This forum badly needs to change - response

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I see the other message appears to be locked. For fear of offending my ancestors, the RBBS gods, I think most people have lost sight that this is a labor of love.

The software costs money ( UBB Threads ?), although not a lot . But the servers (or hosting service), the time spent moderating and supporting the site, and the communications fees most likely outweigh the raw UBB software cost by 100x.
The backend storage is probably massive- easily multiple 10 TB+. Disk speed and cpu required to run your silly searches is pretty high. Running a migration from UBB to anything else could be a daunting task, so unless somebody has an off-the-shelf conversion program (unlikely) the amount of work to migrate to another platform could be very high.

We all love the latest and greatest, but sometimes the latest and greatest is very expensive. I personally would love to have a AMG Mercedes, a new Ducati and a 80 foot motor yacht. But since my GoFundMe only has raised $5 (thanks Mom !) its probably not happening.
 
Originally Posted by rubberchicken

The backend storage is probably massive- easily multiple 10 TB+.


Probably not. Text-only posts don't really take up a lot of space. I personally have nearly a quarter million emails on my server, which are almost certainly, on average, more involved than most BiTOG posts, and the total storage footprint is only about 15gb or so.

Its really easy to mis-comprehend just how big a Terabyte is, but unless a lot of video/multimedia stuff (which is not done by BiTOG) is involved, its an absolutely enormous amount of space.

I don't blame the mods/owners/operators for not wanting to go with flashy new stuff with "like" buttons, image uploads, and all of that. Considerably more security risks, moderation problems, etc., not to mention cost involved there.

The current format without all that social media or "like" nonsense (as seen in many other forums) is actually preferable, as it forces other participants, if they agree or disagree, to actually come up with a coherent argument. Rather than simply liking/disliking everything they see.
 
Originally Posted by pitzel
. . .image uploads, and all of that.


You can upload photos and PFD files to BITOG. No video uploads, so that saves space.
 
Originally Posted by Kira
Is there a problem or is this a notion voiced by the OP?



Not to me … 75% of the time I'm on an iPad and it's easy on them too …
 
Originally Posted by Kira
Is there a problem or is this a notion voiced by the OP?




There was a previous rant thread by another member , about how out of date the sites software is. Many disagreed and the thread was locked after it was discussed over and over.
 
There are some great posts in this and the other thread.

We have considered other more 'modern' forum software many times and will continue to look at options. Our conclusion every time has been that all things considered, there isn't a 'better' option available. There are a few features that we wish we could have, but UBB Threads is a much cleaner and easier to read format than almost every other forum software out there. It's also extremely fast and secure. UBB does have the ability to 'like' on FB and several other social media platforms, but we leave it turned off, as it would clutter our beautifully clean pages. The storage space now is about 20GB and growing pretty quickly since we started hosting images. I won't say exactly how much BITOG costs a month to run, but when you add up a fast dedicated server, server management (I used to do it all, but frankly I don't want to worry about server failures anymore), Cloudflare, programming, etc, it's very expensive to operate. We also refuse to clutter our beautifully uncluttered site with zillions of ads like you'll see on many other forums, I believe it destroys them. BITOG is a 20 year passion for myself and many others here, it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site. I do wish folks that visit here would allow our single ad we display at the top that pays some of the bills.

Wayne
 
Images are a killer when you start talking server space, even if they are low res images at 72 dpi. I work for a company that offers website services to photographers and we charge them $24.95 a month for hosting with unlimited space. This includes images on their website plus password protected galleries they can sell from.

When I first started there we had are own servers but once we started getting over 500ish websites we quickly learned it's cheaper to out source. The cost of the servers them selves plus someone to keep them updated and running smooth is unbelievably time consuming. Then there is uptime and while we strived for 99.9% uptime it was impossible to do. Lets just say life is so much easier for me since we started out sourcing.
 
This reminds me of my flip phone. People are always saying "why don't you have a smart phone?" Why? Because the flip phone is simple and does everything I need! Just like this site! Simple and easy!
 
Originally Posted by wwillson
There are some great posts in this and the other thread.

We have considered other more 'modern' forum software many times and will continue to look at options. Our conclusion every time has been that all things considered, there isn't a 'better' option available. There are a few features that we wish we could have, but UBB Threads is a much cleaner and easier to read format than almost every other forum software out there. It's also extremely fast and secure. UBB does have the ability to 'like' on FB and several other social media platforms, but we leave it turned off, as it would clutter our beautifully clean pages. The storage space now is about 20GB and growing pretty quickly since we started hosting images. I won't say exactly how much BITOG costs a month to run, but when you add up a fast dedicated server, server management (I used to do it all, but frankly I don't want to worry about server failures anymore), Cloudflare, programming, etc, it's very expensive to operate. We also refuse to clutter our beautifully uncluttered site with zillions of ads like you'll see on many other forums, I believe it destroys them. BITOG is a 20 year passion for myself and many others here, it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site. I do wish folks that visit here would allow our single ad we display at the top that pays some of the bills.

Wayne


I love that this forum doesn't have ads all over the place. Bitog is the only forum I can stand to visit every day because I don't have to search to find the content hidden in a sea of ads.
 
Bitog is 1 of the few forums I visit that does not slow my computer down and have unwanted adds, I do understand that this site uses sponsors like Pennzoil, and I appreciate that the adds are on the top of the page.

I have used Pennzoil Platinum and I am now using Pennzoil Ultra Platinum. and that is because I like the oil, nothing to do with sponsorship.
 
Originally Posted by rubberchicken
The backend storage is probably massive- easily multiple 10 TB+.

Heh, you were only off by a little....

Originally Posted by 4WD
Easier to check BITOG on smartphones … ðŸ§

Actually, if you tried other forums that have modern software, you'd find that they have a true "mobile" mode and they're really well done.

Originally Posted by glock19
I love that this forum doesn't have ads all over the place. Bitog is the only forum I can stand to visit every day because I don't have to search to find the content hidden in a sea of ads.

Ads have nothing to do with the forum software that's deployed. This site, with this software, could "have ads all over the place" just like others.
 
In the other thread, Wayne (??) said this:
Quote
When I subscribe to a thread, I always get notifications of new posts. If you aren't getting notifications, please check your email address in your profile, as many times the email is outdated.


And I followed up with this:
Quote
How do you subscribe to a thread here ? I see "Subscriptions" under the username dropdown but within a thread, there's nothing. Do you mean follow ? If you did mean "follow", I don't get notified. I definitely don't want to be emailed about it, just give an indicator here somewhere.


Can anyone help ?
 
Originally Posted by hallstevenson
In the other thread, Wayne (??) said this:
Quote
When I subscribe to a thread, I always get notifications of new posts. If you aren't getting notifications, please check your email address in your profile, as many times the email is outdated.


And I followed up with this:
Quote
How do you subscribe to a thread here ? I see "Subscriptions" under the username dropdown but within a thread, there's nothing. Do you mean follow ? If you did mean "follow", I don't get notified. I definitely don't want to be emailed about it, just give an indicator here somewhere.


Can anyone help ?

If you click on the follow button then it should show that icon to the right of the thread you selected. To stop just click on the icon and select stop following this thread.
 
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