Updated 7/31/12 – There is one thing I want to address due to some of the comments.  Some of you aren’t happy with the fact that this may be the 3rd/4th “We’re gonna close, no, we’re not.” post.  For that, I do apologize – it’s not my intention.  Let me make it clear, the whole closing thing is my personal feeling on the matter – it’s the staff that wants to keep it going.  Me, personally, would rather much hand the site over completely and let them go on with it – making changes, adding new staff members, etc.  Problem is, I made very bad decisions on the backend of this site to where I can’t just give the site over…
With WordPress, managing a site is suppose to be very simple.  My problem is, I took something simple, and made it complicated to where you’d have to be very good at knowing what you’re doing.  So, in order to fix my mistake, and to fully hand the site over to the staff, I have to go in and start with a fresh WordPress installation, set it up correctly – possibly starting fresh with having you guys re-register your accounts again, and a new easier to manage design.  As for all of the existing posts/pages – it may be possible to actually save them and import them into the new site – I’m in the process of talking about it with our tech guy.  So option 3 may be a go after all, keeping the name – and possibly the content, but getting things finally setup the way I should have always had it.  Then, I can probably leave peacefully and you guys can stop hating me 😛  -JUD

Last night, while talking with The Black Scorpion, we were questioning the future of the site, as well as sharing our thoughts on the future of the Sims franchise.  As everyone pretty much guessed, I am done with the franchise, and would like to move on to pursue other interests.  However, the staff still has a passion – it may not be as strong as it was when they first started, but they still somewhat care for the series.
Anyhow, with TBS undergoing chemotherapy within the next few weeks, we were talking on what would be the best approach on how to handle things.  He hasn’t exactly been feeling 100% interested with the Sims franchise, but that may be due to the stress over the treatments he’s about to go thru.  I for one, do not want him to have to worry about the site during this time – last thing he needs on his mind is to think he has to keep updating.  So the idea of closing the site for good came up.
After some back-and-forth discussions, we came to these options:

  1. Close Simprograms permanently, and let the staff move on if they wish.
  2. Close Simprograms, and keep the Facebook page up and use that as a tool to provide news updates.
  3. Reboot the whole site and start over from scratch, strictly dealing with news content and dropping the pages (as site statistics show, the programs, tutorials, cheats and other pages very rarely get visited).

I don’t mind option #1, but I did hand the site over to Bryce so in the end, it’s up to him.  I like option #2 the most, because it would be easier for the staff as we all spend a good amount on Facebook.  Of course, the drawback there is that not everyone cares or uses Facebook…
As for option #3 – in all honesty, it may be best for everyone.  The site’s backend has always been a mess – I did not setup WordPress correctly, files are everywhere and not where they should be, the site’s design is a nightmare to look at due to all of its custom coding… A complete refresh and install would be beneficial.  Two problems with that”

  • If we do decide that route, all content – news, articles, etc, would be gone.  We’d literally be starting over from scratch and rebuilding.  However, being a news site, I don’t suppose this would harm us in the end.  Folks want the latest info, so within a month or so, there may be enough content to please folks.
  • If we do refresh the site, we’re going to be dropping the programs/tutorials and other misc. sections.  We just can’t keep up, there never was a good system in place to handle those, it’s all manually entered, and it is a pain to do, hence why the pages have not been updated.  If we do this, though is it even wise to keep the ‘SimPrograms’ name, or should we start completely fresh, kill the name and come up with another one?

So as of now, we’re deciding what would be the best route to take.  I don’t really want to sell the site – nor give it away to someone I’m not really familiar with, so if it comes to the fact that it’s time to shut the doors, then so be it.  We’ll listen to your comments and see what your thoughts would be.