Forum bombshell!

[french frank]

Our hosting service, FutureQuest, announced yesterday that they are closing down their operation within the next two weeks. This gives us nearly the amount of notice that the BBC was closing its messageboards - and we managed to set up this alternative.

The better news is that Andrew currently has a back-up of the whole site and he and Mark are looking at alternative servers. This will cost money but Mark and I have agreed to cover initial costs until we see what the situation is.

There is not only the content of the forum to consider, but also the community - which has been created by you and which it should not be our decision to discontinue. As a stop-gap I'm setting up a temporary public Facebook page for posting news and links. Work in Progress but will be here.

This is disturbing news and came quite out of the blue (appalling timing for the start of the Proms). If anyone has suggestions, offers of help &c, post them here. If there are various options I can set up a poll (I think ).

[oddoneout]

A bombshell indeed. I can make no useful suggestions at the moment I am afraid but will sound out my son tomorrow. It would be ironic if after all this time resisting this is the point at which I admit defeat on the Facebook front, even if only temporarily!
Strength to your arm(s).

[french frank]

A bombshell indeed. I can make no useful suggestions at the moment I am afraid but will sound out my son tomorrow. It would be ironic if after all this time resisting this is the point at which I admit defeat on the Facebook front, even if only temporarily!
Strength to your arm(s).

Facebook page should be public - you don't have to have an account to view for news. The back-up is safe for the moment but the forum will disappear, literally, overnight

When the BBC announced that they were closing down the messageboards, I asked whether people wanted us to set up an alternative and the answer was YES. Any new forum will finally divest itself of the dead hand of the now defunct FoR3 and will become self running. But we will do our best to help the move.

[kernelbogey]

Best wishes to Andrew, Mark and you for the transformation.
kb

[teamsaint]

Good luck with it all FF. What a complete pain for you all.

Like Odders, , I resisted FB for a long time, but use it a little now for some practical reasons . ( A lot of running groups and events use it as their main channel of communication).

If you are new to FB and concerned about it, just put minimum info into it, and you should stay relatively free of outside nonsense.

[AuntDaisy]

Good luck french frank, Andrew & Mark.

[muzzer]

Happy to contribute. ‘Avoid tapatalk’ is the only advice I can give as to hosting platforms.

[duncan]

Good luck. I would like to see the continuation of the forum. I expect they and I are considered old fashioned but I do prefer them to FB etc.

I am a moderator of a forum that uses Simple Machines forum software. https://www.simplemachines.org

It is open source, free, and seems to work pretty well. We've occasionally had issues with hosting and that's a whole different issue which I know nothing about.

[french frank]

Happy to contribute - is it a closed group that we have be accepted into?

1. Thanks to those, on and off the board, who have offered a contribution. This has always been resisted as a funding model for the FoR3 site, but much will depend on how we proceed. Progress is being made. Crowdfunding has secured finance for a further year., but we don't yet have an alternative server. Three options are under consideration.

2. Cloughie, did you mean a Facebook closed group? There is no group - just a page to place contact links, visible to all - in the event of the sudden disappearance of the forum. July 14 is a last possible date: FQ may close before that, so time is too short to canvass views at this stage.

PS Facebook totally unsuitable as a forum, but just to keep the community in contact with the news.

PPS Re simplemachines: Our aim is to move the entire forum on to a new server and this is what poses the difficulty. A temporary site which could be set up NOW would act as an alternative to the Facebook page. Many members only look in occasionally or may be away now: we do aim to contact everyone, which means members should ensure they have updated any change in their email address.

[antongould]

Very sad news indeed ……. Very happy contribute

[gradus]

Happy to contribute, thanks to you ff and your colleagues for all your efforts on our behalf.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Happy to make a financial contribution if needed. The Future Quest message makes for sorry reading - I can only imagine how much their costs have shot up recently. Good to hear that Facebook has been rejected as a forum as I rather despise them and would not appreciate the push adverts from every record / streaming company on earth.
Unfortunately I’m not on other fora so can’t make any recommendations.

[pastoralguy]

Very sad news. Happy to contribute!

[DracoM]

Happy to make a financial contribution if needed.

[Bryn]

Very sad news. Happy to control.

Autocorrect?

I'm also happy to chip in. Simplemachines was, of course, used for the defunct R3OK message board. It might serve as an interim (if needed).