It is a shame Skinbook closes especially when there are only a handful of quality nudist social network site :(
I believe Karl Maddocks did not made this decision lightly given the resources his team had putted into making the new Skinbook site. I suspect whatever happened must had happened on the day the new site was up ... maybe they got into a dispute with their web hosting service provider?
Sadly, it happened so suddenly I didn't have the chance to backup my "friend" list on Skinbook.
I still haven't been approved for the Skinbook Memorial, so I'll post this here. The first post there says, in part:Skinbook members were given weeks of notices that the site was going self hosting. We were also told that skinbook had reached over 5000 members and had become the biggest and most influential nudist site on the web. The changes were to greatly increase the scope and coverage for the members, with better access etc. We were told it was us, the members, that made skinbook so great and that the site was going on to bigger and better things. When told the site was open for re-registering, I, along with over 200 people, re-registered within the first 24 hrs. I also saw that over 300 photos had been uploaded to the site. Extremely good for the first 24hrs. And I'm sure most other members were preparing their profiles to be added. Then the site owner, Karl Maddocks out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever, closed the site. He claimed he was getting no co-operation, only abuse from the members. Over 200 joined the new site in under 24 hrs - this is no co-operation ? He shut the site down without warning , did not even allow members a chance to contact their friends and arrange alternatives. He blamed members and nudists in general for his decision claiming abuse. I was on the site often and I saw no abuse, towards other members, towards the administration/monitors or to the site owner. (snip).
I was never even told the new site was active. I kept checking my email to hear the "good news" and never received it. I wasn't told it was throwing in the towel either. It was terracotta'spost on True Nudists Forumthat told me what was going on. I have a feeling things were beginning to crumble rather quickly.
Other Ning sites I had registered with also started their own websites. They are still in their infancy and are still very much under construction at this time. But they are there.
The difference, I think, though I have no way of proving it, is the other sites decided to act quickly and actively seek out alternatives. By the time the first deadline, Aug. 19, came about, they were ready, whereas Skinbook had been holding out, apparently hoping for special treatment. When this didn't happen, first they tried grou.ps, then they tried grouply, and then they finally tried setting up their very own site. It was clear that plans B and C were being made up as they went along.
It's always unfortunate when nudists lose yet another means of communcation and networking, but in Skinbook's case, the writing appears to have been on the wall for quite some time.
It was clear that plans B and C were being made up as they went along.
There is more to a social networking site than most realize.
A hosting of some sort, whether a service, or self-hosted. Easy for me, probably not for you.
A software package. Whether written yourself, or using something available, you are beholden to the software authors, and the incompatibilities, bugs, and such therein.
Management. One person alone can not effectively manage a site of any consequence.
Liabilities. The LAW is involved in too many things, but it's something that must be dealt with.
Making things up as you go along isn't normally the best management style.
Stay tuned. Skinbook by that name may be gone, but something better *is* coming !
They got some things right, but obviously some things wrong.
Quoting the original message sent by Skinbook to all members including myself,
"After
all the effort (and money) we have put into saving the Skinbook
network; the complaining, negativity, abuse and general lack of support
we have recieved from our users has been quite frankly, disgusting... I
am no longer prepared to provide the Skinbook network to any members
past or present."
I am not surpirsed they came to this decision so soon. I belong to several nudist sites which were Ning including one I moderated. Many have switched to different servers and have continued to serve their members deligently. Yes, with new servers there are always changes to confront and get accustomed to. Someone mentioned in a post above that this was Skinbook's Karma and I truly believe that. As I mentioned I have moderated two such sites and there is always a lot of time involved to Admin and Moderate these sites.
Too bad Skinbook is gone. However, there are still many new sites that are serving our community with pride and respect.
Louis
Sad to see another nudist group go. Maybe some of the people who did not finacialy support that site might join this one, and not finacialy support it either. I haven't given any money, but I don't use up a tonne of bandwidth either. My profile is no more fancy than my Facebook profile... which also has no pictures. I'm here to text and converse occasionally with people.
Skinbook closing has sincerely disappointed me too. I hope that it will be an example of this poor outcome where those people who are rude and not into the naturist lifestyle and principles have ruined it for the rest of us, and this might allow them to wake up to themselves and live and let live. We are all individuals with different bodies, perspectives and personalities, we need to be open to others, not be critical and above all respectful, particularly to those who are working hard to unite us in an online social setting, if True Nudists goes the way of Skinbook our ability to network online will be severely diminished.
Take care everyone, stay peaceful and respectful to keep TN going.
-Adam
You could see that it was going to go bad earlier this year. I used to admin a large naturist site many years ago. I had several conversations with the mods on Skinbook and it was easy to see that they didn't have much of a clue about naturism in general, let alone running a site like that. My overwhelming feeling was that Karl and his uni mates thought that this might a quick way to make a few quid by building up thousands of members in a niche group and then selling it on. When he suddenly realised that it was going to start costing him a whole heap of money, he decided to get out. Hence his epiphany-like 'distancing himselve from the lifestyle. Or maybe I'm just getting way too cynical in my old age!
Guess it makes more sense now why we haven't received a notification about the new site being up and running. Too bad that the old site was taken off line so abruptly before we had time to write down all the e-mail addresses our friends have sent us to keep in touch with.
Sue & B. J.
notices were sent out,i received several about the staus of the group and the direction it was going. the ning site was left up and running for several weeks after the mods announced that the ning version would be closing and a version elsewhere could be set up.
from the message sent about the demise of the group, it sounds like it was more to do with some of the members than not being a naturist or trying to make a "few quid" the message stated that many members were complaining or had some kind of negative attitude.
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