Yeah, nearly $1k per year for BG is not sustainable...
and BG needs to be updated/upgraded/and needs ongoing maintenance and and and
I did some quick looking and found some "stuff"
https://webhostinggeeks.com/best-forum-hostingSo there are affordable alternatives...
but migrating BG over to elsewhere could be a nightmare.
BG is friggin BEAUTIFUL! The rich graphics are AWSOME
but right now, its all about the remaining forum members and the ability to chat, share, stay in contact, etc..
Let's investigate Spare Goggles.
- It's not as pretty
- it doesn;t have the incredibly rich graphics
- maybe we can add some later, maybe not
but it's THERE and running. No real migration is required just to use "as is"
we need to know
1) what does it cost?
2) where is it hosted?
3) what are the limits? size, members, throughput, etc...
4) more etc
How do we alert the existing membership, I mean beyond a banner header page here?
Is there a feature on BG to send a mass mailing announcement to all members?
If not, can we access the memberlist?
it is simple to run a shell script ( sh or rsh ) to pull members who logged on in the last year or so,
then parse for their email (if any) then check the addr for legit
and send a mass "we are moving" email to what is left in there.
also... let us say this forum is put in ARCHIVE mode,
with a banner directing folks to spare goggles or whatever
is there any cost involved to archive BG?
how long will it last?
I think we also ought to archive the entire BrassGoggles forum to The WayBack machine (aka Internet Archives)
for posterity and the public good.
damnit I love this place and the people on it......