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Post by writeway on Jun 24, 2019 17:29:44 GMT
I mean, seriously. Lately I've seen several posts there with people selling completed manuscripts. What happened to the mods and does anyone there care how bad this makes the Kboards brand look? I know the site's rep has been damaged since they sold out to that company but little by little Kboards is looking like Fiverr or Warrior. Just wondering if anyone else noticed this. And the mods seem to be MIA these days. I saw Ann pop in once last week after about five months.  |
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Post by dormouse on Jun 25, 2019 20:41:29 GMT
I've only been an intermittent visitor to kboards, but I did notice a long thread a month or two ago. People against, people for; I thought a mod got involved at one point. But the overall outcome seemed to be that it became an acceptable place to sell mss. There seem to be a number of buyers.
Becca commented on one such thread today.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jun 25, 2019 22:49:59 GMT
Wow, I should really visit Kboards one of these days. But it doesn't surprise me at all. New management, new culture. Kboards only exists to make money off of posters now, so why shouldn't the posters get a cut, too? *shrugs* Betsy and Ann have no real power anymore, and they aren't being paid, so I wouldn't expect them to be as faithful or enthusiastic as they used to be. Times change. Cattle prods fizzle. Shit happens. Kboards is a distant memory to me now. Something I remember caring about once upon a time, but now never even think about.
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Post by writeway on Jun 26, 2019 6:31:41 GMT
Sad it's turned out this way but I forgot it was the authors who were the real mods. The authors made Kboards what it was and many of them would've never put up with this. They're all gone now of course. It's a shame that if this continues it will turn from a place that helped authors into one that preys on them.
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Post by thatwritergal on Jul 2, 2019 8:58:28 GMT
Yikes. I visited the board some time ago and noped right out there when I saw it had turned into a classified sections forum for selling services. I didn't even know they had been selling MSS but somehow I'm not surprised.  |
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 2, 2019 21:49:49 GMT
I just logged into Kboards, I just see normal threads on the first page, right now. At least from what I can tell from the titles. I am writerbuilding, right now, so that's pretty much all I care about, but I'll try and look around more closely during breaks.
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drake
New Member
Posts: 7
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Post by drake on Jul 5, 2019 8:04:50 GMT
Kboards has always had threads like that, it's just that the activity level is so low nowadays that the threads from people selling services have started to take over. They don't get pushed off the front page as quickly as they used to. Kboards is still much more active than that writer sanctum forum though, the owner of WS shit the bed and it's not really a viable alternative to kboards like it was hoped.
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Post by dormouse on Jul 5, 2019 11:26:01 GMT
I just popped in. Looked at first 10 thread titles.
One editing service, one cover illustration service and one MSS sale thread.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 6, 2019 1:50:09 GMT
Successful forums are difficult to run because posters all want something different, and the admin/moderators have to be wise enough to choose which warring factions to please and which ones to ignore, cos you can't please someone who wants apples every day and someone who wants no apples ever. And both parties are equally passionate and feel super strongly about their position. If one faction is larger than the other, the mod can try that approach, but usually it comes down to their personal preference and which side they agree with most. Kboards should just keep all service threads in a services section, so that peeps who come to the board with their wallets open can go empty it and it doesn't bother anyone else. Or don't allow selling at all. But Kboards doesn't have a single head anymore who can swiftly make decisions, nor do they have a board of author-mods (that's a really cool idea. Let the posters vote on say 5 or 10 author mods who fit in most strongly with the determined board culture). Either way, no one's in charge anymore who cares.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Jul 7, 2019 22:30:09 GMT
But not having the services out in the open defeats the purpose of the new owners, which is to bring in ad money.
I used to go to a scale modeling forum, it was bought out by VS. It doesn't have half the posts it used to, though it didn't seem to become buy my stuff central. Or not yet.
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Post by writeway on Mar 7, 2020 1:24:05 GMT
Kboards has really disintegrated. It's like the mods aren't even around anymore. I popped in and the first two pages on the board are full of spam by some dude. Posters claim they reported him but no one's done anything about it yet. I haven't seen Ann or Betsy on there in probably a year or at least not much since the implosion. Becca only pops in every blue moon it seems. At this rate, why even have mods? It's sad how downhill that place has gone. Sigh. I remember the good old days. It was THE place for the indie community.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Mar 8, 2020 20:07:02 GMT
Kboards has really disintegrated. It's like the mods aren't even around anymore. I popped in and the first two pages on the board are full of spam by some dude. Posters claim they reported him but no one's done anything about it yet. I haven't seen Ann or Betsy on there in probably a year or at least not much since the implosion. Becca only pops in every blue moon it seems. At this rate, why even have mods? It's sad how downhill that place has gone. Sigh. I remember the good old days. It was THE place for the indie community. The posts are gone now. Becca dealt with it. But yes, the mods aren’t around much anymore. I don’t know why they don’t all quit and let new ones take over. I imagine having an out of touch overlord in charge makes things like that harder. Kboards was once an awesome place. Tis sad for sure. |
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Post by davidvandyke on Mar 16, 2020 19:31:29 GMT
This shows how when something goes corporate, it often devolves. If there's no involved manager to take ownership, it will turn into a wasteland over time. Good things take active management.
Nowadays I skim the unread posts and seldom even interact. I stick to WriterSanctum, or 20Books on FB.
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Post by possiblyderanged on Apr 27, 2020 12:03:08 GMT
I go there every few days, mostly when I'm bored, to see what's happening. Mostly services, newbs getting advice from newbs, and some guy who likes to act like he knows what he's doing, until he asks about something or comments on a thread, and you realize he's learned nothing after all these years. And he's back in the Philippines, living with some girl. Oy.
It's sad to see what was once the place to go for indie publishing come to this, but the blame lies on Harvey's family, for selling out without trying to see if someone on the forums could take over. And poor Becca, who's been left to manage the monkey house, alone.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Apr 29, 2020 5:45:24 GMT
I go there every few days, mostly when I'm bored, to see what's happening. Mostly services, newbs getting advice from newbs, and some guy who likes to act like he knows what he's doing, until he asks about something or comments on a thread, and you realize he's learned nothing after all these years. And he's back in the Philippines, living with some girl. Oy. It's sad to see what was once the place to go for indie publishing come to this, but the blame lies on Harvey's family, for selling out without trying to see if someone on the forums could take over. And poor Becca, who's been left to manage the monkey house, alone. Haha I know the guy you're talking about. I enjoy his posts, they're entertaining. I like the odd ones. They are my people. The Russian guy on writersanctum is interesting, too. His posts all read like he's writing his memoirs. And it's interesting to get an eye on what's happening in other places around the world. I was deep into the Covid19 threads on there until I decided to start doing something productive with the rest of my life. But yes, on Kboards it's pretty much all newbies now, except for Rosalind and Patty who still post there sometimes. At least last I checked they still did. I haven't been back there for a few weeks. Have happily been too busy with TUOK. |
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Post by writeway on Apr 29, 2020 20:54:58 GMT
I check into Kboards everyday just to see if there is anything interesting. It's sad to see it's a shell of what it once was. I too wish Harvey's family had made other arrangements. There were members who said they'd have been willing to buy the forum if they had the chance. His family probably went with the highest bidder. Most times things come down to money. It also shows how just because someone (Harvey) is passionate about something, doesn't mean his family is. Kboards was HARVEY's baby but his family probably saw it as a burden they didn't wanna deal with. It's just like when any owner dies and the family has to take over the business when they really had no passion for it. What's sad is that it doesn't seem like the new Kboards owners have any passion for it either.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on May 17, 2020 19:46:44 GMT
The new kboards owners just buy up popular forums for the ad money. They have no other interest. I visited for a second yesterday. But I didn’t have any interest in staying.
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Post by animalcreature on Aug 9, 2020 9:33:12 GMT
I really miss the old Kindleboards. That is where I met so many people and learned so much. I still talk to some of the people now and again, but they are very scattered. I meet them mostly in Facebook.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Aug 10, 2020 17:44:58 GMT
Yes, the old kindleboards was great. I've been re-reading the old threads on the wayback machine. If you input a kboards link into the wayback machine it only goes back to 2013, as far as when the page was saved. But if you correct the link to kindleboards and leave the rest of the url the same you can find saves from when the place was actually called kindleboards. I'm reading the "How many have you sold" thread started by Sharlow in 2010. The first save is from 2010, and the rest are from 2011, which is still pretty early.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Aug 19, 2020 15:05:16 GMT
People also apparently think Kboards is Fiverr. I've been trying to read every new thread for the past few days, so I am definitely seeing it now. You've got a guy offering to convert people's Vellum files, then you've got another one who for $5 will submit your book to 25 promo sites. You've got peeps selling manuscripts, and editors and cover artists running amuck. I like that we have a separate section for all that.
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Post by writeway on Nov 20, 2020 6:33:31 GMT
Looks like Becca is the only mod over there that ever shows up these days. I haven't seen Ann or Betsy all year.
ETA: I just checked Ann's profile and she says she is no longer a mod anymore and hasn't been for a year. Wow. That explains it. But according to her profile, she popped on today so I guess she is a
lurker now, which I don't get. If you aren't a mod, why are you still there? She's not a writer, is she?
Judging by Betsy's profile she only seems to lurk too. Strange.
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Nov 22, 2020 5:15:39 GMT
I don't blame them. They don't have the control anymore that they used to have with the new owners. And they've been doing it for eons. I'm sure it gets tiring after a while. They are both readers, so I'm sure they prolly pop in to check on their reader friends. It's hard to drop a long term addiction like Kboards cold turkey. It will be interesting if Becca ever quits. I doubt the new owners would care much whether the place was moderated or not.
I've been doing a thing lately where I read every single new thread and subscribe to it. The first five or six pages are now completely read. And feck if there aren't a shit ton of service threads. You don't notice so much when you casually browse.
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