Guybrush

TH, you realize noone's ever suggested paywalling musicbanter? Just hope that's clear. Noone should have to pay anything.

If I could choose, I might set up a backup forum and then try to pressure advameg into upgrading the vbulletin version. As it is, I definitely feel like moderators especially are taken advantage of. They help keep advameg's site clean, but receive basically nothing in return. An upgrade to the forum software is a fair demand imo.

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Something Completely Different

SGR

How? The only way I could see any pressure being applied is if the mods all threatened to leave.

The Batlord

To which Advameg would then say "I thought we shut that site down years ago?"

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Trollheart

I didn't suggest it was. What I said was, if a number of us are going to pay for a new forum, is it fair that those people should then be subsidising those who join but have not paid? So then the fairest way would seem to me, in my amateurish way and knowing little about it, for everyone to have to pay something towards the site upkeep, either through a membership or donation, or something. I would personally not be prepared to pay to set up a site just so those who didn't contribute could just walk in and say "thanks dude" and enjoy what I had helped pay for. I hope that's clear. If that were to be the model, then I would definitely not be prepared to put up any money. I'm not paying for other people, as it were.

Music what?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Guybrush

To be honest, if it was me hosting it (which it isn't), I'd be happy to front the money, but I might also be happy for donations so I might set that up. But to me, receiving donations means you might also receive more than you need and it introduces a new layer of accountability. Then I think it makes sense to have some kind of yearly expense reports and community sanctioned plans for what to do with surplus monays.

So to me, getting the money is less of a deal than handling it right. People like yourself put a lot of time and effort into forums. They need to be managed properly, responsibly and with care and respect for the users. To me that also includes transparency when it comes to donations.

Yes, either that or a strike. This is why you set up the backup first so that you can say: meet our terms or we leave. Ban any of us and we leave.

You know, unionize a bit.

Edit:

I think the best way to do it is have donations optional, but perhaps introduce incentives like maybe things that mark you as a donor. It could be user names in bold, maybe a gold star or some privilege like bigger avatars or an email forward or whatever.

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Something Completely Different

adidasss

That seems like a preposterously low amount. I donate twice as much to the Guardian because I like their journalism.

Anyways, I like this idea of blackmail, since it appears they don't pay attention to any normal requests (I sent an email or two).

Failing that, I'm warming up to the idea of moving. I'd suggest to keep the same structure of the forum like what TH made but with new features.

Then we just need a bit of help from the tech savvy people of trying to get it up the google rankings to keep it alive and with new people coming in.

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“Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle.

Last.fm

Marie Monday

Nah Charles is right, blackmail or protest will just remind advameg that they should have shut this place down a long time ago. I'm fine with having a backup option (although paying for an online forum seems a bit preposterous) but i think losing the members who check in occasionally is a serious problem with moving. As far as I'm concerned we just stay here until it dies and then we can move to another option if we want. We could even organise that from the discord when the time has come.

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Trollheart

Considering all the trouble I went to setting up the alternative forum, it might seem odd that I'm in the camp of remaining (MBExit: Remain or Leave? ) but I feel that a) the amount of people genuinely interested in changing now is low (probably a one-hand thing, no Batty I do NOT mean that!) b) while familiarity breeds contempt it's also true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, which just proves that most of the time I haven't got a damn clue what I'm talking about and c) I agree that any sort of militant stance is just going to get us shut down as the scientists realise to their chagrin that they left one of their forgotten, abandoned experiments running and now the little ants are dashing around as if they're trying, in their primitive way, to communicate somehow. Of course the scientists are going to try to interpret what the insects are saying, listen to their grievances and give them what they want.

Where's that Raid?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

rubber soul

I'm going to take a wild guess and surmise that Advameg isn't losing any money off MB. Otherwise, we'd be gone a long time ago. In the meantime, I don't think we need to have an exodus. Trollheart has already set up a backup if this site ever does go down. So, I guess for now, we just go into wait and see mode.

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ribbons

^ Agree about not making an exodus from here, for the reasons already stated by Marie, TH and rubber soul. It was my impression that TH created thecraic as an alternate place to go if this place goes down (although as mentioned I would be willing to donate if needed in the future and believe that donations should be voluntary).