Hi everyone,
It has been hard reading this topic, I accept full responsibility for the current state of the community and issues that have occured due to my long absence.
Back in 2019 I started a role at a mine site doing FIFO (fly in fly out). This is quite a strong industry here in Australia where personnel are flown in to remote mine sites to do a work roster (typically 12 hour days), then you fly back home to have days off at home. It depends on the company and your contract but some example rosters include: 2:2 (2 weeks on-site, 2 weeks break), 8:6.
The intention of the Community Manager role that appeared around this was to give me an opportunity to take a step back from the Admin daily duties as I felt I didn't have as much spare time to commit to AF. I would continue to keep the server and software platform up to date and assist with any escalations and general guidance on the platform.
By around Mid 2020 onwards it became apparant I was becoming more and more distant from AF due to the increasing demands and rigours of the job. Even on my rostered days off I was feeling disillusioned and seemed to have lost that creative spark I had prior to commencing that role. I was no longer engaging with AF at all except for just the usual server and software maintennace (and escalations via Discord).
In October 2022, I resigned from my FIFO job. I was completely burned out in the role. I took two months off, clearing through my personal backlogs and catching up with friends and hobbies that I missed out on for so long. before deciding to finally return to the workforce looking for a new job. I recenetly found a new job with a much better work life balance and finally started to review AF in more detail to catch up when I came across this topic.
Regarding the statements about my "intentions"
This forum has always been a personal hobby, with the vision to unite like minded anime fans. To offer a fun alternative to the other forums that were out there at the time (with perhaps some nostalgia as forums were really popular back in the early 2000s). It was originally founded back in late 2012 under a different name "AN Community". In late 2014 I paid a considerable amount for the animeforums.net domain as it was an opportunity to help make it easier to find. Interestingly enough around this time we had other visitors confuse us with the preivous animeforums.com ...
There are ongoing expenses including the software license and web server hosting fees (a VPS currently hosted in the US in Atlanta). Back in 2012 we started with MyBB (free open-source platform) but the features were lacking, so we migrated to XenForo. Then finally Invision Community.
I don't have any intention of selling the domain or the website, especially after having paid expenses for so long to keep AF online.
Next steps
I have applied the changes to the Moderator team for those that want to move on, and you have my sincerest apologies for the ridiculous amount of time it took for me to reach this topic. I thank you wholeheatedy for your previous contributions.
I am currently reviewing all the logs and recent activity feeds, if there are any outstanding issues please don't hesitate to reach out to me or @Myouya and it will be addressed promptly.
I am reviewing the state of the platform and associcated add-ons and themes. I will be looking at putting together a new team to help revitialise AF. As I am now back in a typical job with normal working hours I will be able to step up and engage with the community.
Again I am really sorry for my long absence and the state of AF, I make no excuses for that.