Interview - Wayne Luke, SitePoint Forums Administrator

If you've spent any time in the SitePoint Forums, you'll know of W. Luke, our omnipresent Administrator. For years, Wayne's managed the forums with an expert hand -- yet he's remained a virtual enigma to the majority of Community members.

Today we present the inside story on our esteemed Admin. What does he do for work? For fun? How did he get involved with SitePoint in the first place? And what are his plans for the Forums? Wayne reveals all...

SP: Firstly Wayne, can you tell us a little about your history? Have you always had an interest in the Internet and worked in IT? What kinds of roles and businesses have you been involved with through you career?

Well, I grew up destined to be a cancer researcher: my mother always knew that I would find a cure! However in my second year of pre-medical school, I decided that I really didn't like the sight of blood. It was then that I started seriously studying computers. Before that, they were a cool toy that I played around with occasionally.

I came to the Internet through big business. In 1989, I signed up for AOL and joined the world of instant communications. I forget what it was called then, but it was a Macintosh-only community, competing with Compuserve and Prodigy. Anyway, I started spending a lot of time online and thought it would be cool if anyone could setup a community like this.

In 1994, I found HTML while I was going to technical school to become a C++ Programmer. It was a hobby and I played a little. My computing career started as an Implementation Programmer for a Banking Software company where I made customizations to our standard software package for over 80 customers. One of those customers was St. George Bank, based in Sydney. This allowed me to travel at the company's expense, and see a little more of the world.

Since that position, I have worked for the 5th largest Insurance Company in the United States, upgrading their proprietary systems under Visual Basic and SQL Server. My last corporate job ended in 2000. That job was with Protection One, which is a security alarm company. There, I worked with three others, rewriting the entire Patrol suite to upgrade their systems over 18 months. That project included Visual Basic, ASP, C++, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase and HTML.

Since then I've been working on my own projects, providing full time support for vBulletin and managing the Forums.

On SitePoint Forums

SP: So how did you first get involved with SitePointForums? And to what do you attribute their success?

In 1999, I created a Website for an online game that I liked. I was looking for ideas on how to fix a problem with its frames in Netscape 4.X.X and did a search for Webmaster Resources. At that time, I was using Hotbot all the time and Webmaster-Resources.com came up as number one. While I was checking it out, I found the forums and decided to ask for a review. Well, my site got torn apart! I implemented some changes but was determined to prove people wrong. So I read every single post made to that date. I started posting questions and ripping apart ideas. Sometimes I would post 100 messages in a day. As time went one, the Administrator of the time asked if I wanted to be a moderator. At that time only the Website Reviews forum was moderated so I decided to go for it. I started posting more, at one point one out of six posts in the forums was mine. Eventually, they asked me to be a co-administrator of the forums.

The success of the forums, I think, can be attributed to the active management behind it. This isn't only myself and the other SitePoint Team members but also Nicky, the Advisors and the Mentors. I could never run the forums without their help and support. It is the great content on SitePoint (and Webmaster-Resources before it), that brings people to the community. But it's the staff and regular posters that keep them there.

SP: Everyone knows you as the Forums Administrator -- but what does this role involve? What does a working day in the life of Wayne Luke actually entail?

Well my days aren't really set in stone. I usually wake up between 5:30 and 7:00 in the morning. I get my stepson off to school and eat breakfast. I'll usually work for a couple of hours checking up on new posts, reading the nightly email. While I'm doing that, I listen to the news from a source like National Public Radio or Fox News.

After that's done, I usually check my other sites and take a break. From there I will meditate and reflect on the rest of the day. Sometimes this is includes quiet meditation and sometimes it includes playing music for my plants. After that I will work until the heat of the day which is about 4:00.

I could be more organized about my work, but most of my day is actually spent answering support questions for vBulletin. I try to relax in the heat of the day and not do much, sometimes I take a nap. In the evenings, both my wife and I are usually on the computer. I try and check a few new posts at SitePoint here and there and do some research on some subject that pops into my mind. After 11:00 p.m., I usually watch a movie or play a computer game. The schedule is slightly different on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I usually spend time packaging up and shipping sales from my online store, and helping out in the retail outlet.

SP: How do you think SPF differs from other forums? In what ways has this difference in SPF's character been influenced by administrative choices... choices you've supported, and choices you might not have fully supported? And what are some of the main points of SitePoint (excluding the Forums) that you feel are "make or break" points of the site?

Well a breaking point is Servicesbase. I don't think it has been fully developed to its potential, and could be a much more productive part of SitePoint. I feel it should be more like a directory of services and tools available to the Webmaster. It could go much further.

While I think most people come to SitePoint for Web building information, I feel that more information could be given on the ecommerce situation, including comparisons of different providers and software packages as well as a place where people could purchase services. Unfortunately, this has never come about, much to my disappointment.

The best part of SitePoint, I feel is the articles. There are some great contributors out there and we are all lucky they share their knowledge.