Membership Soft Opens?

[Kit the Human 759]

Soft opening's are fun for reasons stated, keeps you excited as you build! (And you can catch your whoopsies before you throw your link everywhere.)

 

Not that I'm doing one this time. Due to work, my time is very limited so I wanted to focus on just creating the forum. Once things are back to normal, I should be ready to hit the ground running.

[Uaithne 543]

On 12/19/2017 at 9:07 PM, Rune said:

I was under the impression that this was just how sites opened...

 

If you were going to invite friends, you did so and they helped make sure you didn't ruin everything in the process.

Yes.

 

But now it's been turned into a "thing" as part of a selling point.

 

@Raven, therein lies the problem. If you don't have good internet friends or people you can bother, it's a little harder to sell.

 

The good news is that soft openings aren't mandatory ( @Mousie is an example), and they can do more harm than good in some situations, so people shouldn't feel pressured to have one because it's the trend of the moment.

[Raven 18]

@Uaithne More harm than good? Please elaborate.

[Uaithne 543]

@Raven, it adds a new level of responsibility. If someone keeps stringing along their soft opening team of members (even if unintentional), they'll lose those people. The ability to follow through and keep things rolling is often understated.

[Death Kitten 200]

1 hour ago, Uaithne said:

@Raven, it adds a new level of responsibility. If someone keeps stringing along their soft opening team of members (even if unintentional), they'll lose those people. The ability to follow through and keep things rolling is often understated.

To be fair, if someone sets an official opening date and misses it, repeatedly, they probably wouldn't have done much better with a "traditional" opening either. It isn't more work, so much as it's a different approach. It's cool if it doesn't work for you, but honestly it doesn't really have anything *extra* about it, just a different path than some people take.

[Elena 546]

@Uaithne, I see things differently too. If instead of making the official opening, they remain with the initial, core members they have invited first, why to lose them? That's a private site, not open to the public, and this is it. There are sites which are private and which function for years only with 2-3-4 members!

[Uaithne 543]

I actually have no problems with soft openings. But I can see both pros as well as cons, and they need to be stated for people to make informed decisions. To me, it seems that soft openings are a trend, and I'd hate for people to feel like they HAVE to do them in order to keep up with the times. True that one can keep postponing an opening date, but postponing it when you have members who have already joined and are waiting for the official go ahead is different than if it's only the staff present.

[Elena 546]

Why is it any different? They are writing with the staff, they are active... it's just limited membership, like a private site only for a few people (until they open officially).

[Bass 26]

I always thought a soft opening was just like opening the doors but not screaming about it to the rooftops. I opt'd in for a beta opening for my site because, while we are 100% open, we are still building some features and working out kinks. I'm also in and out of activity due to being a retail worker in the holiday season, so from an admin standpoint, it seemed more reasonable to open under the pretense of being a work in progress. I probably won't even make a huge change when we move out out of beta status. Things will just move forward naturally.