This is me venting

[Dani]

This is definitely not a targeted attack at anyone. Please take it just as me having a bad day and venting.

I'm kinda tired of people constantly telling me that I'm the reason that DaniWeb traffic has tanked over the years. And if only I had done this differently. Or done that differently. Or listened to members more about this. Or listened to members more about that.

I have always done what I thought was in the best interests of DaniWeb long term. There have been many times over the past twenty years that I've looked back, and hindsight is always 20/20, and thought that maybe if I hadn't done this than that wouldn't have happened, or I did this wrong, or I screwed up here, or I screwed up there, or I did that right after all.

But the thing is, at the end of the day, I'm the only one willing to put my money where my mouth is.

In the current landscape of tech and programming forums, Dream.in.Code went out of business. DevShed went out of business. Cre8asite Forums went out of business. Bytes.com is hanging on by a loose thread.

Yes, we aren't nearly as popular as we were in the 2010s. Heck, we aren't even profitable anymore. But I'm paying for all server costs out of pocket. I'm working on the site every day (that I am able to, given recent health challenges). I've made, on average, 700-1000 code check-ins annually for the past ten years. Of course I'm doing what I think is in DaniWeb's best interests. Always.

There are just some days, like today, where I'm feeling a bit more dejected than normal, and just wanting a pat on the back from time to time.

[Reverend Jim]

It's hard for me to imagine that all of the pleasure I've gotten out of Daniweb, the challenges, the insights, the friendships since I joined in 2010, are all dependent on the largesse of just one very talented person. I, for one, appreciate all you have done, particularly considering your current health issues. If you feel unappreciated then perhaps this post will make you feel a little less so.

[Reverend Jim]

Also, in non-computing over the years I have heard comments like "if only I hadn't stopped for coffee I would have missed that accident, or several other variations. The thing is you never know what would have happened if you had made different decisions. Certainly making a different decision may have resulted in things being better. Or they might have been worse, or exactly the same. There's no need to beat yourself up wondering what if.

[jkon]

Dani , yes I also believe that you are responsible for the decline of DaniWeb .... BUUUT that was many years ago. We all foreseen the decline of "forums" back in early 2010's , there were many alternatives of what to do , and I strongly believe that you choose the wrong one. I will not repeat what you did or what you could be done differently , I have told that many times , forums as we knew were dead - we all seen that , what was missing was a programming hub of news / forum / interviews .

But here we are ... and forums could have a revive in certain areas. Not in SEO advertisement topics , but invest your time that when someone asks a serious question gets an answer. I have got the answer "because this is what is being told" several times over the last months when I ask for something that Gemini or ChatGPT would give me the default answer and not more reasoning (example my C++ threads). Even if you don't know C++ , learn or ask someone that knows to look at the issue and respond with a concrete answer. Programming is not always true or false , it is what you want to do , how do you want to do it , what are the other factors / people involved , and what resources are you willing to spend to it ... that is something that AI will not understand for MANY MANY years to come.

Forums could have a revive if are useful and have a sufficient user base. DaniWeb as it is now has the second one. And in my view it is not late to transform it to a programmers hub .

[Dani]

what was missing was a programming hub of news / forum / interviews

I have always been a strong proponent of having editorial (news, tutorials, interviews, etc.) complement the user-generated forum discussions. In the past, well over 50% of our gross revenue from advertising went straight into paying for staff writers. IMHO we used to have a lot of tech news content being published regularly, but as traffic declined, so did revenue, and so did the budget for staff writers. The nail in the coffin was when I was no longer able to afford Davey (happygeek), because his gig at Forbes turned into a fulltime promotion and there was just no way I was able to compete with what they were paying him. I feel like a lot of members left when happygeek left. For sure, our Google rankings tanked a lot due to no longer having regular news stories and editorial daily.

However, I'm still keeping up with some staff writers. For example, Johannes just published an interview last week, and Usman just published a tutorial a couple of days ago. Of course, we don't have the level of clout that we used to in order to attract interviewees like Steve Wozniak anymore, but we're trying.