Hi All,
It has been a while since I last asked for contributions towards keeping the site running and I know at the time people came forward and discussions were had. The contributions I have had have been most welcome, however the last contribution was now well over a year ago now.
I have reviewed the usage of the forum over time, since the forum started on the 11th July 2005 there have been a total of:

52545 posts over 5068 different topics.

If we look at the more recent figures, in the last 5 years there have been 222 posts made and in the last year just 8. This equates to 0.4% and 0.02% of the total volume.

Of course that does not say anything about how the information here is used as a library or resource and I believe that what we have does have its place as a technical resource.

My proposal is that over the coming Christmas break (2024) I will use a tool that will ‘scrape’ the forum and create a plain html copy of what we have here. This can then be hosted at a much cheaper rate and doesn’t require any management. I will also make available the backup SQL download to anyone who wants it.

Following that process I will close the forum. The html copy will remain as a resource but ‘frozen’ with no new posts possible.

I understand that this may be disappointing for some however I do not feel it is reasonable that I continue to fund the site on my own. As an alternative, if someone wants to take over the payment of the site then we can look into the steps required for that.

All the best,

Mike

Hi Mike,

We did have an offer to host the site for free from Lewis but I didn't receive a response from you. I'm not sure whether that offer still stands but I'm also happy to host it on my server for free provided it will fit the space I have.

It would be nice to keep it as a place people can ask questions, however none of us look at it as often so answers take a while.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

Hi Chris,

The forum is about 55mb the further website is a further 300 or so giving a total of 350mb so pretty tiny really.

I'd be happy to get a copy of it over to you so you can see if you can get it working. If it does work we could then work out how to get the domain bit sorted.

Thanks,

Mike

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GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

That's tiny, I have 86G free at the moment

Does Steve have access to the server to get a copy ?

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.

Hi,

I'm not sure if Steve has access. I can upload it to my dropbox and send you a link, might be easiest. I'll PM you the details.

Thanks,

Mike

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GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

Hi Mike,

As a long-time user of the site (sadly less frequent in recent years), I would be interested in making a contribution to the running costs for the coming year to keep this resource alive in it's current (or future) form.

Please PM me if this would be useful.

Cheers,

Dave

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Hopefully Steve is on the case and will contact you directly if he needs anything. I've given him access to my server.

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If at first you don't suck seed, try drier grain.