For me personally, individuals leaving was no big deal. If you're done, you're done. Bye and good luck. Besides, when you're bitter, it starts to come through even if you stick around and no one wants to deal with that anyway. I say this to people in person that I feel are starting to act salty toward me. If you don't like me, please do us both a favor and stop being around me. Even if you don't say anything about how you feel, it's going to come through in passive aggressive ways and I don't have time for it. The minute that negative feeling develops it's the start of the end. That's the perfect time to leave or pass the baton. Shutting down the whole site in that manner just kind of feels like it was done to be spiteful even if they haven't admitted it to themselves yet. Negative feelings have a tendency to fester and build like that until the day the person does something so hurtful that they don't even recognize themselves in the action.
From what I gather the reason for this manner of closure was as we felt that people were becoming too unnecessarily dependent on the forum and that one collective had been replaced by another. By sudden closure we were hoping that some would decide to let the past go and move on
But I do want to say this for those who had stuck around for years and were viewed as overly dependent on the site: Often they were the people that were always there, ready and first to respond when someone new did post. They were the ones always in chat ready to give advice or support when some was needed immediately. Thank you. A few did target others but it's the internet. Don't get me wrong I hated being attacked publicly, particularly if it was ignored because I got a warning for posting a link to a weight loss site when I first signed up and I'm still very confused about that. I deal with bullying, fake accounts, and outright creeps everywhere else as I have a strong social media presence. However, the precedent elsewhere is that everyone is on their own unless it's severe so I rock with it. Sometimes that just means blocking someone. So maybe if a precedent isn't set for it, no one will have those types of expectations. Even our curses were censored hahaha...I questioned my life so much the day I typed "shit" and looked back at my post and it said "****" LOL I'm not complaining...just offering an observation that I think would help going forward.
I do think the high level of moderation was well intentioned and often beneficial. I also respect that it took a lot of work. But it also ended up setting expectations that were more than the admins/mods could continue to meet long term. If anyone takes on creating a new site like JWR and doesn't want to get fed up and overwhelmed trying to control adults, I would recommend setting a different precedent and creating a block feature that truly blocks. lol less work for you.....(not that anyone asked for my advice) But this is why every popular site has one because weirdos pervade society and no one running a site wants to have to babysit them individually. Who has time or energy for that? Of course if it's a serious, threatening offense, they would still need to be removed.
The concept of having to move on from an online community seems outdated also, because online communities have and will continue to replace in person communities. That may sound bizarre to some buttttt it's 2016. I used to alternate checking JWR, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook during the day at work LOL....I didn't realize how much I did it automatically until the past week. I would click on my JWR bookmark just out of habit. (Now I do it and I'm reminded there's nothing there ) Okay what's my point? I swear I had a point....Okay, yes,here it is.... I don't think we should necessarily look down on those who get attached to an online community. If Twitter shut down right now without warning, can you imagine the outrage? Some of you may have no idea.....but trust me, shit would be crazy. It would be the JWR reaction times millions. And Twitter isn't even designed for recovery. Just imagine a central building where people come together to meet a few times a day sometimes for serious business and other times just to chat. People get comfortable. They start to hang pictures and certificates up. They bring in a plant and water it everyday. They leave a diary and a change of clothes behind...Some people are there more than others but at least they are always there to welcome new people. Then one day they walk there and see the whole building has burned down. Damn, that would suck. Now imagine the owner of the building burned it down on purpose. That's what this is like. We have to get over this concept that relying on virtual places makes a person weak. We give just as much of ourselves and become just as attached as we would if it were a physical location or group meet. It's just the era of technology.
I'm also personally grateful that every long term ex JW has NOT moved on, because that experience benefits so many. Look at someone like Cedars for instance. I used to watch his videos everyday because that's what I needed at the time when learning how to criticize the organization. I'm glad people like him stick around. If my family stopped speaking to me tomorrow, my website and youtube channel would go up at RECORD SPEEDS. And I know it would benefit so many people, especially those around my age. I'm not in a position to do it myself right now so I appreciate those that stick with the activism and don't feel like they have to disappear into ex ex JW land. I also respect those who move on. But let's not put either type of individual down. We need both.
I can tell you that even though I knew a few days in advance, I declined to download my research and material – close to 10K posts – as this would still somehow keep me attached – while I want a clean start.
One last point, sometimes when you feel like you have to remove every reminder of something from your past from your present life, it's more of an indicator that you actually are not completely over whatever it is that affected you. I know I'm over an ex when I can look at a picture, see him in person, read an old journal entry or talk about how I grew from the situation, and not feel anything. When I had to go on a crusade of deleting and trashing everything that reminded me of one of my exes, guess what... I wasn't over it.
There's nothing shameful about acknowledging or keeping parts of things that made us who we are today. None of us will ever know what it's like to never have been one of Jehovah's Witnesses, even if we call ourselves ex ex ex ex ex ex ex ex ex ex JWs, and that's okay.
