Problems with the board

[_Gadianton]

All,

Here's my take on the problems we're having with the board. I haven't been part of the board admin historically, I got involved a couple months ago when it seemed like Shades was stuck. Not a lot has happened to make things better because I don't see a clear way forward.

Our biggest issue isn't the technical problems, it's a board ownership problem. Shades is not the board owner. A guy he knows who has several other websites configured on the same VPS (with Dreamhost), back in the day, apparently agreed to let shades host this board there, and I have not been able to ascertain what, if any agreements, there were for continuing it. Shades can always clarify that stuff if needed. The owner and a handful of his friends set up the phpBB software for Shades and then helped now and again when things broke. As of this latest problem in May, none of the original help has materialized to fix things, save for a little help the owner has provided, but the interest level seems very low. I've "speculated" that we may have not been the greatest bunch of guests. I think the owner foots the bill while the site generates zero revenue. But it could also be that the owner has moved on to things outside of running websites as a hobby. I've had a couple messages relayed to the owner through shades offering to pay for the board costs directly, for previous years, perhaps even for everything running on the server if it's not that much; I've also suggested other possible arrangements, and there has been no response.

Why does the board owner matter so much?

1) Remember that website Post-Mormon.org? As I understand it, it was hosted in UK or some Euro zone, some privacy law came into place that could screw the owner if it's ever hacked, and the owner decided not worth it and pressed a button to shut the whole thing down. While I don't see the present owner of this board doing something like that, the owner could. That means, we could send around the collection hat and pay a couple grand to fix everything, and a week later, hypothetically, the board owner could decide "no more" for whatever reason and shut down. It just keeps us in forever uncertain waters. Well, I'm no legal expert on these things so if somebody knows better, feel free to chime in.

2) Because the space is shared with other websites, certain things require a level of access the owner has refused to provide me. At the same time, the owner has not responded to requests to help run needed commands we need to run. Again, even if we paid the best phpBB person on the planet, that person might not even accept the gig without access to server logs and some other things.

Now, the level of access I do have is probably enough to chance a board upgrade, which is what we need to do, but if I hit the wall and need more access, then we're stuck.

The beating heart of the board is the database. We can't do a database backup through the ACP without getting an error. I believe the backup is probably good, but there's uncertainty. Getting certainty would require backing up from the linux backend itself, but the mysql configuration doesn't allow it, and fixing that requires the su access I don't have.

There is not just one problem. From what I see, the board hasn't been maintained properly for over a decade. The technical debt has added up, such that with this latest problem, with the php version upgrade (that was no doubt automatic), it's harder to fix.

Options:

1) We could chance the upgrade. My thought was either I do it, or I pay someone to do it, and then Shades can recover what he can with a go-fund-me. I haven't done that yet because even if it works, we've possibly bought a few years but still have the ownership issues. And again, if it doesn't work, access that I don't have may be required for troubleshooting.

2) A safer possibility is to get a new board owner, and move what we have of the database to a new VPS. Heck, we wouldn't even need to do that right away, we could build a new board that's fully functional, and just link to this board as we need to, and as we go along, try to create a working archive of the present database there. Unfortunately, I have my reasons, but I don't want to be the board owner, so that's why I haven't already footed 12$ and tried getting the database working elsewhere. For whatever reasons, Shades also doesn't want to be the board owner. And so, if somebody wants to own the board, or at least the server space where the board is hosted (I really don't know the legal distinctions) then I'd say contact Shades about that. I would do what I can on the technical side, and I also have a "band" of conspirators behind the scenes with better technical resources than I possess to help out. And I'm not Shades' CIO, and so if someone wants to own the board and use other technical resources that's fair game also.

What's involved with board ownership? Honestly, websites aren't really my area of expertise, but I believe it's a matter of buying server space from a place like Dreamhost or Godaddy and paying a pretty low amount to keep it running. Shades I believe would be willing to do a gofundme once a year to fill the coffers so that we don't have ads and the owner is covering costs. My opinion is that a potential board owner would best contact Shades behind the scenes. It's just better not to have that escalation point available for disgruntled members or for malicious outsiders. Unless that person wants the role, I suppose.

3) Shades has suggested moving to Liz's X-mas board as a possibility. Personally, I think it's a terrible idea. For one, I don't need X-mas 365/ 24-7. Also, I don't know if that is some pre-fab thing that is going to scale well when posts stack up. How fast will the DB be 5 years from now? Finally, that would imply jettisoning this database for good, which I don't think would be acceptable for many of our members.

4)Just stay at this board, don't try to fix it, and let it sail into the dusk until it disappears. An apt metaphor for the transiency of life.

Other suggestions are welcome. I figured it's good to get everything out in the open and give everyone a chance to weigh in on how they feel about the risks before I saddle everyone with those risks, should I decide to do the upgrade.

[_Jersey Girl]

When the posters paid annually for another board we were on Gad, some of them got really horsey with the only moderator/admin we had because they expected him to jump through hoops--because they felt they owned a share in the board. Not saying that would happen here. I'm just saying it. In the end, the folks who had paid annual dues left it to rot--all hell having broke loose just prior to that.

The Christmas board isn't a Christmas board. It's a board exactly like Geeks (forumotion) where you could change the banners and icons any time you wanted. It's frozen at Christmas because that was the last set of banners/icons where we left off last. I'll send a suggestion to Shades in a few moments here and see if it helps anything.

Anyway...thanks for the write up here. At least we know where it seems to stand.

ETA: Never mind about Shades and a suggestion. I'll try to take another crack at Liz myself.

[_Jersey Girl]

ETA: I have no problem contributing to a GFM just so long as there is a sense of direction with solid goals established. In other words, when folks decide it's time to shoot--I'm happy to contribute.

[_Jersey Girl]

Gad sorry for the multiple replies here. As I recall, Shades was able to remove the Christmas decor from the forumotion back up board and make it look near-identical to this one. Take a look at it when you have time.

[_Temp. Admin.]

Thank you for writing that up, Gadianton. Should this be posted to the Terrestrial Forum also?

[_Jersey Girl]

Yeah he put a remark on the "Sad" Terrestrial thread about this thread. He wanted you to sticky it.

[_Gadianton]

we could post it in Terrestrial. Or do a post there that's sticky that links here.

I was kind of taking advantage of the fact that guests are broken to this forum to keep the problems internal, rather than give certain outsiders cause to celebrate over the problems here. ;)

well like i say Jersey Girl, the one advantage of the owner being absent, or at least behind the scenes, is people can't pressure. I think there are so many people on this forum doing pretty well that nobody could hold their 10$ donation over the forum to get their way. That being said, I have received a PM from somebody inquiring about ads. could the new board owner run ads and make a profit? that's certainly a valid alternative route if someone wants to do it.

[_honorentheos]

Kinda joking - could always set up some type of co-op LLC type structure to protect ownership from liability and make contributions to the board part of the ownership that returns dividends to the owners through ads if the appetite for ads exists. It was a huge issue when Shades/Mav/whomever dabbled in it back when. Probably around the time that board stopped being maintained.

Serious comment - salvaging the content if possible seem to me like the highest priority over functionality in the near term. That strikes out the backup board, in my opinion, and limits options but really - do we want to lose 15-ish years of content? I'd prefer not to pull the plug on that.

Thanks for the update, please keep us posted as the needle moves in the direction of taking action and possibly needing support.

[_moksha]

The New Order Mormon site had its owner unilaterally decide to close up shop. All those years of postings were lost. Participants from the board started NOM 2.0. It was a shame nobody was ever notified to simply take over running the board and paying the bills.

Contingency plans are always needed and that obviously means involving at least a handful of participants. Hopefully, they all share Shades policy on free speech.

[_Dr Moore]

There are ways to set up a new board in which the host site is paid by crypto and therefore ownership remains totally anonymous. Downside is it would be a subdomain, ie we'd lose the TLD MDB. Donations could be made anonymously behind the scenes through a single administrator based on trust and mutual interest, no quid pro quo, no tax deductions etc. I think the hard cost of operating a board like this is pretty small, ($100s per year). The potential headache of one donor trying to exert undue influence could be resolved by capping individual donations. That's one possible approach.