Will it ever live up to totse/zoklet?
My answer is, who cares? You shouldn't. People need to stop thinking about how popular we are, how we rate on the latest internet scale of popularity and just be. You shouldn't come here and post because it's got the most members at the time, you should come here simply because you want to be here. You want to post here. To be a part of this community. To have good times. To learn. To meet new people. To laugh...
Totse was a place where one could truly be themselves. To express their thoughts and to read others' thoughts as well, however good or bad they were. We were spoiled at the time though and we didn't really realize what we had until it went. We've gone through many iterations of it, all of them failed in one way or another. And now we're all here. (most of us, at least) And I know it sucks to see something great keep fading. But perhaps that's one of our problems. We keep trying to hold onto the past dearly and the past is just dust, so sooner or later, it all drains slowly out of your hands no matter how much you try to hold onto it.
I think it's time to finally let go and build something new from everything we've learned and experienced. It's time for us to be our own community instead of the "Zoklet" community or the "totse2" community. This place was built because we were all looking for one thing or another. It was built to be a Sanctuary for all so long as they abide by the scant rules we have. A Sanctuary for the mind. I think when we finally realize how much it doesn't matter if we live up to Zoklet or totse or what have you, we can begin to finally build something new and unique. We can become us, whoever that may be as we go on, as we live our lives, as we post here.
And the new members will come... We may not have any advertising going yet, but that's going to change once we finally get everything ready and streamlined here. So don't worry about it for now. Just relax. Just be.
Understanding that you really don't care....I still think it needs to be mentioned, from where I'm sitting you've already surpassed Zoklet....although admittedly that is like beating a 1-legged man in an ass kicking contest. Still though, in just a couple of weeks, you've shown more more foresight and humility than Zok and his stooges ever had. And especially put in more effort, both as an admin and a poster.
Not only that, you "fit in" on your own website a lot more than Zok ever did. He always came off as an awkard little dolt, and the fact he hid behind the curtain and made himself so UNaccessible he always seemed like he was scared of or avoiding the community. You seem like "one of the guys", and don't have a pseudo sense of entitlement mixed with a god complex....like we should all be genuflecting in reverence because we decided to join your board.
And at least you have a personality, Zok and the rest of the staff always came off as robots just there to flaunt their power(?)....stupid little code monkeys that were computer geeks, and had absolutely nothing else to offer the world in the least besides their techy nonsense and chatroom politics.