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I posted this on the whatever happened to Wild Bill Hickock thread (ChrisL) so I might as well copy it here as its relavent
The whole WMI thing would be hard to repeat.
I thought we got off to a great start here. We would have 100 menbers on the board and 40 would attend the barbecue before the 4 legs.
I think growth is hard but also the way this sight grew was unusual. It started growing as individuals joined and moved from other sites here. Then suddenly its growth was by groups. The MSBA crowd came in mostly all at once , then the CT sirfcasters and their seperate forum , then the wave of "Pros" and all the associated issues.
Its hard when the original group suddenly doubles with the influx of people who know eachother but not the existing core. If this happens 3 or 4 times , soon its like 4 or 5 seperate groups rather than the tightly knit initial group. It went from really knowing people to knowing about people as the rapid growth spirts in groups just became too hard to keep track of everybody.
Now I'm not being negative here. just recounting how I see things went that changed the nature of the original site and members to what we have now.
I don't think there's any way to redo things or rpeat history. I do think the key to moving back to the direction where we started would be to have more live events. No way the good relationships can get tight by just internet contact. Its a great way to break the ice and exchange info etc but to build a tight group of friends like in the beginning there needs to be face to face in person interactions.
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