Originally Posted By: DAA
But to the point that the conversation has taken... I've mentioned this here before. Somebody needs to buy this place. Gut it. Renovate it. Bring it back with modern phone picture/video posting friendly, likes enabled etc., forum software. There's a bunch of them to choose from. Two of my friends that own and run successful forums (both offroad oriented) use, like and recommend Xenforo. They tell me migrating the content, usernames, passwords etc. from this ancient UBB.threads forum is possible, and not even technically difficult. But, (skilled) time consuming.
Afraid, custom scripting to migrate the backlog of content might be spendy... I bet that, and a new software package on a sufficiently robust server, will cost more than this place is worth (I bet it brings in practically nothing in $ now - click some of those banners, see where they go, lol!). I think porting the historical content would be important though. It's barely even searchable now, but with proper data migration, it could be turned into a gold mine of a database. That, along with a fairly seamless username/PW transition, would be the value proposition. Otherwise, just start a brand new forum. Lot cheaper and easier.
- DAA
Originally Posted By: Yellowhammer
Updating the site would be good, but as mentioned a lot of the past content might be lost. Tons of old pictures and links are no good anymore just due to changing internet sites.
I spent untold hours linking to sites in the biology forum for example to research papers and such that are dead links now because wherever they were hosted changed their website or script or something.
I don’t know all the answers, but it could be better for sure and have more traffic. But it will take a lot of time, money and interest on someone’s part. I do know a little about that.
Sounds like we have 2 guys that know a lot!
ONE that can get some nasty good pics, the other who knows the major ins and outs of a revamp OR both. I would 100% be in support of this in more than one way, not just verbally but I would invest some time and some funding IF we could enough others on board to do the same.
I know there's some way to possibly start a patreon or donation page to get major updates or whatever it may take to make something like this happen.
For example I get anywhere from 1K to 3K unique visitors to my website a week, depending on time of year, I can easily post a link to here asking for support, or just a go to place for some of the best info and entertainment regarding our great lifestyle! That may only bring 10-100 newbies every month, but hey, it's a start!
I look at it this way, IMHO, this place, and the Admins that I have been in contact with over the years, have treated me awfully dang good, amazing for that matter, even now allowing me to post videos without paying for a sponsorship I'll do a lot to return that favor, more than just paying for a sponsorship. I know I can find others that will as well.
We should quite honestly figure something out, maybe we can contact one of the mods, have a conference call, and get some ballpark figures.