In Before The Lock - In Before The Lock

In Before The Lock or IBTL was launched by the former SlicedThread staff team in April 2009 after they became unhappy with the way in which SlicedThread was being managed and wished to safeguard the future of the community, which included many of their friends.

Creation

In March 2009, the majority of the SlicedThread staff team felt unappreciated by the site manager and were fed up with decisions that were made without any consultation of the team. A survey conducted on ST allowed users to express their dissatisfaction with the running of the forum and their dislike for some of the intolerable behavior by the site manager. Plans were put into place to launch a replacement to ST but with the same community base. After some research and talking to active users it was found that many users would in fact leave ST and move elsewhere if it meant an improvement in management. The team then in secret set about developing the forum and ensuring that everything was in place. The team behind the creation:

Mark & Leigh, site managers.
Adam - user support, marketing and design
Neil - design admin
Karl - technical/forum geek
Dave - Head moderator
Kaleigh, Jasmine, Roger, Gary - Experienced moderators and user support

The original plan was to open once everything was in place and ready and then for all the staff to quit ST in one swoop with a thread telling users the reasoning behind the sudden disloyalty to the forum and to encourage those who wished to join the alternative community. However, things don't always go to plan:

Forum Launch

On the 3rd April 2009, SlicedThread closed it's doors (Supposedly, for good). The IBTL team saw this as the perfect opportunity to launch the forum (Albeit, very early). At ad advantage due to the closure ST, word of mouth spread very quickly with many members using Twitter to 'Tweet' the IBTL link to other members of the community. An opening announcement was posted (See Below) to give the teams reasoning behind the new forum and many users seemed happy with the change; especially due to their dislike of previous forum management. Many were also annoyed that ST was closed at the drop of a hat with little explanation. When IBTL opened, the forum was not fully prepared; with an incomplete skin and some things not fully in place. However; with the help of the full staff team and Neil working hard on the new skin and images, things came together fairly quickly. It was also decided to give members a free months trial of Plus+, a usergroup set up to reward those who help to support the forum and keep it running. The day after the launch of IBTL, ST re-opened; however many users simply decided to post the link to IBTL and the majority of the staff left (or were removed from) the staff team. Many apologies and attempts to make the staff stay were made, however - it was too little too late. Realising that ST couldn't survive without its staff or active members a poll was then opened asking if ST should remain open or not, the majority of the users simply said that it was too far gone and that ST should remain closed.

Original Opening Statement

Below is the original opening statement posted on the forum when it was first launched. The thread explained why IBTL had been set up and the reasoning behind it.

"Hello and welcome! Recently there have been some major concerns regarding the future and well-being of the community. It was decided amongst a group of forum leaders that in order to preserve and build upon what we currently have it was necessary to make some major changes. A couple of factors contributed to the decision. In short, the results we obtained from the survey conducted in recent weeks showed poor confidence in the board management and a particular dislike for some of the intolerable behaviour presented on a regular basis. In addition, the majority of the staff felt undervalued and under appreciated by the management and felt that a lot of the decisions made had been unfair and not in the best interest of the members. This was a massive concern of ours and we felt it needed to be tackled immediately. We had also become increasingly concerned with the state of the corrupt database that was in operation on ST. Database errors, deletion of accounts and other problems hindering the function of the forum had proven a degree of instability that we felt was unacceptable. Considering the above and a couple of other factors, we took it upon ourselves to provide an alternative basis for the community under new management. Now that ST has closed it's doors as of 03/04/2009 we have brought forward the opening of IBTL. This fresh approach we believe will secure the future of the community, allow us to bring new things to the table and create an overall better environment for everyone. We are offering this alternative to all members of the HF/ST community, past and present, and hope that everyone will make the transition. We will be relying heavily on word of mouth to start us off and we would really appreciate it if you could direct other members to this notice. There will be emails going out soon with a similar notice and we hope everyone can see the advantages of the new forum as much as we can. Please head over to this thread and leave your questions/comments/concerns. Our aim is to make this a forum for you so it is your opinion that counts. Thanks again for joining us and welcome to inbeforethelock.com! Regards, The IBTL Team"

The Future

The team have many plans for the future of the forum and it's community. Plans are being made to help grow the active user base and increase forum activity. This wiki is just one step forward in a line of things. We're excited about the future of the community, and can only improve.