codyg1985’s Think Tank

It is time to stop and reflect upon the great things that happened at Next L3vel, since Sam, Chris, Ryan, and Kris have decided to close its doors.

Here is the post that I made to the farewell thread:

Well I certainly hate to see this happen, but I imagine that it is the right time for it. The declining activity and the incidents that happened beforehand did not help this site’s cause.

Not only that, but IMO the focus of tech news is moving away from forum sites anyway–only the very strong ones have really hung on for the past couple of years. People do have blogs now, and thus each person can have his/her own voice about what to say,without any moderation from any staff member of any forum.

While we once was strong at what we did, everyone just has other things that come before their role here, including myself. We are all busy people. The site going down and coming back up as many times as it has really has made its prolonged existace a thing to be proud of. I am glad that many people cared about this website, and still care about it as I am typing this.

It has really been fun, and as Kris said, I myself cherish every friendship that has been made as a result of this website. May everyone pleace keep in touch.

I was one of the founding staff members of the website back in November 2002, and from then until November 2004 when I stepped down as co-owner and C.E.O., I had a great time with the website. The Longhorn/Vista Tweak Guides that Chris (a.k.a Chris123NT) produced were a really good popularity booster for the website, and it set the focus for it as well.

The friendliness and professional yet layed-back attitude of the website is what made it so popular during its hay-day. Those members that participated on a regular basis knew everyone else that particpated on a regular basis, including the staff members. Everyone for the most part got along with everyone, so Next L3vel was a tame place for someone to participate.

Unfortunately, NL has had its fair share of controversy, especially within the staff members. Most of us knew what had to be done to make NL a successful community, but there were some different opinions on how to achieve it. The various hosting situations, mergers, and downtime is what ultimately led to some people giving up on NL. I wished that a lot of that could have been changed; who knows, we may have been a very large community at this point if it were not for the internal problems.

One of these days I will post some items about the history of the website, including how the site came into being, and what happened during its time on the Internet. It was certainly a great ride.

If you have something to say about the website, especially if you were/are a member of Next L3vel, please have a visit to the farewell thread and share your thoughts.