Should you ever bring a site back?

If there's an audience for what you're doing, it's worth bringing back--provided that you don't have drama waiting in the wings, and you still have passion for the concept you were nurturing to begin with. Chances are, you shut that site down for a reason. Beating a dead horse might not bring you back to loving that place again, nor your members, old or new. If anything, it might be a better idea to take that old concept, trim away the fat, throw something refreshing and inviting on it, and repost it under new pretenses and a new name.

Even then, though, you might as well just come up with an entirely new concept to play with.

 

In my experience, if you close a site and try and bring it back, any members you try and invite back will likely be skeptical about the longevity of things, even if they don't say so. Usually they've moved on from the world you've created and can feel like the opposite of closure to go back.

 

I'm unsure. I haven't ever tried it, personally, but I wonder if it's the nostalgia factor that makes people try again. I mean, I've seen other sites do it, but I'm unsure whether they've ever been successful in the revival. I can think of a few sites I've seen try, and fail again over and over.

 

The site I am currently running is something I brought back. It was made many, many years ago on a different host than I am using now.

I think there’s nothing at all wrong with bringing an old site back but as many suggested in this thread, it’s important to work out why it closed the first time.

If you’re had closed due to a member issue, I’d address what exactly happened with those particular members in the rules or the sites premise.

If it was certain behaviours or etiquette that you didn’t vibe with at the time I would try and craft the sites documents to determine what it is you do want or what isn’t allowed.

 

Wow this is an old thread but honestly I think there's nothing wrong with trying your concept again. I think everything's already been hashed out in here about figuring out why it failed before but I also think that it's really easy to get discouraged if a site starts looking like it's dying. The attitude is often like "how can I bring more people here and keep them here?" rather than "how can we as a community keep what we have now engaging?" - so many sites go stale and drop off. IMO sometimes it can be to do with a fear of change.

Not to get super wordy lol but I do think addressing change and necessary change at that could help when bringing a site back, and then being open to further changes down the line. And being open to challenges, I think. If anything my mush brain is coming up with makes sense lmao.