For what it's worth......

[electra225]

I may have discovered why I got kicked off the other forum. I have been working in any spare time I've had the last three or four months trying to get to the bottom of it. The bottom line is a combination of wonky software, an absent administrator, lack of forum maintenance, Trend Micro, Windows 10, and the Microsoft Edge browser.

As you remember, the forum crashed at least three times. Each time it "came back" it did so with diminished capability. My old computer ran Win 7. I had been losing my moderator functions steadily up to the point the computer crashed, and I purchased a replacement, running Win 10, in March of this year. I have run Trend Micro security software since the early 2000's. It can be a pain to use when installing software. I had to have it "suspended" when I downloaded my music conversion software in 2011. I had to have it suspended again when I installed a program the wife wanted. There is little fear of getting a bug using Trend Micro, but it can react negatively with certain software. Most places ask if you run Trend Micro when you install their software.

Simple Machines is a very attractive forum software, but is riddled with bugs. There is a whole list of patches for various issues when you run SMF. There are nearly constant version updates. In March of this year, SMF went from version 1.0 and its variants to 2.0 and started new variants, now up to 2.0-18. This happened about the same time I put my new computer online. The version of Trend Micro on my old computer was different than the version they installed on the Win 10 computer, so it reacted differently with SMF (Simple Machines Forum). When you run SMF, you need to do regular site maintenance to stay up on all the patches and "MODS" you need to do to keep everything working. After Larry left the forum, this never happened.

Then there is Windows 10 itself. The old version of SMF did not like Windows 10. It won't run at all on a MAC. When I got my new computer with Win 10, advanced Trend Micro, I was about done. Then I discovered Microsoft Edge, found it easier to use than Chrome, so I used that. That was the death knell for me on the forum. All these things working together put me off the forum. I can't log on to this forum on Edge. It gives me an error message something about "this form is not properly oriented". What form? I'm logging in. No problem on Chrome whatsoever. The forum hosting company I'm using asked me to set the forum up on Chrome. And we had to suspend Trend Micro.

The problem I kept having was the "He said, she said" routine. Trend Micro blamed the software. The software blamed Trend Micro. The FOR
UM hosting company I am using (they have been really good for the most part) offers 24-7, 365 "three-way" technical support. LIve chat, email ticket, or phone with an English-speaking individual, positioned in Houston. Their technical support people, for the most part, know zipkus and care less about Internet forums, although their company advertises FORUM hosting and an installer with open-source FORUM software, about two dozen kinds. Internet forums are like eight-track tape. You can still buy and eight-track tape, but good luck getting the player repaired. "Everybody is on Facebook" was my first response. I kept at it, until I found a supervisor that kicked my case up to the "advanced" technical people. These guys take all the grouchy people, the ones ready to hire a lawyer. They are really good at what they do. They came up with the answers I just gave you and got me on the right track. I have a phone number for them so I can avoid the normal technical people. They only deal with websites.

I learned something else. People dislike insurance companies, health care companies, car salesmen, etc. I have to put computer geeks who you pay to help you on that list. They have this haughty attitude that they know it all. I have learned I know as much as they do, and that's woefully little. I am THE dimmest bulb in the lamp when it comes to computers. I still have things on this forum I'd like to change, and settings I'll have to change. That comes with setting up a forum. Only so much you can do behind an administrator's panel. I appreciate all of you working with me while we get this thing set up like we want. This has been quite the adventure. I don't intend to get fancy, because I'd rather join you guys on the forum that administrate. I'm honored that you have joined me.

[Hydrolastic]

Hello Electra225. That was a huge explanation for something that you didn't create. Kind of correlates with my car race team, See we were running british cars from the 60's in a endurance race series with fords, chevy's ,chryslers and a lot of BMW's. Only to eventually get a best of 3rd place in the slowest class. We asked the organizer if we could modify the carbs as they were the item that was keeping us from getting a more powerful engine. He said "you can do anything you want to the engine as it's just an old mini " I then set out to build the best engine transmission combo i could and we showed up to the next race with a DOHC fuel injected engine. That race we won class easily with second place seventy miles behind us! The next race they gave us a 35 lap stating penalty. In our OTHER car! Because he says we are "too good" / "too organized". Yes it has become a point of pride to be one of the few teams to be penalized 35 laps BEFORE the race started. Point is it takes 20 races lots of breakdowns and mistakes to get a successful win. The real problem on the old sites wasn't your moderation... it was you were left a ton of broken parts that were not functioning correctly and frustrated the users. This new forum is exactly what was needed. A new start and a expanded platform. As with any club or group the thing to remember is. It is the enthusiasm and effort from the new people joining that keeps the forum evolving. Thank you so much for stepping up to this level and i hope you enjoy the forum as much as we do. Hydro

[Firedome]

So now that the previous problem has been identified, would you be able to re-join ant VHF.net as well? My fear is if participation there goes down further it will be shuttered, all that legacy info will be lost, and that a new forum could take years to archive that extent of valuable information.

[electra225]

The only way to fix VHF is to uninstall it and start again. There are updates and even forum versions that have changed and maintenance that has not been performed. Also, why would I want to go thru all that again? What you guys see is as good as it gets. When "MODS" are not installed correctly functions can disappear or not work correctly. This has obviously happened. It's not my intention to start this forum just to beat on VHF. It's okay that we discuss what happened in an effort to avoid mistakes that may have been made. Now it's time to move on. Let's concentrate on getting this forum running like we should and re-establishing our community. Thank you for being here and supporting this effort.

From a strictly technical standpoint, how long VHF will remain there at all depends on whether it uses open source software or has a forum host. IF it is un-hosted, it could remain online in some form indefinitely, until someone with administrator permission killed it. If it is hosted, when the fees are due again, and remain unpaid, the forum host may pull the plug. No way to know, really without being the administrator of the site.

Hydro, I own a 2014 Mini Cooper S that has been chipped to 259 horses. It has a better power-to-weight ratio than a Corvette. When I put it in "sport" mode, the only thing it will do is sit and burn the front tires off! The only thing that can get me taking off from a stoplight is a Hellcat or a Harley. 5.0 Mustangs aren't even a challenge anymore. That car has the most delicate paint, but the best build quality and best seats of any car I have ever owned, including my beloved old Buicks. I drove Buick Electras for YEARS, still have one, and the Mini does everything better than the Buicks did, except be an old Buick.

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

As regards the treasure trove over at VHF site,
those who wish could share an organized downloading of
a lot of those files.
Then uploading to similar subject folders
here as folders were on VHF, seems plausible.

Just my 2 cents.
Hi-Fi-Mogul

[electra225]

The information you cite on VHF has been preserved and is on hard drive and on the cloud for backup. I feel bad about what happened to VHF, even though I had nothing to do with it. That was a forum I really enjoyed. It had the most loyal membership I've ever seen. They are still loyal even to a broken forum. One that can't accept new members, can't post pictures. I haven't decided how to present the information that exists. That will come in due time. I decided to offer another choice to VHF. Such loyalty should be rewarded, rather than ignored. I hope you all can become as comfortable with this forum as you were with VHF. It's time to move on.

[Firedome]

Someone using the name of Mokka Matti just posted today for the 1st time as a new member of VHF, although referring to having previously posted there in the past (not sure if he used that name then). Not sure how he was able to join and make a new initial post (post count 1) in it's current broken format. I agree future effort should be focused here, the 2 need not be mutually exclusive as far as VHF remaining an archive of information, also the last place our friend Ed posted before he passed away, I don't want to see that disappear, though perhaps inevitable. Also I don't see why a post announcing this site shouldn't be made there, I mentioned it in the reply to his questions for information.

[TC Chris]

Bill did post a notice, I see.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I looked but did not see a post by anybody in the last couple of days on Vintage. I'm not doubting anybody on this, I can't see most of the stuff posted on there anymore.

[William]

Mathew is Mokki's name and he actually joined December 1, 2015. I looked it up on Vintage when Roger commented on "how did he join". The post he just made on Vintage shows to be his one and only. He may have been a member that just read and never posted.

Bill

[19&41]

Why don't each of you who has information on the other site that you want retained, copy it and post it here so it will be preserved. It ought to be all right as long as each of you does their own.

[William]

Good idea Rex, that way we can all do a part to hang onto Vintage.

Bill

[electra225]

I'd like to have the two threads about my Stereo Theater. One was over 50 pages. That would be a lot of copying and pasting.