End of the Forum Road
Thanks for the news, Alex. Hopefully this option will bear fruit. Thanks to Michael and all the contributors who have made this forum a true gem. Michael, hopefully your thoughts, ideas and renderings will continue to grace the site with an increased frequency, now that your forum administration shoulders are lightened. Can’t imagine this without your design contributions.
I too hope that Michael will continue to post on the new forum.
I want it to continue on from this one and definitely with the same friendly atmosphere!
Busy getting it up and running and will keep everyone posted…...
I’m thrilled that Alex is getting a new forum going. I look forward to posting there as a “civilian”. Let us know where and when you are ready, Alex.
Thank you, Michael. It will be great to have you over there, as a VIP member 😉
One thing we’re still undecided on, that we’d like to hear y’all’s thoughts on is the name of the site. We’re thinking it should be a multihulls forum with a focus on proas, but accommodating discussions about all other multihulls… and that should be reflected in the name. The wife and the boss is leaning toward something like “multihulls.com - proas, outriggers, catamarans, etc”, I’d like something like “proaforum.com - multihulls, outriggers, etc”.
How do y’all feel about the former and the latter?
proaforum.com - multihulls, outriggers, etc
Gets my vote.
Cheers,
Johannes
Thanks for stepping in Alex!
proaforum.com - multihulls, outriggers, etc
would be also my choice.
Cheers
I’m not a super active forum user, and I’ll be glad to look in on whatever forum eventually develops out of this. And I appreciate Alex volunteering to run a replacement forum, it sounds like that’s the kind of thing you’re all interested in.
Just for the sake of playing devil’s advocate, though, some reasons we might consider a subreddit rather than another stand alone forum:
Reddit is big, and a lot of the maintenance is done for us behind the scenes. Michael can tell you that running a stand alone forum like this is some trouble. Modding a subreddit is really easy.
It has real threading. Web forums usually do not. Real threading is great. You can see who is replying to whom. You can avoid entire subthreads if you’re not interested. It’s a much more organized way to talk.
There is already a decent sized sailing community on Reddit. Some of the more popular subreddits more or less related to sailing and small boating are:
http://www.reddit.com/r/sailing
http://www.reddit.com/r/Nautical
http://www.reddit.com/r/boatbuilding
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildaboat/
http://www.reddit.com/r/lifeaquatic
http://www.reddit.com/r/yachtracing
http://www.reddit.com/r/kayaking
Most importantly, one can only run a forum like this for so long, then it either has to end or it has to be handed off to someone else. Every time we have a forum end and everyone migrate to a new platform we lose huge amounts of data: previous posts, pictures, all kinds of stuff. I’ve tried to archive some of the more valuable and unique stuff from the yahoo group on the wikiproa site, but as it dies there’s a lot of old stuff we no longer see, and eventually when no one is active on it yahoo will shut it down and we will no longer have access to any of it. So it seems to me that it’s a good idea to try to latch on to a big discussion site like Reddit which is unlikely to go away any time soon, and where there’s some mechanism for the eventual, inevitable handoff, just in the hope of some continuity.
Again, I really appreciate what Alex is offering here, and I’m certainly not trying to control the group, I’d be glad to hand over modding duties on r/Boathouse to someone who’s more active on the proafile site. Just trying to plan ahead a little.
I suggested on r/Boathouse that real names might be useful, and one person has messaged me saying they don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s fine with me if we do the usual Reddit thing and don’t require real names, I don’t care.
Anyway, y’all do what you want, if you want another stand alone forum that’s fine. I just wanted to bring this up before we’re all committed.
K O’N
Kevin’s points are all well said. I appreciate Alex’s enthusiasm for setting up a new forum, but I remember how enthusiastic I was at the beginning. Three years later I can barely bring myself to look at the thing, let alone get to work on updates, and are we setting ourselves up for another reboot in however long it takes for the new owners to tire of the thing? There is something to be said for planning for the inevitable.
I’ll be happy to migrate wherever the group wants to go, but it is food for thought.
proaforum.com - multihulls, outriggers, etc
Gets my vote as well.
Regarding the forum vs reddit situation, I would like to stay with the forum format. I’ve some experience of reddit, but personally don’t like it and find it confusing to deal with. We have a chatty and supportive community here, and that *could* be lost should we changeover to a new format. Just my opinion.
I think the point about tiring out and migrating again is a good one, and a very important one. I’ve never used Reddit, visually I don’t think it’s as clean in appearance as a forum. The more structured conversations could indeed be helpful, but maybe it’s better to stick with a proven formula, lest we actually do lose some people?
If we do use a forum, then I think it would be an extremely good idea to use a well-known and widely-used forum platform where the code is open source (like phpBB). That way if we do get a repeat 3 years down the line, then all we need is another server and domain for instance, we transfer the database to the new server, and everything is 100% preserved, accounts, posts, and everything. The big advantage of an open source platform is that database merge tools which can automatically merge the data from one forum database into another one (e.g. converting it from one format to another) are readily available. That way we stay flexible. If we use some proprietary forum software then we are making ourselves dependent on a company which may or may not provide the updates and support which is needed (which is one of the reasons this forum is closing down after all), and we’d have much fewer, if any options at all if we want to move to another platform with all our data.
@Alex: From what I can see xenForo provides a tool to import / convert a phpBB3 database into a xenForo one, but not the other way around. Writing a databse merge tool of our own should we want to move later, is possible, but not easy. If their code is not open source however, then writing the tool would be an absolute nightmare, if not completely impossible (you would literally have to reverse-engineer their database format to do it). Bottom line: if xenForo doesn’t provide an export tool, then I don’t think we should use their software. I would rather not make our community dependent on the forum software of one particular company, the fact that was done, is one of the main reasons this forum is closing down after all.
—And Alex, I really appreciate you looking into the whole matter. If there’s anything I can do to help, then PM me. If needed, I’m willing to step up and do some serious technical work to help keep our community alive, I study computer science, and while I haven’t done much pertaining to this side of CS, I think with enough time I could work the stuff out. 😊
Marco
Late getting to this, the most important of topics, getting slow in my old age.
On the one hand, my heart mourns the loss.
On the other hand, since I’ve gotten to an age where there’s more and more experience with loss I’ve found a way to better deal with the inevitable. And that is to dwell on the positives and there are a multitude here.
Special kudos to Michael and James to have actually done the dang thing, we are all forever in your debt for taking on a virtually thankless time consuming job that we all have benefited from.
To all of you (if I started to itemize at all, this would never end), my heartfelt thanks for your participation, innovation and free thinking, freely given. I’ve benefited greatly from it, both personally and intellectually.
What ever comes next, I’ll participate in to the best of my ability and look forward to whatever comes over the horizon.
Very best of wishes,
Skip
OK - what about something like FreeForums.org?
Free hosting. Transferable code. Moderators can be chosen by members/who starts the forum.
The limits, as I see it, are attachment space.
Some free forum hosts give more than others.
I wouldn’t necessarily be moderating on the other platorm - I just want to keep this going and that was one option.
There are others.
Personally, after looking at reddit - I don’t like it and would prefer a forum format.
The problem with letting a third party take over, is that it will be for profit - and that will mean expanding the forum into multihulls in general,because the forum will not only have to pay for itself - it will have to make a profit…....
There is another- more difficult - option- run it on donations, like “Wharram builders and friends” does?
Someone will still have to step up and do it though.
Alex.
Again, it would be sad to lose this.
Time is running out and more discussion is needed.
I have obtained much from this site as I designed my own pacific proa over the last 3&1/2 years. Much of my design would be controversial as there are many adaptations from biomechanics, other structural applications, supersonic wind tunnel testing and sail advances. I want to thank you all for your input into this site, especially those running it. I finally signed on as a member yesterday and I find it is passing on but not passing away. Your shared knowledge has been of great assistance to me in this design process. I thank you all, and thanks Alex for taking on the new site. Terry Rempel, from Vancouver Island.
If we do use a forum, then I think it would be an extremely good idea to use a well-known and widely-used forum platform where the code is open source (like phpBB). That way if we do get a repeat 3 years down the line, then all we need is another server and domain for instance, we transfer the database to the new server, and everything is 100% preserved, accounts, posts, and everything. The big advantage of an open source platform is that database merge tools which can automatically merge the data from one forum database into another one (e.g. converting it from one format to another) are readily available. That way we stay flexible. If we use some proprietary forum software then we are making ourselves dependent on a company which may or may not provide the updates and support which is needed (which is one of the reasons this forum is closing down after all), and we’d have much fewer, if any options at all if we want to move to another platform with all our data.
I strongly agree with the above.
Forums like woodenboat force people to upload their pics on image hosting sites. Seems to work well enough, although not as convenient. Images also tend to disappear after a few years, which is unfortunate.
With regards to Reddit, I can see the attraction in a lot of ways, but at the end of the day don’t think it suits. If you think of a forum thread that evolves over time, for example a thread following proa design as it progresses. I don’t see how this could work on Reddit. The boatbuilding ones I just looked at are more question answer based.
It might be nice as an alternative to the proa_file mailing list, where it’s more about conversations and opinions. (But in that case, if it aint broke don’t fix it. (Although it is a little broke.))
To Curtis and Skip, I appreciate your thanks.
To all, I’d wish you luck for the future but you won’t need it. You have the will to support each other and to make it work and that is all you need.
Cheers,
James