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Thread: The Death of Forums

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    Retired Member Hungary
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    The Death of Forums

    I just found out that Spiritual Forums will be closing down by the end of October, with all data, posts, etc... going back 20 years, permanently lost. It seems that TOT's sister forum, Eye-Rise, has already suffered a similar fate.

    Looks like the forum format has had its day and more and more forums are closing down for good or suffering from lack of participation. So, what does the future hold? Will anything (if at all) replace the sort of online discussions we are having here? How long can the likes of TOT and PA hold out against the Dying of the Light?

    Interested to hear your opinions on the matter.

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    Senior Member Aianawa's Avatar
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    Dying of the light lol less seekers lol truths more out there nowadays and alone in there/here/within so little need for clustering n finding others of ilk.

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    I'm sorry to hear about Spiritual Forums, Chris. That's too bad. I think a lot of folks are on Facebook. I'm not.

    Malc is an amazing guy, our founder. He has kept this forum going in the face of many obstacles, with the invaluable and irreplaceable help of Aragorn, without whom we wouldn't be here talking about this now. This place is a survivor.

    PA seems to have quite a bit of staying power as well, of its own kind.

    I have no desire to join Facebook but it seems that's where people go these days to form discussion groups. My husband made a page for himself this year and joined a couple groups. He left one of them after only a few days. He had made a very simple post and someone else didn't like it. The moderator just deleted his post without any communication. He was rather disgusted with the lack of explanation or exchange.

    If this forum were to be gone, I would likely be gone from the scene, such as it is. Nothing is set in stone, of course.

    I have no plans to go to PA. They want personal information that I'm not willing to give them. There isn't enough of a draw for me to join there. I visit less and less to the point of almost never as it is.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    I'm sorry to hear about Spiritual Forums, Chris. That's too bad. I think a lot of folks are on Facebook. I'm not.

    Malc is an amazing guy, our founder. He has kept this forum going in the face of many obstacles, with the invaluable and irreplaceable help of Aragorn, without whom we wouldn't be here talking about this now. This place is a survivor.

    PA seems to have quite a bit of staying power as well, of its own kind.

    I have no desire to join Facebook but it seems that's where people go these days to form discussion groups. My husband made a page for himself this year and joined a couple groups. He left one of them after only a few days. He had made a very simple post and someone else didn't like it. The moderator just deleted his post without any communication. He was rather disgusted with the lack of explanation or exchange.

    If this forum were to be gone, I would likely be gone from the scene, such as it is. Nothing is set in stone, of course.

    I have no plans to go to PA. They want personal information that I'm not willing to give them. There isn't enough of a draw for me to join there. I visit less and less to the point of almost never as it is.
    Yeah, I feel the same way about facebook, I think it is incredibly dangerous to leave an online signature with your real name and face attached to it. I'm not exactly hiding my identity, but I certainly wouldn't want to join discussion groups where my highly private opinions and thoughts are exposed to people I know from offline life. This is particularly problematic when job-hunting as they always check your online posting history first and they will automatically exclude you from the hiring process if you have shown even slightly controversial views on pretty much any subject.

    Regarding PA, I would have to do some serious grovelling to have any chance of rejoining and it just doesn't seem, like it's worth it.

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    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
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    Thinking

    Been thinking ...

    Yeah times (and usefulness) are getting short for these kinds of outlets ...

    Noting my last post on the original PA forum 10 yrs ago kinda sums up my true sentiments:http://projectavalon.net/forum/showp...76&postcount=4

    Though lately pondering perhaps - I've stayed too long at the (forums) fair.

    Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.

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    I wonder if people are emotionally ageing out or even physically so. As for me, I am truly a never say die guy. The thing that spurred alternative forums in my estimation (to a degree only) is when the world of conservatives was rocked by an awareness that their people were duplicitous. Yet, the hard core inner being of the 'alternative soul' retained a belief in conservative values that are not now nor were ever pretty. And they brought that with them to the Alternative Forum.

    Understandably so, how does one reject themselves? As Jung would have stated, it is immeasurably painful, takes great courage and emotional strength and maturity to reassess in an objective manner. I think I'm talking about essence, DNA even, not an easy thing to overcome. In the face of that kind of challenge many people failed and what we see now as the 'Alternative forum' hit a heyday.

    Social disorganization has grown ever more encompassing by those conservatives that would lie, cheat, steal, even kill, to maintain their sense of the status quo. The thing is (just a thought) that a Double-Bind situation, be it emotional, moral, or psychological can only lead to personality disintegration. The double-bind being the awareness of the failures of one wholly identified with, sometimes parents, sometimes politicians.

    We have arrived at right here, right now.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    I just found out that Spiritual Forums will be closing down by the end of October, with all data, posts, etc... going back 20 years, permanently lost. It seems that TOT's sister forum, Eye-Rise, has already suffered a similar fate.
    I'm afraid you're jumping to the wrong conclusion with regard to Eye-Rise, Chris. The problem with Eye-Rise is a combination of several things, but they're all purely technical in nature.

    The first of those mishaps was that Kathy had forgotten to renew her lease on the eye-rise.com domain, which caused it to expire, and the domain to get "parked". Unfortunately, that domain is managed by a Vietnamese company, and communication between Kathy and myself on the one hand and the Vietnamese domain registrar on the other hand has been all but easy. For one, they initially only communicated with us in Vietnamese. Later on, it was in (very broken) English. But Kathy did eventually manage to renew the domain lease for another ten years.

    The second problem ─ and the one that still stubbornly refuses to get resolved ─ is that the Eye-Rise server is hosted at OVH SAS in France, and because the domain lease had expired, OVH couldn't think of anything better than to purge eye-rise.com from their DNS servers. And when Kathy asked them what to do, they told her ─ in slightly better but still faulty English ─ to "configure the DNS at her domain host", whatever that's supposed to mean. The Vietnamese company has either way set Eye-Rise's DNS to OVH, as it was supposed to be, but OVH isn't cooperating, and that's why Eye-Rise is still unavailable, even though the forum software is probably still up and running somewhere within that black hole.

    It's a friggin' administration nightmare, and people are passing the blame card around, but meanwhile the forum is unreachable.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Facebook has it's uses, but it's not a good place for juicy discussions. I have used forums for more than half of my lifetime.

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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    I'm afraid you're jumping to the wrong conclusion with regard to Eye-Rise, Chris. The problem with Eye-Rise is a combination of several things, but they're all purely technical in nature.

    The first of those mishaps was that Kathy had forgotten to renew her lease on the eye-rise.com domain, which caused it to expire, and the domain to get "parked". Unfortunately, that domain is managed by a Vietnamese company, and communication between Kathy and myself on the one hand and the Vietnamese domain registrar on the other hand has been all but easy. For one, they initially only communicated with us in Vietnamese. Later on, it was in (very broken) English. But Kathy did eventually manage to renew the domain lease for another ten years.

    The second problem ─ and the one that still stubbornly refuses to get resolved ─ is that the Eye-Rise server is hosted at OVH SAS in France, and because the domain lease had expired, OVH couldn't think of anything better than to purge eye-rise.com from their DNS servers. And when Kathy asked them what to do, they told her ─ in slightly better but still faulty English ─ to "configure the DNS at her domain host", whatever that's supposed to mean. The Vietnamese company has either way set Eye-Rise's DNS to OVH, as it was supposed to be, but OVH isn't cooperating, and that's why Eye-Rise is still unavailable, even though the forum software is probably still up and running somewhere within that black hole.

    It's a friggin' administration nightmare, and people are passing the blame card around, but meanwhile the forum is unreachable.
    Ok, thanks for the claro

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    Wow, Gio. Ten years? I didn't realize it had been that long.

    We have been supporting musicians during the pandemic and some have told us that there are venues which require that they be on Facebook in order to get booked for shows.

    They basically have no choice.

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    Senior Monk Gio's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Wow, Gio. Ten years? I didn't realize it had been that long.
    Actually its been 12 years next month for PA ...
    It all started September 9th 2008 ...

    And it sure does seem such a long time ...

    Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.

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    Ah, to be up at the ranch, and maybe beyond.

    We could have real life fora, with real life people.

    Socially distanced, outside, masked when necessary...

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    Let's just blame the Zuck:


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbFEr7qa-8o


    Remember, your phone is a Palantir.
    Last edited by Dreamtimer, 31st July 2020 at 14:05.

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    I have been on many sites in my time,for the majority to close down.i started off in Delphi that was many moons ago now made lots of friends on there.
    but they changed and so the majority of us left.
    I have been on spiritual forums for many years.and now that is closing.

    Namaste

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    Sad to hear. I hope you can have some fruitful sharing here, Blackcrow.

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