All Good Things Must Come To An End

"It is said that all past time was better".

Taking "advantage" of the world-shattering disaster that's still unfolding, I decided to tour the site and, quite frankly, I didn't like what I found.

I'll be the first one to admit that I was a little massively cocky when it came to looking after the site, as I blindly threw the vast majority of our images onto a friend's dedicated image hosting server and didn't keep the originals around... a massive screw up made in the name of saving a few more megabytes of hard disc space.

That alone would have been enough to permantely discourage me from keeping adding to the site, but a bigger problem emerged before it could even be thought about: the rest of our surviving images are stained with the watermark of a site we were once partnered with, but now simply can't agree with.

In short, what was once a passion project of ours has now become a broken, empty, mauled and kinda spammy shell that doesn't really resemble what it started out as. And I simply cannot allow it go on like that... to keeping it going in its current state would be insulting to both the site and its readers.

I'd also like to take a moment to publicly apologize to fellow reviewer and IDN staffer Domingo H, who kept submitting material to be published onto the site and I never got around to actually approve it. Being busy with real life commitments would be the truthful excuse, but there's no excuse to have left his exquisit content languishing on my inbox for years-on-end.

As to what the future holds... well, if you enjoy our write-ups, then there's at least a not-so-sour note to end on.

I have been making a lot of IDN-like posts over at The Coffee House forums, which is a very nice, active and encouraging community in which my best writing seems to have remerged in fullest.

I go by the name of "Dust Bowl" there and if any of you decides to accompany us on this new chapter, your kindness won't go unrewarded:

Good news, #coffee heads! We will be running an *endless* promotion from now on!

Anyone who joins our board adding account manager Dust Bowl to their referrals or mentions this Twitter account on their introduction thread will get 3000 Coffee Credits!https://t.co/5E7RHmzX92

— The Coffee House (@tch_forum) February 21, 2020

That's right, by typing in my name on the referral box upon registering, I'll give you 3000 Coffee Credits to spend on the forum's store, where you could buy exclusive themes, items and other perks. That level of customization is honestly half of what makes me like that site at all and an ongoing reason for me to keep returning to it.

And just like that, IDN comes to an end.

Perhaps I will, one day, find the motivation to start it back up... but for now, all that's left is looking back on it and being extremely grateful for the memories made and the experience gained through writing for this site.

And it seems oddly appropiate to let go of IDN while hitting a milestone: this is our 250th published entry. Man, it's been quite a ride.

- JJ.