Future of XPForums?

ClippyBeer

ClippyBeer

Moderator
I've reached out to both admins here regarding the issue with email notifications over a week ago, have received no response. Neither has logged in here in months. I tried reaching out to them in the other forums Ian used to maintain, same thing. The moderators have abandoned those forums which have become overrun by spammers. I'm the last man standing.

As much as I despise ads I would feel more comfortable if this site had them because at least the revenue generated would give the admins incentive to keep these forums going. The few forums I'm on that have no ads are run as a hobby by the admins who are active participants as Ian used to be. It seems as the current admins have no interest in any of these forums. It's possible that at some point these forums will disappear once the domains expire. Without any communication from the admins I fear this is a likely scenario as I've seen other forums vanish in the same fashion.

With this in mind I once again encourage all forum members to archive any articles they find useful in PDF/HTML or whatever format you choose. Ian's Vista and Windows 8 forums disappeared abruptly without explanation so I'm being prudent.
 
ClippyBeer said:
I've reached out to both admins here regarding the issue with email notifications over a week ago, have received no response. Neither has logged in here in months. I tried reaching out to them in the other forums Ian used to maintain, same thing. The moderators have abandoned those forums which have become overrun by spammers. I'm the last man standing.

As much as I despise ads I would feel more comfortable if this site had them because at least the revenue generated would give the admins incentive to keep these forums going. The few forums I'm on that have no ads are run as a hobby by the admins who are active participants as Ian used to be. It seems as the current admins have no interest in any of these forums. It's possible that at some point these forums will disappear once the domains expire. Without any communication from the admins I fear this is a likely scenario as I've seen other forums vanish in the same fashion.

With this in mind I once again encourage all forum members to archive any articles they find useful in PDF/HTML or whatever format you choose. Ian's Vista and Windows 8 forums disappeared abruptly without explanation so I'm being prudent.
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I fear you are correct in your analysis. I am presuming the scores of new members every day are just bots.
 
ClippyBeer said:
I've reached out to both admins here regarding the issue with email notifications over a week ago, have received no response. Neither has logged in here in months. I tried reaching out to them in the other forums Ian used to maintain, same thing. The moderators have abandoned those forums which have become overrun by spammers. I'm the last man standing.

As much as I despise ads I would feel more comfortable if this site had them because at least the revenue generated would give the admins incentive to keep these forums going. The few forums I'm on that have no ads are run as a hobby by the admins who are active participants as Ian used to be. It seems as the current admins have no interest in any of these forums. It's possible that at some point these forums will disappear once the domains expire. Without any communication from the admins I fear this is a likely scenario as I've seen other forums vanish in the same fashion.

With this in mind I once again encourage all forum members to archive any articles they find useful in PDF/HTML or whatever format you choose. Ian's Vista and Windows 8 forums disappeared abruptly without explanation so I'm being prudent.
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I hope it's too early to write an eulogy for XPForums, one of the last forums where stupidity doesn't reign supreme.
Yet your points sound damn realistic and supported by numerous precedents: since the onset of the internet I too have seen so many good sites vanish in the Great Nowhere due to lack of funds or interest, and so many dull ones bloom and thrive because they tickled the vanity of countless simpletons eager to pontificate on things they have no idea about.
That's not the world we'd order if we could, but apparently it's the only one we have :(

However if there's anything I can do to help keeping at bay such a squalid demise, just name it and I'll be glad to do my part as far as I can do so.
Really.
 
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Chiron said:
However if there's anything I can do to help keeping at bay such a squalid demise, just name it and I'll be glad to do my part as far as I can do so.
Really.
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There's absolutely nothing anyone of us can do, the power is solely in the hands of the owners of this forum and they have thus far shown complete indifference.

The only thing that can be done is to start your own forum and invite us to it.
 
I might perhaps, but it would last only until the Reaper knocks at my door, which at my age cannot be very far away :rolleyes:.

I was rather toying with the notion of getting in touch with Ian (I remember him as a very decent guy) and ask him to transfer to some of us the ownership of the domain, its contents, and the hosting contract.
As a pour parler I just asked my wife, a web specialist owner and admin of half a dozen of sites, how much such a crazy idea might cost. The prices she named left me speechless: tentatively just about $15 a year for the domain and $8 - $15 a month for the hosting.
I don't know how many active members there are here, but all in all I guess that if each of them could afford to contribute 60 - 80 cents a month, the financial problem of keeping XPForums alive would vanish in thin air.
Which of course would be just a first step: a forum needs at least one moderator (would you volunteer, Clippy?;) ) and an admin. For the latter I might try to get the old girl involved but she isn't much younger than me, thus a spare admin would be needed anyway. Do I see any hand raised?

It's awkward, I know: until now we enjoyed for free the privilege of partaking in a forum where we could easily respect each other (well, mostly... :oops:).
Are we available now to pay for the same privilege the price of a beer every 4 months?
 
ClippyBeer said:
There's absolutely nothing anyone of us can do, the power is solely in the hands of the owners of this forum and they have thus far shown complete indifference.

The only thing that can be done is to start your own forum and invite us to it.
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Yeah, and if you decide to start your own forum @Madeleine Takam ... please let us know whilst this forum is still active or most of us wouldn't even know. Very sad news about this forum and I was hoping it was here to stay after the takeover and new admin. I'd join another XP forum.
 
Even though this forum seems to be running on autopilot that may not be bad. As long as the owners don't shut it down we should be OK. For now we should try to make the best of it and keep making posts and responding when others do. That is the best we can do.

I suggest we start a thread for people to list alternate forums that have Windows XP sections. That way if this forum shuts down maybe some of us here will find each other on one of the other forums. Here is one example:

TechSupportGuy - Windows XP subsection
 
This is a really good forum, would hate to see it go away, when I first found this forum there were many posters with unanswered posts, I started answering them and then it seemed like the forum took off and everyone came here for xp questions. We are all here for the duration, and as per ClippyBeer's post, copy down all the info needed for future help, and exchange emails, then you can at least talk to each other in email if the forum goes away, :)
 
I suggest creating a Facebook or Telegram group or channel (or something of the sort) where we can all meet. Then, if this forum unexpectedly goes down, we can discuss other options.

Is there a way to scrape the content of this forum, to store it locally? Can someone do this?
 
Aldus said:
I suggest creating a Facebook or Telegram group or channel (or something of the sort) where we can all meet. Then, if this forum unexpectedly goes down, we can discuss other options.

Is there a way to scrape the content of this forum, to store it locally? Can someone do this?
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Screw getting on Facebook or Telegram. It's not the way to go. I have always support forums! If this forum gets down There always use other forums!
 
GalraKeith said:
Screw getting on Facebook or Telegram. It's not the way to go. I have always support forums! If this forum gets down There always use other forums!
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Yes, but which one? Facebook/Telegram is free and doesn't require time to configure. Setting up a forum takes some time. If tomorrow this forum vanishes, where do we meet or how do we keep track of everyone else? How do you know where to find other users and where the new forum will be, if we don't have any other way to stay in contact?
 
Can vouch for eclipse.cx too. It's been a long time since I posted here but I was one of the original guard who set up that forum back in early 2021.

For what it's worth, roytam1 also happens to check it every now and again, and there's also a nice deal of support for x64 XP if that's your thing.

I checked up on Ian's other boards, it's like he just vanished into the abyss around 10th December 2023. Apparently the domain expires on 27th November 2025, so we have about a year to back everything up as best we can and attempt to jump ship.

(There's also accounts getting hijacked and posting links to CSAM over at the Windows 10/11 forums. It's likely related to the same mass account hijacking that has been going on on a lot of other forums lately, seemingly automated botnet farms out of Eastern Europe reading username/email/password combinations from whatever compromised database dumps they have obtained elsewhere rather than exploiting holes in the existing software itself. Don't reuse the same password everywhere!)
 
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Compa said:
Can vouch for eclipse.cx too. It's been a long time since I posted here but I was one of the original guard who set up that forum back in early 2021.

For what it's worth, roytam1 also happens to check it every now and again, and there's also a nice deal of support for x64 XP if that's your thing.

I checked up on Ian's other boards, it's like he just vanished into the abyss around 10th December 2023. Apparently the domain expires on 27th November 2025, so we have about a year to back everything up as best we can and attempt to jump ship.

(There's also accounts getting hijacked and posting links to CSAM over at the Windows 10/11 forums. It's likely related to the same mass account hijacking that has been going on on a lot of other forums lately, seemingly automated botnet farms out of Eastern Europe reading username/email/password combinations from whatever compromised database dumps they have obtained elsewhere rather than exploiting holes in the existing software itself. Don't reuse the same password everywhere!)
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eclipse.cx is an amazing forum and i would highly recommend you join it the owner @K4sum1 is a very nice and kind admin who is willing to go lengths to ensure her forum stays up for millions of years to come there are also legends like @Roytam1 @Feodor2 @Ucyborg and many other stars if the windows community all gathered on the forum with there own project sections plus plenty of support for anything from longhorn betas to windows 11 there is sections for all windows regardless of there reputations its the perfect place for xpusers here
 
Aldus said:
I suggest creating a Facebook or Telegram group or channel (or something of the sort) where we can all meet. Then, if this forum unexpectedly goes down, we can discuss other options.

Is there a way to scrape the content of this forum, to store it locally? Can someone do this?
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No social for me, thanks.
I've tried a number of the least ill-reputed ones (quora, reddit, stack overflow and more), and after a while systematically some know-it-all spouting off profusely from the unfathomable depths of their ignorance persuaded me that a social was no place to waste my time with.

If we cannot manage to hold together this forum, perhaps some other forum might work as well -- but as we all know even forums aren't immune to undesirable fauna like trolls, smartasses, bullies, pains-in the ass and the like. How XPForums managed to keep most of them at bay is still a mystery to me, and I wouldn't bet that such a minor miracle may happen again.
 
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Chiron said:
If we cannot manage to hold together this forum, perhaps some other forum might work as well -- but as we all know even forums aren't immune to undesirable fauna like trolls, smartasses, bullies, pains-in the ass and the like. How XPForums managed to keep most of them at bay is still a mystery to me, and I wouldn't bet that such a minor miracle may happen again.
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I mean, the fact that it's holding up at all right now is impressive in itself - it's just a matter of being able to continue on and hope for a graceful exit rather than a sudden one, given my findings above suggest we have about exactly a year to migrate.

If @K4sum1 wishes to reply to this thread and make an official stance on whether he'd be willing to help assimilate XPForums users to Eclipse.cx, it would be much appreciated.

(Disclaimer - while I don't attempt to officially represent eclipse.cx in any way, given my tenure as admin was unpopular - I do happen to have some unofficial sway on their moderation. I was alerted to this thread by a regular member and considered taking the opportunity to mention the place as a suitable refuge.)
 
Chiron said:
I was rather toying with the notion of getting in touch with Ian (I remember him as a very decent guy) and ask him to transfer to some of us the ownership of the domain, its contents, and the hosting contract.
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Therein lies the challenge. There's no way to contact Ian or any of the other admins. @Mr Siamese Cat at one point offered to pay for hosting this site but received no reply.

MisterEd said:
Even though this forum seems to be running on autopilot that may not be bad. As long as the owners don't shut it down we should be OK. For now we should try to make the best of it and keep making posts and responding when others do. That is the best we can do.

I suggest we start a thread for people to list alternate forums that have Windows XP sections. That way if this forum shuts down maybe some of us here will find each other on one of the other forums. Here is one example:

TechSupportGuy - Windows XP subsection
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That's a good idea. Finding other forums like this one that has an XP subforum. I'll check out that forum and a few others when I have time.

Chiron said:
No social for me, thanks.
I've tried a number of the least ill-reputed ones (quora, reddit, stack overflow and more), and after a while systematically some know-it-all spouting off profusely from the unfathomable depths of their ignorance persuaded me that a social was no place to waste my time with.
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Same here, I avoid social media like the plague that it is. Creating accounts on alternate forums is probably the best suggestion if we can find one similar to this.

Chiron said:
If we cannot manage to hold together this forum, perhaps some other forum might work as well -- but as we all know even forums aren't immune to undesirable fauna like trolls, smartasses, bullies, pains-in the ass and the like. How XPForums managed to keep most of them at bay is still a mystery to me, and I wouldn't bet that such a minor miracle may happen again.
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No mystery or miracle, just diligent moderating.:cool:
 
ClippyBeer said:
I've reached out to both admins here regarding the issue with email notifications over a week ago, have received no response. Neither has logged in here in months. I tried reaching out to them in the other forums Ian used to maintain, same thing. The moderators have abandoned those forums which have become overrun by spammers. I'm the last man standing.

As much as I despise ads I would feel more comfortable if this site had them because at least the revenue generated would give the admins incentive to keep these forums going. The few forums I'm on that have no ads are run as a hobby by the admins who are active participants as Ian used to be. It seems as the current admins have no interest in any of these forums. It's possible that at some point these forums will disappear once the domains expire. Without any communication from the admins I fear this is a likely scenario as I've seen other forums vanish in the same fashion.

With this in mind I once again encourage all forum members to archive any articles they find useful in PDF/HTML or whatever format you choose. Ian's Vista and Windows 8 forums disappeared abruptly without explanation so I'm being prudent.
Click to expand...
So, you have a figure to send to owners. I am willing to stump up £100 as a one-off payment (No idea how much that is in the monopoly money you use over there) Not willing to provide any more, as I don’t need any help with XP and hardly ever use it. And when I do, I can fix myself. Happy to pay through PayPal or direct transfer. I will send you my email and phone number through private message.

However, I am not willing to help maintain the site or help in transferring ownership. I am far too lazy and it will get in the way of my drinking, smoking and gambling.

Maybe an idea to set up subscriptions through something like Patreon. Something like $1 - £1 per month might encourage people to enroll. I would not be willing to pay more than £1 per month, especially if I have to fork out £100 to kick start the whole show.
 
Compa said:
If @K4sum1 wishes to reply to this thread and make an official stance on whether he'd be willing to help assimilate XPForums users to Eclipse.cx, it would be much appreciated.
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Well, yeah, but I'm not sure what help I can do other than pointing them over and letting new users in?
https://board.eclipse.cx/

The forum will exist in some form as long as I'm alive, and even if not, I have a fallback owner in that event. He probably won't be very active, but he should be able to maintain it for a long while.
 
K4sum1 said:
Well, yeah, but I'm not sure what help I can do other than pointing them over and letting new users in?
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Just attempted to register at Eclipse..... "You have incorrectly sorted the items to the correct list of the confirmation question."

I've never put myself through using Windows 7 or 10 long enough to answer the confirmation questions... can someone give me a cheat sheet?
 
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