The Great Migration

rhombus · **Reply #40 on:** May 27, 2018, 03:30:00 PM

Quote from: Sovereign on May 26 2018, 02:19:20 PM

While the fully paid solution would easily seem to be the best alternative, I can't help but feel there are some problems in it. Most likely, it would probably require a certain core group of members to donate the same amount every month in order to avoid some sort of constant and awkward money searching. (I'm not sure if I'd be willing to donate myself just yet). If such an arrangement could be made, any of the paid solutions could be feasible (10 dollars from the whole community per month doesn't sound too optimistic). But before that, is there reason to believe Icyboards is going to screw us anytime soon or is the free solution most likely doomed to fail again?

The thing with any free service is that it is not really free, and as ad revenue decreases due to ad-block such services are being bought out by more predatory services (cough... cough... like our current one) which are monetizing data and are more restrictive and less user-friendly. If we were to go to Icyboards it is quite possible for all we know that TapaTalk could buy them out in a few years. A paid host would get around this problem.

As for funding that might be something to work on right now before we decide on a particular course of action. I can provide $15 a month for this enterprise, which is about a third of the amount which is estimated for the eventual forum solution. A big question though is: how much others would be willing to donate per month? The good thing about Patreon is that once a person pledges a certain amount per month it is taken out automatically (until they quit, obviously) so constant begging would hopefully not be necessary for the forum. As for Patreon Rewards, I am very hesitant to make special arrangement for Patreon members as it would create two-tiers of members - though I do think a Thank You banner would be given yearly to the forum's Patreons who donate at least $3 a month.

ddmkm122 · **Reply #41 on:** May 27, 2018, 03:34:00 PM

Fully paid is probably best, though I unfortunately wouldn't be able to donate.
This is unfortunate, although I don't feel like we should exactly blame them.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #42 on:** May 27, 2018, 04:02:00 PM

Yeah paid may be the better way to go. Free is nice, but you get what that entails. A paid version could be more secure.

If we go that route, I think I could probably supply $10 a month.

jassy · **Reply #43 on:** May 27, 2018, 07:34:00 PM

Personally, I think paid would be the best option. At least with that, we won’t have to worry about a repeat of this. As for donations, I’m afraid I won’t be able to donate, at least not for now.

Littlefoot505 · **Reply #44 on:** May 27, 2018, 08:42:00 PM

I’m pretty much going to echo everyone else: I think fully paid is best all around, but alas, I won’t be able to donate. I am glad though that there won’t be any “free” or “premium” members because of how many of us can/can’t donate (although a “thank you” banner is a nice incentive)

rhombus · **Reply #45 on:** May 27, 2018, 11:38:00 PM

...And Icyboards just died: https://forums.icyboards.net/showthread.php?tid=11556&pid=78849#pid78849 So there went that option even if we had half a mind to go that route.

Well, guys, the time is at hand. We have gotten in touch with the same gentleman who handled the conversion of Fiver's Honeycomb and the Redwall forum and he is willing to assist us through the conversion process. With that in mind, and with an appropriately-sized VPS in place for our hosting needs, we will be transferring the forum data to the new forum on Sunday starting at 10pm Central US Time. The forum will be inaccessible for probably around 18 hours starting at that time, but everything from that time and before will transfer over except for avatars, signatures, the forum skin, and possibly PMs.

So feel free to have fun on the forum tomorrow, everyone, because the migration is about to begin.

Flathead770 · **Reply #46 on:** May 28, 2018, 12:09:00 AM

Well at least this happened before we ended up going with icyboards. I was in favour of going the paid route myself and I'm willing to chip in as well.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #47 on:** May 28, 2018, 01:14:00 AM

So, how will we be receiving the link to this place? In our PMs or emails?

rhombus · **Reply #48 on:** May 28, 2018, 01:17:00 AM

Quote from: WeirdRaptor on May 27 2018, 12:14:18 AM

So, how will we be receiving the link to this place? In our PMs or emails?

The current forum will go back online after the transfer (both to serve as kind of a time capsule and also to allow members who may not know what is going on to get informed) and we will also post links in all of the forum's sections that lead to the new forum.

Mumbling · **Reply #49 on:** May 28, 2018, 02:35:00 AM

Quote from: rhombus on May 27 2018, 12:17:44 AM

Quote from: WeirdRaptor on May 27 2018, 12:14:18 AM
So, how will we be receiving the link to this place? In our PMs or emails?

The current forum will go back online after the transfer (both to serve as kind of a time capsule and also to allow members who may not know what is going on to get informed) and we will also post links in all of the forum's sections that lead to the new forum.

Can we arrange with Austin that the gangoffive.net link will redirect to the new forum page asap?

I hope the transfer will work out as planned. I'll check in on Discord on Monday to see what's up. Definitely willing to put in a few dollars myself each month.

Also many thanks for figuring all of this out and making sure the GoF will live on! It's really appreciated.

Midnight · **Reply #50 on:** May 28, 2018, 02:39:00 AM

The transfer will be completed faster than expected. Great job, guys

rhombus · **Reply #51 on:** May 28, 2018, 10:01:00 AM

Quote from: Mumbling on May 27 2018, 01:35:33 AM

Quote from: rhombus on May 27 2018, 12:17:44 AM
Quote from: WeirdRaptor on May 27 2018, 12:14:18 AM
So, how will we be receiving the link to this place? In our PMs or emails?

The current forum will go back online after the transfer (both to serve as kind of a time capsule and also to allow members who may not know what is going on to get informed) and we will also post links in all of the forum's sections that lead to the new forum.
Can we arrange with Austin that the gangoffive.net link will redirect to the new forum page asap?

I hope the transfer will work out as planned. I'll check in on Discord on Monday to see what's up. Definitely willing to put in a few dollars myself each month.

Also many thanks for figuring all of this out and making sure the GoF will live on! It's really appreciated.

No problem. Ultimately a lot of thanks should go to zero-point and to the gentleman who is now helping us with the transfer. (I am unsure if he wants me to use his name here or not) And yep, as soon as we figure out what the new url is going to be we will get in touch with Austin to see if we can get the gangoffive.net link to redirect to the new page.

The new forum might be a bit ugly for a few weeks while we figure out how to re-skin it and deal with some minor issues, but it will be nice to have the forum in a better, more permanent home.

Nick22 · **Reply #52 on:** May 28, 2018, 10:07:00 AM

I would suggest to those of you- like me. who dont want to lose your pms, that you download them. I have alrready done so with mine.

Littlefoot505 · **Reply #53 on:** May 28, 2018, 11:58:00 AM

I’ve done that too. I’ve downloaded my PM’s, I had copied all my posts from after the 18th (although from what I understand, that’s no longer an issue) as well as my signature into a Word document, and I’ve had my old avatar (which I plan to use again after the migration) saved to my computer the whole time.

Mumbling · **Reply #54 on:** May 28, 2018, 12:03:00 PM

Quote from: Nick22 on May 27 2018, 09:07:01 AM

I would suggest to those of you- like me. who dont want to lose your pms, that you download them. I have alrready done so with mine.

Whew, going through my PMs since 2008 has been a real roller coaster of emotions. Guess I'll save this somewhere for future ref

vonboy · **Reply #55 on:** May 28, 2018, 12:36:00 PM

oh yeah, didn't even realize it let's you download them all easily in 1 file. Got mine saved, too.

Is it too early to say what option we're using? You say your gonna transfer sometime today, and that you have someplace to put the forum?

Anyway, I could put up $10 a month to help maintain the forum.

DiddyKF1 · **Reply #56 on:** May 28, 2018, 01:51:00 PM

I've downloaded my PMs.

rhombus · **Reply #57 on:** May 28, 2018, 03:15:00 PM

Quote from: vonboy on May 27 2018, 11:36:21 AM

oh yeah, didn't even realize it let's you download them all easily in 1 file. Got mine saved, too.

Is it too early to say what option we're using? You say your gonna transfer sometime today, and that you have someplace to put the forum?

Anyway, I could put up $10 a month to help maintain the forum.

Thank you for your support.

We will try to have some kind of donation page set up in the next week.

As for the new forum, for right now it is planned to be a self-hosted phpBB 3.0 forum, and the creation of the new forum (with all of our posts and topics copied over) will be taking place over about a one day period beginning tonight. This Zetaboards forum will then go back up, with redirection links to the new forum in every section, once the process is completed.

As for the future, we cannot rule out an upgrade to another option (like vBulletin) in the future for security and blog-integration, but I think any solution like that would only be done if we could ensure that it would be seamless, instantaneous from the standpoint of users, able to be funded through our monthly donations, and entail no additional hardship on the part of our members. The last thing that we want after this entire experience is another complicated migration in the future. For the foreseeable future I think the phpBB 3.0 solution will be more than sufficient for this forum's needs.

Ducky123 · **Reply #58 on:** May 28, 2018, 05:44:00 PM

Just want to let you guys know that you're super awesome! My deep respect for your work to save our beloved forum!

The Chronicler · **Reply #59 on:** May 28, 2018, 08:45:00 PM

Just to be sure I'm getting this right... This forum will be going down in a few hours, but then will come back up, in addition to the new site starting up, correct? Since we're obviously going to be using the new site, what will become of this site after the move? Will it simply remain as it currently is for an indefinite amount of time?

I guess the main reason I'm asking is because I don't think I now have enough time to do anything about saving my PMs. (Back when the invisionfree site limited us to a max of 200 PMs, I had in fact deleted a few of mine over the years, but tried to keep as many as I could, so some of mine are already long gone.) I don't think there's anything really important that I absolutely must save among my PMs (aside from the new password, which I have saved), but I suppose I would like to know if there's really any deadline that I must save them by, or if there's any possibility that they'll be transferred with the other stuff. I've been a little busy with some other things lately, and with this whole forum change coming upon us so suddenly, I just haven't really had a chance to save much of my content.

Well, if I do end up losing my PMs, at least it wouldn't be the first time I lost some old content from a forum I visit.