Will Pate’s Blog - Tales from a Gen Y internet guy

Telling the Truth To Your Online Community

Published on 15/05/07
by Will Pate

Telling the truth to your community is very, very important. Otherwise, something like this will happen:

Goodbybe JPG Magazine

Why did I delete my JPG Magazine account? Cofounders Derek Powazek and Heather Champ have been booted out because they didn’t want to lie.

In one evening, Paul removed issues 1-6 from the JPG website, removed Heather from the About page, and deleted the “Letter from the Editors” that had lived on the site since day one. Paul informed me that we were inventing a new story about how JPG came to be that was all about 8020. He told me not to speak of that walk in Buena Vista, my wife, or anything that came before 8020.

Here’s where the whole “not lying” thing comes in. I just could not agree to this new story. It didn’t, and still doesn’t, make any business sense to me. Good publishing companies embrace their founding editors and community, not erase them. Besides, we’d published six issues with participation from thousands of people. There’s no good reason to be anything but proud of that.

JPG Magazine has now lost its reputation, its much loved cofounders and people are starting to leave and be public about it. Think about that the next time you’re tempted to tell a lie to your community.

That's it. What Next?

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