So...we have ads now >.< *EDIT: Nevermind!*

[Fate Flyer]

There are those really annoying ads at the top of the message board, and they never used to be there for me. I can't figure out why they suddenly appeared.

Well, that's irritating. It looks like I'd have to pay $35 to get rid of them for a year (and I refuse to pay monthly, since I can't keep track of everything that I pay for here and elsewhere each month, which would no doubt overdraft my checking account, since there's never any money in there). That's already on top of our domain name that I'm paying for and our storage. I really wish this "free" message board was just a little bit more free. I only get $40 a week from my parents, and I was going to spend $30 + tax of that on the first Uncharted game. Seriously. Forumotion, cut me some slack. I'm a full time college student with no income yet. This really pisses me off that now, all of a sudden, these ads are here.

Well, guys, I do apologize. I'm not sure when I'll be able to pay to get them removed, since I don't have any money right now, and I don't get money from my dad until Saturday. I really would prefer to buy myself a new video game too, since I haven't gotten one in so long (and I've beaten Fable 2 and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince nearly twice).



EDIT: Yep, they changed it for all Forumotion users: See this thread here on the help.forumotion.com board.

Basically, they want money, and lots of it.

[ACK!]

Ad Block Plus for the winnnnn.

Can you back-up your database at all with forumotion?

[Fate Flyer]

That would be a helpful download lol.

There's an automatic daily forum backup that I have activated for Forumotion, yes. I'm not sure what all that entails though. Why?

[Ehoron]

That's not the whole reason of it.

Basically put, the reason this was such a bombshell is they were unsure if they would have to implement it and how permanent it would be. While it would have admittedly been much more polite to at least give a possible heads up, we have to acknowledge that these are tough times. Running a free site just isn't free anymore. It sucks, but that's the way of it.

[ACK!]

Just thinking maybe we can try the hosting thing again and make be of actual use. Only thing is that you can't download Forumotion to use on a hosting plan, I take it. So the database would be useless anyway.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you want to try a stand alone site, I'll be willing to provide you the space to do it. It would be more beneficial in the long run as everything will be accessible to you. Only thing is that you'd lose a lot of features depending on what forum you went with.

*shrugs* Just sayin'.

[Fate Flyer]

That's actually an option that Tony was considering too, especially since we could host our very own board for less than it's costing me to host this "free" one. That's incredibly nice of your to offer, ACK. This is more Tony's department, as he knows more about this than I do, so I'll let him take a look at this thread.

Yeah, we'd lose features, plus the terrible thing in transferring to our own place is that we'd lose all the posts, and everyone would have to re-register. To me, that's just a horrible downside, like starting all over again.



EDIT: It looks like Forumotion has decided to give us back an ad-free message board. The only ones that will see the ads now are guests:
http://help.forumotion.com/administration-panel-credits-and-domain-names-problems-f44/only-topic-about-the-new-ads-t54000.htm
Apparently, the prices for the ad removal was substantially increased too.

[LunarScorpio]

Yeah, I was pissed when I saw that they had pu the ads on. Thankfully, at least for now, it seems they have gotten rid of them again. I'm starting to look into new hosting sites though, just in case they decide that they're putting them back permanently.

[ACK!]

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=861505

It will probably be a pain in the ass, but there is a converter. Just letting you know. :E

[Fate Flyer]

That will allow you to transfer everything from here to your own phpBB board, ACK?? Even if it's a pain and could take a lot of time, so long as it transfers everything important, that's what I care about.

I texted Tony and he was wondering how much bandwidth you have, ACK.

[ACK!]

9334 GB, and it grows every week I think. I've used .197 GB this month. XD I don't really use my personal account for anything. It should be WAY more than enough, especially for a smaller forum like this.

And when you can afford it, you can just pack it all up and move onto your own account. I know how to move big databases now, so that helps. 8|

[Kaito]

it says it doesn't convert the passwords... hmm... if we have the email adresses of the members, though, we could create new random passwords for everyone and send them out by mail. a script shouldn't be that hard to find/make.

Anyways, Adblock Plus ftw. You won't even notice that ads are missing. Makes the internet surfable, again.

[Fate Flyer]

Cool, that sounds like a lot. (Lol I don't understand the sizes, so obviously Tony will check it out when he gets home.)

That'd be sweet, yeah. I'll have him look into that and moving everything. If it's possible, it'd be really wonderful.

I'm not sure about the passwords, but I saw that too. We'd have to figure out how that works.

[ACK!]

Let's just put it this way... S*T uses about 20GB a month of bandwidth, so... I think we'll be fine. ;P

[Fate Flyer]

Oh, Lord. Lol! Yeah, that's definitely a ton of space.

[Kalon Ordona II]

If we do end up moving at some point, I hope everything stays as much the same as possible, especially as far as appearance. Avatars on the right side and colors and everything.

"New Beginnings" = bad

[ACK!]

Seeing as how FOG is running under a phpBB3 engine that we're discussing about moving--the template would remain largely the same. A lot of the add on features would disappear, however, which may make the move a little unappealing to some.

[Kalon Ordona II]

I suppose we'd do a test first, if it came down to it.

[Ehoron]

Hey now...

New Beginnings by Future World Music was freakin' awesome. The no guitar version was even sweeter.

... Oh, you meant restarting-new-beginnings? >.>

<.<

*disappears*

[Kalon Ordona II]

RICHARD!!! Sweeeet! Awesome avatar! xDDD

...

Um, um... to stay on topic... *thinks*

Yeah, those ads were horrible. Icky icky icky. Glad they're gone... for now.

[Guest]

*cough* Everything's back to normal. *cough*

The ads have disappeared now. My forums are clean as well and so is the one I'm co-administrating. It appears that the Forumotion dictatorship couldn't withstand the uproar on their help board. Seriously, very very very few members were willing to let this slide. Several claimed they would deactivate their boards and move on to find someone else to host their communities.

Taking a "devil's advocate" stance on this; I can understand why Forumotion would feel a need to activate ads for everyone at some point. Hell, Wordpress does it all the time (though on targeted sub-domains) in order to "pay the bills" as they say in their support pages.

Advertising companies will pay dearly for anyone that is willing to host advertisements on their webpages. Check out GoDaddy.com and you'll see that when you create an account with them, you have the opportunity to allow for ads to appear on your site from various companies. Unique visitors that click those ads and purchase a product from that company (which is mostly GoDaddy themselves) will count as credit in your next bank statement.

So yeah, ads are necessary for providers like Forumotion, though not all the time. And I do have to say that neglecting their customers and free users alike and NOT ANNOUNCING THIS was a major mistake on their part. Typlo (the help board's lead-administrator and Forumotion's chairman [as it is my understanding]) can count this as a black mark in his book for a long time to come.

[Fate Flyer]

That's actually an option that Tony was considering too, especially since we could host our very own board for less than it's costing me to host this "free" one. That's incredibly nice of your to offer, ACK. This is more Tony's department, as he knows more about this than I do, so I'll let him take a look at this thread.

Yeah, we'd lose features, plus the terrible thing in transferring to our own place is that we'd lose all the posts, and everyone would have to re-register. To me, that's just a horrible downside, like starting all over again.



EDIT: It looks like Forumotion has decided to give us back an ad-free message board. The only ones that will see the ads now are guests:
http://help.forumotion.com/administration-panel-credits-and-domain-names-problems-f44/only-topic-about-the-new-ads-t54000.htm
Apparently, the prices for the ad removal was substantially increased too.

I'm aware, Agenda. I said that awhile ago. *points up* xD

Yeah, and I understand that completely and fully. I know these are difficult times, and I said nothing about Forumotion being in the wrong for needing more income at the moment. This wasn't about that. I simply was trying to portray and emphasize that that put me in a position which was going to be rather difficult. I do agree with everyone too though that the lead Admin really needed to announce this beforehand, rather than dropping the bomb on Forumotion users. However, seeing as he's decided to retract the ads being present for members, it's no longer an issue (fortunately).

[Ragter the junior greeter]

..Wait, so the ad thing lasted..what, 12 or so hours? Huh..seems I missed out on it.

I have Ad Block Plus though, so I wouldn't have seen them anyways.

As for the new board...If you could, I'd think many of us would like to keep our passwords. I've been to a few sites that generate a password for you, and you can never remember it because it's just a bunch of random letters and numbers. I understand if you absolutely HAVE to change our passwords, but if there's a way to make us have a new password that we make ourselves, instead of a randomly generated one, we'd all probably like that a bit more.

Of course, I can deal with the randomly generated one too, I just don't like to write stuff down.

[Guest]

That's actually an option that Tony was considering too, especially since we could host our very own board for less than it's costing me to host this "free" one. That's incredibly nice of your to offer, ACK. This is more Tony's department, as he knows more about this than I do, so I'll let him take a look at this thread.

Yeah, we'd lose features, plus the terrible thing in transferring to our own place is that we'd lose all the posts, and everyone would have to re-register. To me, that's just a horrible downside, like starting all over again.



EDIT: It looks like Forumotion has decided to give us back an ad-free message board. The only ones that will see the ads now are guests:
http://help.forumotion.com/administration-panel-credits-and-domain-names-problems-f44/only-topic-about-the-new-ads-t54000.htm
Apparently, the prices for the ad removal was substantially increased too.

I'm aware, Agenda. I said that awhile ago. *points up* xD

Yeah, and I understand that completely and fully. I know these are difficult times, and I said nothing about Forumotion being in the wrong for needing more income at the moment. This wasn't about that. I simply was trying to portray and emphasize that that put me in a position which was going to be rather difficult. I do agree with everyone too though that the lead Admin really needed to announce this beforehand, rather than dropping the bomb on Forumotion users. However, seeing as he's decided to retract the ads being present for members, it's no longer an issue (fortunately).

Sorry for the confusion there Fate. I was actually just stating my opinion on the matter and yacking off at Forumotion myself. xD

Oh, and I know you told us about the fix. I was just doing the *cough* *cough* to tie into my attack on them. As so:

FM Customers: "Ads have appeared! We hate forumotion! We will stop paying period!"

Forumotion: "Oh uh......whoops....>_>. Let me just fix that der..."

Agenda: "*Cough cough*"

XD

[Guest]

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=861505

It will probably be a pain in the ass, but there is a converter. Just letting you know. :E

I actually came across that before when I was sort of looking into moving the forum. I honestly have no idea how it works and I would have to read about it, but I'm sure you're right about it being a pain in the ass.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you want to try a stand alone site, I'll be willing to provide you the space to do it. It would be more beneficial in the long run as everything will be accessible to you. Only thing is that you'd lose a lot of features depending on what forum you went with.

That's really generous of you, ACK, I appreciate the offer. Although, I'm thinking I don't want to move things more than I have to. Plus I kinda have OCD and in all honesty would want it to be our own thing so I can play around with it for awhile. Trust me, it's better for both of us

As for the new board...If you could, I'd think many of us would like to keep our passwords. I've been to a few sites that generate a password for you, and you can never remember it because it's just a bunch of random letters and numbers. I understand if you absolutely HAVE to change our passwords, but if there's a way to make us have a new password that we make ourselves, instead of a randomly generated one, we'd all probably like that a bit more.

Of course, I can deal with the randomly generated one too, I just don't like to write stuff down.

What you would do is use the generated password to log in, then change it to whatever you want in your settings.


I'm not sure how serious I am about doing this yet, but I'll be educating myself on it some more in my spare time (which isn't much). I'm glad forumotion took the ads off again so I didn't have to figure this all out in a short amount of time.

[Ragter the junior greeter]

Ah..yes, changing the password in the account settings, nearly forgot about that.

whoops

[Stion Gyas]

D'aww... and I had just gotten a message from a "lonely 25F in Fort Myers..."

Ads have never really bothered be, 'cause I view stuff selectively. Still, I'll support any decision you guys make.

...

I kinda have to, 'cause I sorta... left all the other forums I'm on, just for FOG.

[ACK!]

That's really generous of you, ACK, I appreciate the offer. Although, I'm thinking I don't want to move things more than I have to. Plus I kinda have OCD and in all honesty would want it to be our own thing so I can play around with it for awhile. Trust me, it's better for both of us

apffft

Yeah, I totally understand. XD I just wanted to let you know the offer was there. You would have had access to the FTP and MYSQL, but I understand the whole protectiveness behind your motives. Haha. It's all good.

And yeah, it is a pain in the ass because thing just never want to go right the first time. I'm trying to convert our old vB database into phpBB just so I can see them, but it's not working... So yeah, it's terrible. D: But I think it would be easier for this as you don't actually MOD anything. :E

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