[gb007]

Webster said:

1706519219[/url]' post='1800170']
Paul & Kimberley from The Barrel Inn Blues Travel informed me earlier in the season that they felt it was time to let another group or individuals sponsor Bobs Board
So a big thankyou to them for what they have done for several years in sponsoring this nonsense through the good times and bad since Bob's passing
So whats next?
The CFSS itself no longer actually exists and the board is a bit of a legacy as it creaks, groans and error codes as it post messages and Spireite thoughts

I've personally been involved in this since is inception and feel perhaps the times may also be right time to hand over the keys so to speak to the next generation of Board users

The board was a originally a board for fans managed by fans so ultimately its down to the users to decide if theres still a future for it beyond the end of May when the current hosting deals expires

Over to you
Post below if you want to be involved in whatevers next .

Hi Rich -sorry to hear that -what does it take money wise to keep the board going ?
I sponsor the club on a few things and would be happy to contribute towards the upkeep
Let me know

[oldgoat]

As long as it works I'm not bothered , I assume most people access it on mobile , happy to contribute if required but starting from scratch on a free setup may be best , hauling stuff over from the past shouldn't be the main priority I feel , as for moderation I'm not sure .

This post has been edited by oldgoat: 29 January 2024 - 09:05 PM

[plannerj]

 Walton Spireite, on 29 January 2024 - 07:49 PM, said:

It's a sad day its bringing a tear to my eye.Over the years got to know some great people through Bob's Board. Always enjoyed putting a face to a user name. Let's hope it can re-invent itself in another form.

Agree 100%.

[moondog]

 calvin plummers socks, on 29 January 2024 - 08:32 PM, said:

It seems to work for Quaker.
But when the nasty Islamaphobic stuff gets through it’s a mockery of the system

He sent me a personal message on twitter

You've been asked to prove what you say has got through, notwithstanding you seem to have forgotten you have said it was said in a personal message to you

[Nitrous Oxide]

I've not been able to post for a couple of weeks. No idea why unless I've fallen foul of the fragile server.

[valemadness]

I'd be happy to continue as a moderator, if people are happy with that. I have been struggling with logging on and accessing functions of the board for a few months though.
I personally don't like the idea of a paid subscription, I think the forum should be free for anyone to join and discuss Chesterfield and wider football.
If there was a way of upgrading what we've already got, so it works on all platforms and all the features work as intended, then I think we've got a good forum. It certainly is better than ones where someone posts and then people reply and there's lines to their replies, but then someone just comments and you have to follow that down, it can be a bit confusing.
I guess it's finding out how much it would be to upgrade the forum to make it workable again and then how much it takes to run a year. Maybe crowd funding can get the upgrade sorted and then sponsorship maybe for the annual running costs 🤷
I do think a couple/few more moderators wouldn't go amiss either.

[Andy Spireite]

Not meant to be inflammatory in the slightest but I'm just wondering if we really need moderators? Aren't we grown up enough to be able to take responsibility for what we write and to hold each other to account if anyone crosses the line?

[s42blue]

 Webster, on 29 January 2024 - 07:09 PM, said:

Yes but cleary needs fixing / upgrading

Hi how much would an upgrade/fix cost , alongside the normal running cost (if there is one?

If there is an estimated annual cost we could crowd fund it on an annual basis?

I’ve no idea really on tech like this re setting up but would consider being a Mod.

This post has been edited by s42blue: 30 January 2024 - 10:07 AM

[Zigsuk]

 Andy Spireite, on 30 January 2024 - 10:03 AM, said:

Not meant to be inflammatory in the slightest but I'm just wondering if we really need moderators? Aren't we grown up enough to be able to take responsibility for what we write and to hold each other to account if anyone crosses the line?

You'd like to think so, but the world and particularly the internet doesn't work like that. Many people behave in a different way online to how they would behave in real life, mistakenly thinking they are anonymous.
As for being moderators, as I indicated in my earlier post, this is far from easy. You have to be fair and put your own views and prejudices to one side, and let's face it we all have them. Many was the time when I was not only a moderator but admin and owner I felt frustated having to reign in my opinions in order to be impartial.

This post has been edited by Zigsuk: 30 January 2024 - 12:15 PM

[HaslandBlue58]

I assume from postings that quite a few are,like myself,of advanced years on this board but I am still surprised we have not had more tech savvy responses.Would it be niieve to suggest contacting the club media team in a community support kind of way,or is that not the sort of expertise they would have?

[Mr Mercury]

 Andy Spireite, on 30 January 2024 - 10:03 AM, said:

Not meant to be inflammatory in the slightest but I'm just wondering if we really need moderators? Aren't we grown up enough to be able to take responsibility for what we write and to hold each other to account if anyone crosses the line?

Re your second sentence….
NO.

[Goku]

 Andy Spireite, on 30 January 2024 - 10:03 AM, said:

Not meant to be inflammatory in the slightest but I'm just wondering if we really need moderators? Aren't we grown up enough to be able to take responsibility for what we write and to hold each other to account if anyone crosses the line?

You definitely need mods. Remember when the club was going to the wall, there were potentially libelous posts being made which the mods deleted. You need them for, at the very least, worse case scenarios like that. But I still think you need them regardless of that, because all it takes is for a few scabs to sign up and start posting all over the shop and the board is then spammed and unreadable. You won't find many online forums without mods and those that are like that tend to be cesspits.

This post has been edited by Goku: 30 January 2024 - 10:28 AM

[dart in the crossbar]

Shame if it was to end. Ambivalent about the Personal section. Feel that moderators are necessary. Happy to put my hand in my pocket to help out. COYB

[Andy Spireite]

 Goku, on 30 January 2024 - 10:27 AM, said:

You definitely need mods. Remember when the club was going to the wall, there were potentially libelous posts being made which the mods deleted. You need them for, at the very least, worse case scenarios like that. But I still think you need them regardless of that, because all it takes is for a few scabs to sign up and start posting all over the shop and the board is then spammed and unreadable. You won't find many online forums without mods and those that are like that tend to be cesspits.

Fair enough, not my field of expertise so thanks for the informed response.

[CFC91]

Hopefully some of the more technically minded on here can help and the rest of us can contribute whatever is needed financially or in terms of moderating and keep it going then!

[Cfc4me]

Morning all, I've been a software/web developer for over 30 years so should probably add some of my thoughts/suggestions to this...

Current system - As someone mentioned above, at first glance it does appear to be a closed book, in that you don't seem to be able to migrate the whole thing to a different web hosting company. At the figures suggested above it also seems expensive. As a comparison, unlimited web hosting charge £50 for the year for a package with 99.9% up-time and unlimited data storage. Cheaper packages are available elsewhere but limit the amount of data you can store, which could become a problem very quickly with a site this size. Key is to find someone that doesn't limit the data, and provides regular back-ups.

Data migration - Providing you have access to the database (probably via phpmyadmin) then its not impossible to migrate to a different platform. Unless there is a tool that will migrate the data to a different platform for you however, it could take days, weeks to manually move all this over. This would mean locking the current system down while the migration takes place, otherwise your forever playing catch-up with new posts, threads, users etc. Obviously not ideal. Someone else suggested outsourcing the data migration, which is a good idea but likely to come at significant cost.

New forum - Personally, I'd take a look at phpBB. It's free open-source forum software, with good community based support. If you google football forums using phpBB, you'll see quite a few, including Man City, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and (dare I say) stagsnet, to name a few. It's also most likely that some web hosting companies offer this installation as part of their package.

Domain name - you could ask the current owner to have this transferred to you, then all the dns entries will need changing to point to the new system. This should be the VERY LAST THING to be done however, else everything will stop working. Alternatively, someone like 123reg will sell you a new domain name for around £12 a year (currently 79p for the first year). So you could register for example bobsboard.co.uk , then move the other one over later so they both point to the same site.

Mods - As goku said, definitely needed.

So my suggestion for the easiest/ cheapest (£62 per year) option would be to :
- Buy some cheap reliable web hosting and a new domain name.
- Install phpBB as a new forum and run the 2 forums in tandem for a few weeks to give people time to register on the new one and start using it.
- Freeze this one and get a database extract, and see if we can get someone to try and migrate it as an archived forum /sub-domain on the new site.


Just my thoughts, and apologies for the lengthy post

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

 Cfc4me, on 31 January 2024 - 08:50 AM, said:

Morning all, I've been a software/web developer for over 30 years so should probably add some of my thoughts/suggestions to this...

Current system - As someone mentioned above, at first glance it does appear to be a closed book, in that you don't seem to be able to migrate the whole thing to a different web hosting company. At the figures suggested above it also seems expensive. As a comparison, unlimited web hosting charge £50 for the year for a package with 99.9% up-time and unlimited data storage. Cheaper packages are available elsewhere but limit the amount of data you can store, which could become a problem very quickly with a site this size. Key is to find someone that doesn't limit the data, and provides regular back-ups.

Data migration - Providing you have access to the database (probably via phpmyadmin) then its not impossible to migrate to a different platform. Unless there is a tool that will migrate the data to a different platform for you however, it could take days, weeks to manually move all this over. This would mean locking the current system down while the migration takes place, otherwise your forever playing catch-up with new posts, threads, users etc. Obviously not ideal. Someone else suggested outsourcing the data migration, which is a good idea but likely to come at significant cost.

New forum - Personally, I'd take a look at phpBB. It's free open-source forum software, with good community based support. If you google football forums using phpBB, you'll see quite a few, including Man City, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and (dare I say) stagsnet, to name a few. It's also most likely that some web hosting companies offer this installation as part of their package.

Domain name - you could ask the current owner to have this transferred to you, then all the dns entries will need changing to point to the new system. This should be the VERY LAST THING to be done however, else everything will stop working. Alternatively, someone like 123reg will sell you a new domain name for around £12 a year (currently 79p for the first year). So you could register for example bobsboard.co.uk , then move the other one over later so they both point to the same site.

Mods - As goku said, definitely needed.

So my suggestion for the easiest/ cheapest (£62 per year) option would be to :
- Buy some cheap reliable web hosting and a new domain name.
- Install phpBB as a new forum and run the 2 forums in tandem for a few weeks to give people time to register on the new one and start using it.
- Freeze this one and get a database extract, and see if we can get someone to try and migrate it as an archived forum /sub-domain on the new site.


Just my thoughts, and apologies for the lengthy post

No need to apologise.

A very informed and informative post.

Suggestion: could a group of interested contributors meet up and sort this? Sixty quid a year is nowt - we could raise that in minutes (I'll chuck a tenner in for a start) - so it's merely down to folk taking the time to set this up and moderate.

Over to those prepared to step forward...

[oldgoat]

I know less than nothing about Web stuff but am happy to contribute if needed and help in any way I can

[s42blue]

 The Earl of Chesterfield, on 31 January 2024 - 09:03 AM, said:

No need to apologise.

A very informed and informative post.

Suggestion: could a group of interested contributors meet up and sort this? Sixty quid a year is nowt - we could raise that in minutes (I'll chuck a tenner in for a start) - so it's merely down to folk taking the time to set this up and moderate.

Over to those prepared to step forward...

His was a great post indeed.

I’d happily contribute (might even sponsor next year if I’m S/E!) and would consider being a mod if there’s a few.

Just have no idea about the tech.