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I’ve been building a forum. The software part is done, I worked for like 9 months on and off to get it deployed, and now I just don’t have the motivation to do

by cirgue 7y ago

I’ve been building a forum. The software part is done, I worked for like 9 months on and off to get it deployed, and now I just don’t have the motivation to do the work involved in building the community.

scrollaway 7y ago
This reminds me of why you don't make your own game engine when you are building a game. You'll spend months or years working on exactly what isn't a game. You built a forum, that's great. If you set out to build a forum, you succeeded. If you set out to build a community, you just wasted a bunch of time on doing something only loosely related at best. So the question is, what did you actually set out to do? If you are considering this a failure, then you can turn it into a success by releasing the forum software for others to use.
- AndrewStephens 7y ago
  > This reminds me of why you don't make your own game engine when you are building a game. You'll spend months or years working on exactly what isn't a game. I've done exactly this. It was a really good game engine - sprites, animation, LUA scripting, and everything. But once I had it running the original inspiration for the game was gone. I learned a lot in the process so I don't count it as wasted time. More recently,I built a my own static site generator like everyone else and their dogs. I guess I really never finished it but it is feature complete enough to do exactly what I need even if nobody else is ever going to use it. Like the gp's forum software, that is a kind of success.
- cirgue 7y ago
  I set out to build a product I would want to use from scratch. I succeeded in that I deployed a web app that does everything it's supposed to do (More or less a Metafilter clone). This is the first thing I've ever put on the internet, and I definitely learned a huge amount (my day job is in ML and most of my side projects are data/stats/ML related). I guess the answer is that I set out to do both. I did one, and have been dragging my feet on the other.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Sounds so glass-half-empty. In my book you succeeded at one of your goals. :)
stevewodil 7y ago
Could you generalize the forum software and get other people to make community forums based on your software (ie. sell it), instead of you doing it yourself?

by cirgue 7y ago

scrollaway 7y ago

This reminds me of why you don't make your own game engine when you are building a game. You'll spend months or years working on exactly what isn't a game. You built a forum, that's great. If you set out to build a forum, you succeeded. If you set out to build a community, you just wasted a bunch of time on doing something only loosely related at best. So the question is, what did you actually set out to do? If you are considering this a failure, then you can turn it into a success by releasing the forum software for others to use.

AndrewStephens 7y ago
> This reminds me of why you don't make your own game engine when you are building a game. You'll spend months or years working on exactly what isn't a game. I've done exactly this. It was a really good game engine - sprites, animation, LUA scripting, and everything. But once I had it running the original inspiration for the game was gone. I learned a lot in the process so I don't count it as wasted time. More recently,I built a my own static site generator like everyone else and their dogs. I guess I really never finished it but it is feature complete enough to do exactly what I need even if nobody else is ever going to use it. Like the gp's forum software, that is a kind of success.
cirgue 7y ago
I set out to build a product I would want to use from scratch. I succeeded in that I deployed a web app that does everything it's supposed to do (More or less a Metafilter clone). This is the first thing I've ever put on the internet, and I definitely learned a huge amount (my day job is in ML and most of my side projects are data/stats/ML related). I guess the answer is that I set out to do both. I did one, and have been dragging my feet on the other.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Sounds so glass-half-empty. In my book you succeeded at one of your goals. :)

stevewodil 7y ago

Could you generalize the forum software and get other people to make community forums based on your software (ie. sell it), instead of you doing it yourself?