Even though 9Rules is tattered and in need of some TLC at this time, I was happy to have my blog become a part of the network. I was even happier to hear that there are people on staff who still care enough about it to try to pull it back up again. There is no reason 9Rules can’t pick itself up, dust itself off and become an impressive and vital network again.

If you think about it, none of the other blog networks that were around a few years ago are still doing much. Others have come and gone in the meantime and most are just ad farms with no fresh content. If 9Rules can pick up it will be a leader again.

DALE

If you are firm on your plan then I suggest just taking down the current mess of content and replacing with a “we’ll be back in a month” message. I simply cannot see how keeping the status quo (aka a sh*t aggregator) is helping you at all. Make a clean break and start fresh.

Paul, you’re definitely the man for the job and the man that should be at the helm of 9rules. Best wishes on all of your endeavors.

Onward, upward.

Indeed the site as it runs now is completely automated. We could walk away forever and it will still be standing. When I say change I don’t mean just in the members, but how the site actually works. Maybe I didn’t make the clear enough when I said the site needed to change or in the title. I’ll be sure to clarify myself better in the future I assure you.

As for your feelings about Splashpress, trust me a lot of people feel the same way. Things can’t change overnight and we are working on a project now to hopefully slowly change the perspective of some people of how things are done.

As for Mike, Tyme, Colin or anyone else ever putting me in a position that just isn’t true. This isn’t middle school and I’m responsible for the positions I put myself in. I enjoy the challenge of turning Splashpress around and in a weird twist of fate that means that I watch over 9rules again, which is a great thing to me.

Thank you for the honest comments. Not sure why you think I wouldn’t let them through. I understand how hard it can be to leave an anonymous and honest comment so it would be hypocritical of me to not let them through. I would’ve done it sooner, but for some reason I don’t get email alerts when comments need to be approved.

I can only hope that over time you will all see the changes and like what is happening, but if not I am glad that we were able to cross paths.

At first, I was confused when I read this. Between this article and the one on your other site, it makes sense.

You said you wanted 9rules to be successful. You wanted 9rules to make an impact on the web. You didn’t say you wanted it to make a ton of money. You said you weren’t about money or things. Colin left because he needed 9rules to make money? Didn’t Tyme say one of the reasons she accepted the offer was because you weren’t about making a ton of money? Either you were lying to members, the community and your partner about the goals for 9rules or you were placed in the position of having 9rules need to make a ton of money.

Mike has always been and always will be about money. He’s the one that wanted to be a millionaire by 25. He sold Business Logs, got married and didn’t he move and buy a house? During the streams, his wife would get on him about doing the videos. It adds up. Mike needed 9rules to make money because his wife was pissed. He had more debt than you and Tyme combined. She wanted him to get a job didn’t she? She got fed up because she’s not stupid. He could have made good money doing web design but he bragged about turning down jobs because they didn’t interest him. I remember a guy threatened to sue Mike because he paid for a design, Mike didn’t do it in a reasonable time frame.

Mike must have come to you about 9rules needing to make money or he couldn’t do it anymore. That put pressure on you for 9rules to make money because with Mike’s time management if he had a job you’d never get anything out of him. You were put in the middle because you told Tyme, members and the community that money wasn’t 9rules goal. Mike would never leave his 9rules interest like the honorable men before him because he knew with you and Tyme running it, 9rules would eventually make money and he wanted a piece of it because he’s money hungry. You couldn’t bring another designer in because Mike would get mad. It all makes sense.

Now you are talking about unraveling what 9rules stands for to go back to your roots. Designers who thought they were better than everyone else. It didn’t take work to make members happy. You didn’t have to answer their questions, help them with their sites. There was nothing to inspire a blogger to be better. Screw your members because you don’t care about them. You and Mike never did. You two came up with those shady deals for members all about money.

Being under SplashPress is supposed to make members feel better? Didn’t the crappy sites get added when Andy was running 9rules? You said you didn’t like the direction of 9rules, but you gave Andy a promotion. Frank is managing editor? He’s too busy looking up to you to be qualified. The descriptions on the team page are all lies. You aren’t fooling anyone. You’re still messing up and Mark is letting you by not getting you a qualified team. You might be running things but Mark owns 9rules and I hold him completely responsible. His network is trash and he’s ruining a quality site.

I used to like and respect you Paul. Not anymore. I removed the leaf, like a lot of the other members. It means nothing.

I doubt you’ll let this comment through because you always protect your boy Mike. If Mike was really your friend, he wouldn’t have put you in that position in the first place. He would have quietly left like the others.

@AstroNerdBoy
I would also like to know when the next round of submissions will be accepted. I have been waiting about a year, and unfortunately (because of events I had no control over) was not able to submit my site.

I hope you can turn things around, Paul! Thanks!

Realistically a website on this scale would cost pennies to run, it should all be automated as it is nothing more than a glorified blogger ring. What do you even do exactly? I guess you care about the money and not the quality of the site given that statement. This is our content you are creating a glorified RSS feed of. If you wanted to pick and choose you should have done it when we were all complaining about the choices that were accepted into the group in the first place. Kicking people out is gonna create even more problems as people fuss fight and complain on their blogs.

Where do you get these silly ideas from? Panicking and wanting to go back to the good old days thinking it will somehow get back to the way it was? Laughable.

I am excited to see what you create this time Scrivs.