Important: Forum Closure, FA Discord Coming Soon

[Green_Brick]

It was hard for me to let go of forums as a medium… but they’re a time bygone. I used to be a member of many forums for many years. Slowly, each died off and closed down. This was the last forum I have spent my time in. Been on here and around since 2015ish. I figured it was only a matter of time before this place shut down seeing as this era of the internet is over.

It’s certainly sad but such is life. Things change and adapt. I used to be super resistant to discord back in 2016/2017 because I preferred the slower style of forums. However, I saw the writing on the wall — forums were dying. I had to adapt or be left behind. I did give discord a shot and over time have come to prefer it. So to those who hate it or think they’ll hate it — just give it a chance… I was once the same way.

I know people here are upset but truthfully… I remember times when this place was far more active. A small but solid group just won’t bring in enough to keep the site alive. I understand how expensive and tough it must be to keep this running. Sad to see it go… especially given this was my last forum left. Hope everyone manages to find a decent alternative. Try not to be too sour to new tech — the world will only keep changing so the best you can do is keep an open mind to new things.

Farewell furry friends! I’ll be over on the discord when it’s out. RIP FAF.

Reading this brings me back to the Winamp forums on Nullsoft's website. While the forums never "shut down", or anything of that nature, it was sad to see it slowly die off and fade into obscurity. Only a small handful of people are carrying the forums currently, and even that number is declining.

To be honest, I like both Discord and Forums, in their strengths. The weaknesses I could care less about, but the forums will always have a special place in my heart. <3

 

[quoting_mungo]

I looked into this and the cheapest full auto archiving cost $500. I'm not done looking, though.

Database dump on the server/tech end should be possible without additional purchase, though I don’t know if the amount of data would be a resource issue, and it wouldn’t be very human traversible without some SQL knowledge.

XenForo’s such a grifter magnet. Fucking everything is an addon, and every single addon is charged on a subscription model.

 

[ben909]

how much sql would really be required to mimic a page like this, assuming each post had a page number and a thread it was assigned to,

 

[Turbid_Cyno]

This means someone will actually win LPW.

 

[Green_Brick]

Now I'm expecting the servers to go down prematurely because of the number of people pressing F5 and posting rapid-fire to "win" that thread.

 

[tamara590]

What a shame, Im not gonna talk to 1000s of strangers at once, Way to crowded for me

 

[luffy]

Database dump on the server/tech end should be possible without additional purchase, though I don’t know if the amount of data would be a resource issue, and it wouldn’t be very human traversible without some SQL knowledge.

XenForo’s such a grifter magnet. Fucking everything is an addon, and every single addon is charged on a subscription model.

Yeah, the thing I'm worried about is the exclusion of staff areas, private user information, etc. We can't abide by GDPR if we keep an archived copy up easily, but I also have minimal understanding of these things I'm piecing together with my assumptive tech brain, lol

also: all my homies hate XenForo!

 

[ben909]

could a way to access the archive be in fa itself, that way you can control the data that is accessed

 

[quoting_mungo]

Yeah, the thing I'm worried about is the exclusion of staff areas, private user information, etc. We can't abide by GDPR if we keep an archived copy up easily, but I also have minimal understanding of these things I'm piecing together with my assumptive tech brain, lol

also: all my homies hate XenForo!

I don’t know enough about XF’s database structure to say for sure, but I don’t think it should be impossible to selectively drop rows, columns, and/or tables in a copy of the database to where you have cut out the secrets and filed off the serial numbers (ie private information beyond username). Also possible there’s tools that can import a database dump into a less financially predatory forum system, but I don’t know that for sure.

I know I never liked XenForo’s moderation interface. Didn’t feel the least intuitive to me.

 

[Rap_Daniel]

Please don't do this... I just got here! I don't even have a discord! Tons of my friends don't have discord! I don't want this and nobody else did!

 

[Rayd]

i wanted this.

 

[ToddVixelle]

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

 

[Thrashy]

I will back you up. Anecdotal mention is anecdotal, but once I was performing site migration for a Serious Organization(tm). And I was explicitly ordered not to pull the plug on the old site until the new one is up & running as it should. In fact the archived, read-only version of old one got attached there permanently, because of some external requirements. But, to each their own.

Yep, other IT guy agreeing. When we do migrations, we usually have time periods with both old and new services running at the same time, just in case. Only in rare cases, we switch immediately (an example for that would be a migration to another DHCP server with different IP range or something, but that's really rare)

But the discussion might be pointless since staff has decided.

What's more bugging me: theres rumours that access to the Discord server will only be possible with phone number verified accounts?
That's basically ruling out everybody who does not like to give Discord private information.

 

[Thrashy]

I literally stumbled upon faf because I searched ‘furry communities’ and faf was like the only thing that Google gave me that still had active users

Haha same, I googled for "furry forum" in 2019 when I've learned about this fandom. Guess I'm an old school internet user

 

[ConorHyena]

Yeah, I don't quite understand the assumption that the userbase will soar in numbers after the transition. There's nothing stopping people from joining the forums as they are, and they do keep joining, with some recent "wave" of newcomers even. It will be funny if the Discord userbase turns out to be pretty much the same as now, minus those who get put off completely, or are technically unable to join.

I think the question is less userbase size and more $$ paid for something only 30-40 active people use. Website hosting is inordinately expensive

It was hard for me to let go of forums as a medium… but they’re a time bygone. I used to be a member of many forums for many years. Slowly, each died off and closed down. This was the last forum I have spent my time in. Been on here and around since 2015ish. I figured it was only a matter of time before this place shut down seeing as this era of the internet is over.

Forums still exist, just not as general 'social places' and more information hubs for hobbies like RC, etc. They just don't work as IM replacements that well.

 

[BronzeHeart92]

Dang, this is quite a painful piece of news to be honest. While I haven't admittedly used these forums that much to begin with, it was still a place where one could encounter interesting threads and whatnot.

 

[Thrashy]

Forums still exist, just not as general 'social places' and more information hubs for hobbies like RC, etc.

Yep. Am on a pretty active German retro computing forum ^^

 

[quoting_mungo]

Another concern, that I will readily admit I’ve not really kept up to speed on… Discord was leaning pretty heavily into crypto/NFTs for a while. FA itself has (quite sensibly) made rules against promoting either. Have the ethical concerns relating to this clash of values been considered/discussed? If Discord changed their tune since (as I said, I’ve not been making much of an effort to keep up), do you happen to have resources on that, for my own edumacation?

 

[MosquitoBeest]

Honestly this is the first time I've logged into the forums in many months, only because I saw the announcement on the main site. Personally I've felt I need to post about something specific to come on the forums while on Discord I can just pop in and out and if something is being talked about that interests me, I chime in. So for me I find it far easier to chat on Discord. So I guess with this I'll disappear again and resurface on Discord lol

 

[luffy]

Another concern, that I will readily admit I’ve not really kept up to speed on… Discord was leaning pretty heavily into crypto/NFTs for a while. FA itself has (quite sensibly) made rules against promoting either. Have the ethical concerns relating to this clash of values been considered/discussed? If Discord changed their tune since (as I said, I’ve not been making much of an effort to keep up), do you happen to have resources on that, for my own edumacation?

Sorry, I can't speak on this as I was unaware, but we'll not be participating in any NFTs.

 

[The_Happiest_Husky]

Another concern, that I will readily admit I’ve not really kept up to speed on… Discord was leaning pretty heavily into crypto/NFTs for a while. FA itself has (quite sensibly) made rules against promoting either. Have the ethical concerns relating to this clash of values been considered/discussed? If Discord changed their tune since (as I said, I’ve not been making much of an effort to keep up), do you happen to have resources on that, for my own edumacation?

Sorry, I can't speak on this as I was unaware, but we'll not be participating in any NFTs.

They've canceled everything they were talking about on it. Realized from community backlash that it wouldn't go over well

 

[quoting_mungo]

They've canceled everything they were talking about on it. Realized from community backlash that it wouldn't go over well

That's good to hear, at least. Guess the number of people who canceled their Nitro over it hurt the ol' pocketbook.

 

[luffy]

Yeah, just tried looking it up, but looks like they only allow for the hosting of NFT-centric servers. Don't see anything official.

 

[Lutro]

Yep, other IT guy agreeing. When we do migrations, we usually have time periods with both old and new services running at the same time, just in case. Only in rare cases, we switch immediately (an example for that would be a migration to another DHCP server with different IP range or something, but that's really rare)

Since they're just making it readonly, they can very easily undo that, should things go south for whatever reason. So I think they're safe there.

theres rumours that access to the Discord server will only be possible with phone number verified accounts?

I and others pointed issues with this out in the Discord Preview Thread and it's currently under review. I'm guessing it'll get removed as in addition to people hesitating giving Discord info (IMO a lost cause if you use the platform in the first place -- them having your phone number isn't giving them any more keys to the kingdom than your usage data), it's very hard to procure a phone number if you aren't an adult. (Google Voice was floated as a suggestion but that's very hard to get too.) tl;dr I don't expect that requirement to stick around.

 

[Attaman]

Well done, Administrators. You've done what the spam bots could not: Destroyed the Damned FAF. Do you feel like heroes yet?

Discord? We can't go to Discord. There's a line that users like us have to cross. If we're lucky, we shitpost what's necessary, then we log off. No, all I really want, Neer, is peace.

Future furries. Some day, people will tell you about this forum. For that, I'm sorry.
~ ~ ~

Damn. If there ever was a time to break out the John Konrad posting one final time, this is it. Best of luck out there all.