Forum closure (forum archive)

The following text has been archived here from our sister site, the Border Regiment Forum, which is set to close in January 2018. A wiki-based copy of that original post has been preserved here for reference purposes. Note: only selected posts from the forum have been archived (find out why).

Posted by kerchi » Thu Dec 01, 2016 11:37 am

Kerchi Field-Marshal Administrator Posts: 2160 In memory of John Bardgett (15309 L/Cpl.) 11th Border Regiment Who died 1st July 1916.

It is with regret that I will be closing the forum from the 3rd January, 2017 This is something I have considered for the past 12 months. The site continues to breach it's allowed monthly resource usage and, as a result, the service is limited or temporarily blocked until the next monthly period. I currently do not have the time or technical know-how to continually keep this in check. Several months back I upgraded to a larger allowance but this is still not enough and now the running costs are too high for the hosting package on a per year basis. I did consider using a cloud-based forum, which I prefer, but these are astronomically expensive and they wouldn't be able to transfer from this platform. It would be a case of starting from fresh, something I didn't want to do. I have made the necessary backups of the database but the information contained in it will not be accessible without a running version of the forum on my computer, which I currently do not have. I will be spending time working on the wiki-based http://thelonsdalebattalion.co.uk site instead as the running costs of this site are free. Anyone interested in joining that site is more than welcome. I am very sorry for the inconvenience, especially to all those that have spent a great deal of time helping others (and myself) with enquiries and sharing a host of interesting photos and posts covering all aspects of the regiment.

Posted by hussar1000 » Thu Dec 01, 2016 10:31 pm	hussar1000 Staff Sergeant Registered user Posts: 131
I, for one, am deeply saddened that the forum will be going. I have greatly enjoyed being a member. I do not understand the mechanics of running such a site and sincerely hope that you reconsider and find a workable solution to the problem.

Posted by spike » Thu Dec 01, 2016 10:37 pm	spike General Global moderator Posts: 1788 In memory of John Farrer (19455 Pte.) 11th Border Regiment k.i.a. 1st July 1916
Thanks you for all your efforts Chris, I fully respect your decision to close the forum and appreciate the effort required on your part to keep it running for this long. Spike

Posted by kerchi » Sat Dec 03, 2016 7:58 pm

Kerchi Field-Marshal Administrator Posts: 2160 In memory of John Bardgett (15309 L/Cpl.) 11th Border Regiment Who died 1st July 1916.

hussar1000 wrote: I, for one, am deeply saddened that the forum will be going. I have greatly enjoyed being a member. I do not understand the mechanics of running such a site and sincerely hope that you reconsider and find a workable solution to the problem. Hi Hussar, It's something I don't really want to do, especially with the time and effort I have put into the forum over the years. It saddens me to see it go but there are very few options. This site runs on paid-for hosting at Siteground. They have been pretty good and I have had no major problems with them. The forum, whilst not big or popular by any stretch of the imagination, has grown enough to warrant upgrading to the yet more expensive hosting package. The only way I can see keeping the forum as it is (mind you it does need a major software upgrade and I'm not savvy enough for that) is to have donations or to have annoying advertisements, something I was not keen to do. I have reached the stage where I don't mind administrating a forum but I don't want to run in the way of software upgrades and footing the ever increasing bill. There are few free forums that are managed and hosted by the hosting company. There is one, probably American, that hosts free forums but that means starting from scratch: https://www.proboards.com/free-forum-features All the other good forums that offer decent hosting (where they could transfer almost everything) and the desirable cloud-based solutions are somewhat pricey and whilst this is my preferred choice for forum quality, the costs are simply too much for a simple, non-profit forum. I am, of course, open to suggestions.

Posted by kerchi » Sat Dec 03, 2016 8:00 pm

Kerchi Field-Marshal Administrator Posts: 2160 In memory of John Bardgett (15309 L/Cpl.) 11th Border Regiment Who died 1st July 1916.

spike wrote: Thanks you for all your efforts Chris, I fully respect your decision to close the forum and appreciate the effort required on your part to keep it running for this long As always Spike, I appreciate your views and comments. If the costs were cheaper and we knew someone who was willing to take over the software upgrades and general technical upkeep of running a forum.....it could be maintained.

Posted by hussar1000 » Tue Dec 06, 2016 3:29 pm	hussar1000 Staff Sergeant Registered user Posts: 131
I salute your hard work and dedication. I wish you all the very best with the Lonsdale project and will visit the site and enjoy watching it develop.

Posted by mrdeacon » Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:51 pm	mrdeacon Colonel Registered user Posts: 706
Hi Chris, This is sad news indeed I have really enjoyed my time on this forum and have made some really good friends thank you. I must congratulate on the hard work you have put into running this forum well done and good luck with your future projects. Best wishes Mike.

Posted by IanT » Sun Mar 12, 2017 5:17 pm	IanT Major Registered user Posts: 252
Hi Chris, somehow I missed the original announcement about the closure of the forum, & only noticed there was a problem when trying to access it late last year. However I checked again today and lo! the forum is accessible again. Is this permanent or likely to hit the usage limit again? As others have said it would be a great pity to lose the forum. Best wishes, Ian

Posted by kerchi » Sat Jul 08, 2017 4:48 pm

Kerchi Field-Marshal Administrator Posts: 2160 In memory of John Bardgett (15309 L/Cpl.) 11th Border Regiment Who died 1st July 1916.

Hi Ian, Sorry for long delay in replying. Yes, the forum will close permanently in January 2018. The reason it is available again is to allow people to access information and images (their own or others) before they are no longer available. I am currently devoting my time to the updated wiki here instead: https://thelonsdalebattalion.co.uk (which has much of the original information about other Border Regiment battalions too) as it doesn't cost anything to run and is fully managed by system administrators so I can continue to work on the information rather than updates and backups etc.

Posted by IanT » Sat Jul 08, 2017 5:22 pm	IanT Major Registered user Posts: 252
Thanks Chris. I take it that the wiki is only going to cover WW1, so no inter-war, WW2 or post war stuff that is on the current forum site. Regards, Ian

Posted by kerchi » Sun Jul 09, 2017 2:27 pm

Kerchi Field-Marshal Administrator Posts: 2160 In memory of John Bardgett (15309 L/Cpl.) 11th Border Regiment Who died 1st July 1916.

IanT wrote: I take it that the wiki is only going to cover WW1, so no inter-war, WW2 or post war stuff that is on the current forum site Yes, my current plan is to focus mainly on WWI, however, I'm not going to discount the inter-war years and WWII etc. In the future. As I have a mighty task of writing about the Lonsdales and the Borders in general during WWI it will be some time if any other projects were to be included. My to-do list is pretty substantial and because I am doing this solo (although anyone can help out if they so wish) time is always an issue, especially as I still haven't had time to go through the forum and transfer any relevant/informative posts and images to the wiki.