nah the software is crap.

If you look at this forum from the homepage it looks really arcadey, a Vbulletin forum would smarten it up imo.

Vibe wrote:

Legend wrote:Vbulletin costs alot i think around $00... SMF or Phpbb 3.0 is better and free and more customized

Seems expensive

opps meant $200 for forum alone. around 300 for forum+mobile

Might be a good long term investment.

i can afford it, but seriously it's not worth it

Every forum member contributing with 50p may be enough.

nah lol, if we do spend money, we admins will do it.

Do you know if this forum can actually be transferred to vbulletin? I saw somewhere that forumotion don't give the database out or something.

we can't. Therefore impossible move

Yeh true. However this forum only started a year ago. So we wouldn't really lose much imo. Also it would better for the long term.

Moving to a new platform would cost money, time, and cause disruptions as the forum was moved. It would result in lower initial visits and we would not get the added boost of forumotion directing others to our forums from other (related) forums within their own groups.

We Admins have discussed the possibility of a move several times, and it's always come back to the same thing: we don't want to make this a business, we want to keep it as a community and a project of love/fun. Moving to our own domain and a forum platform (like vbull) would necessitate the raising and maintaining of funds, which would in turn necessitate the selling of ad-space, effectively making this a business and meaning we would be obligated to cater to outside influences as well as the community.

In order to even consider a move from our current situation to one of higher risk and actual monetary cost there are a few things that would first need to be established:

1. A solid base of users and contributors that would follow the site and give the community a base to build upon. -- This we obviously have.
   
   
2. A source of consistent and reliable income to sustain server costs, maintenance, etc. -- This is the first major sticking point. The site would need to be self-sustaining, preferably without donations from users as that could compromise the integrity of the set-up.
   
   
3. Tying into the previous point, we'd need a draw to pull in new users as we'll lose the additional visitors we get from forumotion's 'sharing' program. Something like a news section or a blog area within the forums. This would require writers with objectivity, maturity, and well-developed language skills. -- The forum is going backward, in this regard. The glorification of memes and obsession with emoticons continues to drive posting style away from that of a professional and formal level. This is perfectly fine in the current set-up, as this is a very informal and relaxed discussion forum.
   
   
4. Finally for such a move the staff would require a great deal of user cooperation and perhaps an expansion of the staff itself, as there would be many new responsibilities to manage. Most will remember Morpheus's lack on involvement once he was moved into a position in charge of the entire forum as well as editing articles. The Admins would be moved into similar positions and would likely have their time (already stretched as it is for some of us) even more thinly spread. As it stands, and I speak only for myself in this instance, I remain far from convinced that people would be willing to extend us the patience and time needed for such an undertaking.

Please understand, the possibility of a move to a more formal set-up has been discussed on an almost monthly basis amongst the Admins, and a number of options have been seriously considered and researched. However, we have repeatedly come to the conclusion that the most viable and stable means of continuing the forum's existence and growth in the short to mid-term future is by staying with forumotion. We will continue to consider the possibility of moving to an independent set-up as new variables and options come into view, and we welcome input and helpful advice/suggestions for all of the forum users. However, we are NOT currently considering the option of accepting a domain or significant donation from any one user or group, as it could lead to awkward situations over running the forum. We started GoalLegacy in order to offer the opportunity for goal's forums to continue and evolve. We have devoted hundreds of hours to maintaining and improving GoalLegacy over the past year with that same goal in mind. We will continue to do so for as long as we possibly can, and when we feel that GoalLegacy's interests are best served by moving away from forumotion we will take the action that is in the forum's best interest. As things stand though, forumotion has, bar a few small issues that were quickly dealt with, served us very well.

Seems like this forum needs a rich investor......

I'll fly out to Zealous' place tomorrow in my helicopter( stopping in New York first for some shopping) and ask him if he wants to do it. I can't afford it atm

It would still be a community, except on vbulletin.

In terms of more users, well currently I don't think this forum is exactly flooding with new users. Having the website on vbulletin and on it's own domain would encourage new users I think. The current website is very informal and arcadey.

Also I think Vbulletin is a one time fee, I don't think you have to pay monthly/yearly etc. You also get a free domain I think.

Anyway I don't think there's much to worry about. It's basically just moving over to a new forum. It's not as if this is currently a major business or anything. It's just a free forumotion forum, which can move over to a paid version of another forum. Simple imo.

It's NOT that simple though, as I explained. There are a great number of factors at play.

Yeh these are the current factors in the post:

1. A solid base of users and contributors that would follow the site and give the community a base to build upon. -- This we obviously have.
   
   
2. A source of consistent and reliable income to sustain server costs, maintenance, etc. -- This is the first major sticking point. The site would need to be self-sustaining, preferably without donations from users as that could compromise the integrity of the set-up.
   
   
3. Tying into the previous point, we'd need a draw to pull in new users as we'll lose the additional visitors we get from forumotion's 'sharing' program. Something like a news section or a blog area within the forums. This would require writers with objectivity, maturity, and well-developed language skills. -- The forum is going backward, in this regard. The glorification of memes and obsession with emoticons continues to drive posting style away from that of a professional and formal level. This is perfectly fine in the current set-up, as this is a very informal and relaxed discussion forum.
   
   
4. Finally for such a move the staff would require a great deal of user cooperation and perhaps an expansion of the staff itself, as there would be many new responsibilities to manage. Most will remember Morpheus's lack on involvement once he was moved into a position in charge of the entire forum as well as editing articles. The Admins would be moved into similar positions and would likely have their time (already stretched as it is for some of us) even more thinly spread. As it stands, and I speak only for myself in this instance, I remain far from convinced that people would be willing to extend us the patience and time needed for such an undertaking.

1. Like you said we already have users so there's not a problem there.

2. In terms of servers costs etc, I think there's only a one time fee for vbulletin. I don't think there would be extra costs or anything.

3. Currently we aren't exactly flooding with new users imo. Having this website on vbulletin and with it's own domain would attract new users. Vbulletin is simply more professional.

4. What new responsibilities would there be? I can't think of any except the ones the admins do right now. It's still a forum.

2. The vBul forum base itself is a one time payment, but the domain and server costs are annual/monthly and are not offered in package deals with the actual forum base, unless you make a very large investment up front. Further, a "New License" for a Vbull forum is $195. That's a very large amount. Then there's the cost of upgrades as they come out and paying people to maintain the forum's base program.

3. We've gone from 200 or so users to nearly 1800 in a little over a year. That's a huge growth. It's also worth looking at just how well we're doing in terms of forumotion forums.

4. There would be the responsibility of maintaining the payments for the server and domain name, as well as checks on the forum base itself and dealing with issues that arise in that programming (currently handled by forumotion staff). Then there are the more business-oriented issues of getting and filling ad-space, as well as maintaining the money flow on that end and facilitating potential changes. Finally there would be the possibility of editing/ overseeing the blog/news section. Editing can take a good deal of time, and organising the articles/blogs as well. That's not even considering the amount of time and effort that would be needed to do that actual move from forumotion to a new domain.



A move is neither necessarily or realistically feasible at the moment. We Admins have given the issue a great deal of thought on many occasions.

2. Apparently updates are free, unless it's updating the mobile version. https://www.vbulletin.com/order/index.php

Domain and server costs aren't that expensive I think. There's some web hosts that give a free domain.

3. Haven't really looked at this, however hopefully it would be just as good on vbulletin.

4. For now I think getting a domain for forumotion would probably be the best thing. However in future if the forum wants to be more professional and formal etc then vbulletin would be better imo.

mtfootball wrote:2. Apparently updates are free, unless it's updating the mobile version. https://www.vbulletin.com/order/index.php

Domain and server costs aren't that expensive I think. There's some web hosts that give a free domain.

3. Haven't really looked at this, however hopefully it would be just as good on vbulletin.

4. For now I think getting a domain for forumotion would probably be the best thing. However in future if the forum wants to be more professional and formal etc then vbulletin would be better imo.

Upgrades to vBul 4.0 are $175. The New License (what we would have to purchase) is $195.

Posting in general needs to become more professional before we need to worry about the forum platform being too unprofessional.

We need oil money.

Arab Money.

ZEALOUS TO THE RESCUE !!!!

Is there a fee for removing the forumotion links at the bottom of the forum?

And you should remember that for a commercial forum, we wouldn't be allowed to just post pictures and texts of which we don't have the rights. It is actually illegal even now, but mostly such stuff is overlooked as long as there is no profit made.

I say we start selling off our memes and one liners to make up for it

S32TABLANCA wrote:I say we start selling off our memes and one liners to make up for it

Lex wrote:

S32TABLANCA wrote:I say we start selling off our memes and one liners to make up for it