I totally understand the need for personally moving on. I don't fault anyone who decides to put all of it, the religion and the recovery phase, in their rear view mirror. That's my ultimate goal, too.
What I'm hearing from those who dislike the situation isn't that Rifter, DS, Palimpsest or anyone else was wrong to decide to turn the page and move on. You all did an amazing job helping hundreds of people recover. No one should feel obligated to keep volunteering their time and effort; this isn't the borg where your "volunteer work" is mandatory and never ends.
But what I'm hearing here is that JWR was bigger than "Rifter's website" in the minds of the people who relied on it. On paper sure, it was and is his property to do with as he pleased. My thousands of posts were my intellectual property, but I trustingly (carelessly?) left them on his database on his servers. Oops, my bad.
But the bigger issue is a question of ethics: is it ethical to offer people a "recovery service," then with no warning just shut it down? What would have been wrong with saying something like: "I have decided that I need to move on. If anyone is interested in taking ownership, let me know ASAP. The current hosting plan runs out in X number of days, and after that if no one else wants this burden, the site will be closed."
Thats not difficult. And if you weren't in the mood to hear people clamoring about who should or shouldn't step up, then just send that message in a PM to maybe the top dozen most active people. Then walk away.
There were, are, and will be people whose only connection to a support group is JWR. Will they be able to find a continuum of the support they need? The message on the site right now would have left me feeling totally lost if it had happened when I needed a support network the most.
