I asked him several times via email to stay after he informed me he was leaving. Perhaps if he had mentioned that he had issues with the way the forum was run before he snapped and made the decision to leave things would've turned out differently.

Perhaps if he had said in one of our other email exchanges, "Oh, by the way Craig, I have a problem with this and this and this." But he didn't. He gave me absolutely no notice or opportunity to take his concerns under consideration. Which is strange because just a couple of weeks earlier we had had an exchange of how to improve the forum which, as I said in a previous post, caused me to make a technical modification to the forum. It should've been clear to Michael that I was more than willing to act on his suggestions. I find it strange he didn't inform me of what, apparently, was his most important concern.

Even when he told me he was leaving and we had a brief email conversation, he never offered a single suggestion of what I could do to fix things. That being the case I can't imagine what I could've done to convince him to stay--in retrospect, I don't think just re-opening the thread in question would've convinced him to stay.

No-one made Michael leave except Michael. No-one can make Michael stay except Michael.



Sure, and I don't think I've ever disrespected Michael in any way. But what about respect for Steve and me? He sure didn't express any in the email he sent to Steve nor in the message he sent to me asking to delete his account.



I agree that it's the participation in this forum that makes the website useful and interesting. And I'm just as sad to see Michael leave as the next guy. But, again, that doesn't mean I'm going to make decisions based on rude emails.

I'm sure if I posted Michael's emails you'd have a better understanding of where I'm coming from--but, quite frankly, I respect Michael too much to post those emails in public.

Regards,
Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster