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The Pixel Punk Diaries |
Why We're Removing Teen Talk from this Site
I wanted to let you all know that we're closing down Teen Talk today. This was a very hard decision for us because we know that Teen Talk means a lot to many people. It's not fun to be the bearer of bad news. :( But the truth is that we've prayed about this for a long time. Almost a year, actually.
This is what has come to us in prayer and in our day-to-day operation of this website:
- Aggressive Posters: In the beginning, Teen Talk was somewhat of an online community for this website. Many websites used message boards for this same reason. But as the years passed, a message board goes through many cycles. Sometimes the content on Teen Talk was good, sometimes it was aggressive and unkind.
...we want to do more of the things you've told us that you like...maybe some new video games. Nobody is held accountable for what they say on a message board. Since they are anonymous, people write things that they would never say in person. These bullies can chase away good-hearted folks and give other visitors to the site the wrong impression. It's for this reason that many websites like ours have dropped message boards all together. The technology did not foster real community like it was supposed to.
- Honoring Donations: Life Teen is a non-profit organization. We do not make enough money in our online store, at our conferences, and through our resource sales to pay all the bills. We depend on people's donations to pay all of our expenses (electricity, copy paper, envelopes, etc.) To keep costs low, we have a small staff for an organization of our size. We're a small group of people with a tremendous amount of responsibility. We do not honor donors by spending every work-day moderating a message board when there is so many other responsibilities.
- Honoring Volunteers: The biggest way we stay alive as a big ministry is through the countless volunteers who give us their time. You'll see volunteers everywhere: our national office, on our board of directors, at our conferences, our camps, and on various committees. Dozens of volunteers have moderated Teen Talk over the past four years.
Unfortunately, Teen Talk wears out our volunteers. Someone could commits 8 hours to Teen Talk this week, but their threads expire a week later. There work is gone! They get tired and we have to recruit more Moderators. The new Mods get worn out 2 months later. For you all who posted regularly to Teen Talk, this explains why posts that were filtered out never get approved or commented. Many visitors of the site get frustrated and never come back again. So you have frustrated people on both sides of the message boards: those who post and those who moderate.
- Better Content: Another reason we're closing Teen Talk is because we want to do more of the things you've told us that you like: videos, audio, photos, and maybe some new video games. We have a small staff (3 people), and we can do a better job with new things once Teen Talk is not on our to-do list each day.
I hope this helps everyone understand what went into this big decision. Since we first announced this change to the website, we kept Teen Talk up so everyone could say goodbye to one another. Hopefully you can all hang out at camp this summer!
If you have any questions or comments: webmaster@lifeteen.com
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Matt Smith is the Director of Internet Ministries for Life Teen, an international Catholic youth ministry based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the creative force behind Life Teen's cluster of websites that receive nearly 2 million visits a year. Since staring on MTV's "Real World" and MTV's "Road Rules Challenge", Matt has traveled the country speaking at colleges, universities, schools, and Catholic parishes.
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