All good things must come to an end…
To the hardworking and dedicated community at mytreo.net,
When I first joined mytreo.net in February of 2005, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was late getting into the game, and at that time, MTDN was just a growing community. However, MTDN was quickly able to differentiate itself from any other forum – it had a real sense of “community.” Not long after I joined, I was determined that if I was going to make a difference, it would here. That journey started in July of 2005, when I my application for a new downloads admin was accepted. This would become the start of a hobby, a rather addicting one!
In the months that followed, I gradually learned the inner workings of MTDN, as well as HTML code, which I had no prior experience with. At that time, the Just Chat! section of General Chat was a popular escape from the technical talk of the rest of the forums, and there were several dedicated people who spent almost all of their time entertaining the rest of MTDN. At one point, I myself was also a Just Chat regular. At its peak, MTDN had over 4000 members online at a point.
Soon, things changed. The MTDN store wasn’t viable financially, developers weren’t getting paid, and the admins were unofficially given “missing in action” titles. MTDN was in financial trouble, and a lot of us held our breaths as we waited for things to straighten out. Thankfully, it did, but we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves as MTDN no longer became a priority for the admins. Many team members slowly disappeared and the front page once went without an update for several months, but nonetheless, 500,000 members was achieved in September of 2008.
The lack of a workforce behind MTDN resulted in my gradual increase in responsibilities, including front page writer, downloads admin, forum moderator, and of course, regular contributor. Knowing that single-handedly I would not be able to keep the site afloat, several regular contributors were introduced into the MTDN team, and a new chapter in MTDN history began. Daily activity increased significantly, and Just Chat briefly experienced a revival!
Spammers arrived at MTDN in mid-2008. Running an older version of the SMF forum software, MTDN was vulnerable, and there was little that forum moderators could do. The moderators, as well as forum members, vigilantly looked out for suspicious posts, which were removed manually. I’m certain that many people knew in the back of their minds that the end of MTDN was close, but we refused to believe it.
In early December, MTDN suddenly became inaccessible, and we were certain that the end has come. Checking MTDN dropped out of my morning routine, with the exception of an occasional attempt to access the forum, and my attention turned from phones to my newly purchased Maglite LED flashlights and CandlePowerForums. Having a couple members on my contact list, I was able to contact MiDoJo, who sadly confirmed the fact that MTDN was also down for him. We arranged to make an international call and contact head admin, Chris, and sure enough, our worst fears were confirmed. He was kind enough to put the site back online for us to say a quick goodbye. So if I haven’t said it already, thank you for all the good memories, and it is unfortunately time for us to say good-bye. I hope you all have enjoyed your experience as part of the MTDN community as much as I have.
Robin24k, MTDN downloads admin, logging off.
MiDoJo Here,
Hi All. Well Robin, pretty much summed it up. I really have enjoyed seeing many of you grow from clueless about PalmOS (and WinMo and even WebOS) to masters who were willing to spread your knowledge. I have often spent more time on MyTreo than in the “real world” and even before I ever started posting in the forum, was always using the Download section to make my Treo 600 and on better.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed the site and the community as much as I have.
We don’t know when the site will go down, the DNS runs out in April. But please keep posting in the forum until it comes.
Be seeing you,
MiDoJo
Spam Killer
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