite yet. The forums will remain active until the end of December of this year. From that point they will be locked to new posts and will be available as a read-only archive until May 2021. At some point in May the website will go offline for good.
Since I know someone will ask this, I am not interested in someone else taking over the site. I recognize that is somewhat of a selfish choice, but it is one I feel fairly strongly about. There are a lot of creative people in the Carowinds fan community and I have no doubt that there are only greater things to come. By keeping the site running for a few more months I hope that will allow our members to get some sense of closure and identify where the community will shift.
Thank you to everyone who has made this community great over the past two decades and I look forward to the final few months.
