At some time in the next week, the forum (and the rest of the website) will be making a move, both to a new server and a new platform.
The server move is necessary for a couple of reasons:
1.) My longtime friend and colleague with whom I have shared the VPS (virtual private server) which hosts this website and forum as well as nearly two dozen other websites, is no longer in a position to continue to maintain and manage the "backroom" as it were. In the past five years, I've taken over much of those maintenance duties, as he has been forced to reduce his participation over that time.
2.) The OS (operating system) version this server currently uses has reached end-of-life and will no longer be supported. This means that to continue forward on this server, the OS must be upgraded, and that necessitates a total wipe of the hard drive, followed by reinstallation and restoration of all the files the websites and forum run on. Unfortunately, this version of this forum software (vBulletin 3.8) will not be supported on that upgraded OS, forcing me to purchase a new version and to essentially migrate it to a new server and upgrade to that new version both at the same time.
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to acquire such an upgrade version a while ago that would facilitate this unanticipated move. I never used it to date, as this version, while technically obsolete, is still seen currently running on thousands of websites, i.e. if it ain't broke...
I've done a test migration of the forum to the new server and after a couple of hiccups, have it running fine there. Since it's a later version of this same software, things like usernames, passwords, and messages all make the move intact. You can preview it (read-only and as it looked 2 weeks ago) at [I changed my mind, see below]. Cosmetic tweaking will have to wait until after the actual move.
Once the move is complete, the website and forum will reside back at the same URLs they always have, and that other domain will go back to just redirecting to here, as it has for many years. Downtime should be minimal, as I've hopefully done everything I can think of to prepare for a smooth transfer.
On another note, my desire for a while now has been to move away from this platform, vBulletin, over to xenForo, whose developers broke off from vBulletin a few years ago, and is the platform I believe is a better choice moving forward. The date of that move is yet to be determined, but I'd like it to be sooner than later.
The server move is necessary for a couple of reasons:
1.) My longtime friend and colleague with whom I have shared the VPS (virtual private server) which hosts this website and forum as well as nearly two dozen other websites, is no longer in a position to continue to maintain and manage the "backroom" as it were. In the past five years, I've taken over much of those maintenance duties, as he has been forced to reduce his participation over that time.
2.) The OS (operating system) version this server currently uses has reached end-of-life and will no longer be supported. This means that to continue forward on this server, the OS must be upgraded, and that necessitates a total wipe of the hard drive, followed by reinstallation and restoration of all the files the websites and forum run on. Unfortunately, this version of this forum software (vBulletin 3.8) will not be supported on that upgraded OS, forcing me to purchase a new version and to essentially migrate it to a new server and upgrade to that new version both at the same time.
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to acquire such an upgrade version a while ago that would facilitate this unanticipated move. I never used it to date, as this version, while technically obsolete, is still seen currently running on thousands of websites, i.e. if it ain't broke...
I've done a test migration of the forum to the new server and after a couple of hiccups, have it running fine there. Since it's a later version of this same software, things like usernames, passwords, and messages all make the move intact. You can preview it (read-only and as it looked 2 weeks ago) at [I changed my mind, see below]. Cosmetic tweaking will have to wait until after the actual move.
Once the move is complete, the website and forum will reside back at the same URLs they always have, and that other domain will go back to just redirecting to here, as it has for many years. Downtime should be minimal, as I've hopefully done everything I can think of to prepare for a smooth transfer.
On another note, my desire for a while now has been to move away from this platform, vBulletin, over to xenForo, whose developers broke off from vBulletin a few years ago, and is the platform I believe is a better choice moving forward. The date of that move is yet to be determined, but I'd like it to be sooner than later.