Retiring communities which are not self-sustainable

After much contemplating, I have had to make a hard decision on the direction I want to take with Clever Dodo and I have come to the conclusion that some communities have to be retired to allow me to refocus my efforts on other things.

I kickstarted a lot of the communities on Clever Dodo and while the idea was for other people to be part of those communities and help one another, I have seen very little participation from the members. This is what I've observed over a span of 10 years:

• People would join mainly to ask their own questions and never try to help others (I wrongly assumed about reciprocity)
• People are selfish by nature. Although I built a platform to help people, many would try to contact me directly to ask their questions. Eg some would follow me on instagram just to ask a question and then unfollow me straight away after getting their answers. It's not that I want people to follow me (I do not post any interesting stuff anyway!), but seeing the same kind of behaviour on facebook as well where people would not bother registering on the website and only try to get free advice from me, makes it more difficult for me to run the site due to the amount of admin work involved. Despite my numerous attempts to educate people that when questions are asked on Clever Dodo, more people are able to offer help than I possibly can and in the future it will help other people who have the same queries, it was to no avail and I kept getting bombarded with new questions each day.

Some other issues you may not be aware of:

• Clever Dodo is hosted on a VPS and the communities on here do not make enough money to cover the monthly costs of running the website. Other sites I own make more in income with a lot less administration, so from a business perspective, it makes little sense to continue.
• I do the role of a UX person, programmer, architect, SEO specialist, database developer as well as community manager/moderator. There's just not enough time in the day for me to juggle this along the other work that I do. I used to have more free time but now I have other priorities in my life.
• Plus I'm a tech guy and I'm not really good at marketing :)

You see, people have high expectations when they come here; they're so used to the facilities of big brands like Facebook and they expect the same sort of functionalities if not better without realising those big companies have a huge team working for them full-time. I never claimed to match up those expectations but still people feel let down. This is why I'd rather close down mediocre services where I'm unable to give my 100% and instead concentrate on those parts where I can deliver a better service.

I have helped thousands of people in those communities and even though I am emotionally attached to these communities, the time has come to bid farewell to them. As the founder, it is tough for me to let go of the things I have created and nurtured over a decade but I'm sure you'll like what I have in store for Clever Dodo.

To all the people who've been part of those communities, I extend my sincere thanks to you for your contribution. I know a lot of you will be disappointed with this decision but I hope you will support me with my future plans to make Clever Dodo a great place to learn.