XWeb - State of the Forums

MarkF

Administrator
Staff member
Moderator
XWeb is now closing in on 19 years online! It's time for another update since the last review linked here: XWeb - the State of the Forum

Hosting
Following a major outage in July 2016, and the severe difficulties encountered recovering from that, it became clear that a change was urgently needed. In November 2016, we moved to different hosting. We now buy usage capacity on a VPS system supplied by Interserver.net The cost is quite reasonable for what we get, and choosing a VPS (Virtual Private Server) adds a degree of flexibility and control over Shared Hosting.

We've also been able to offer on-site photo hosting for forum content which helps avoid problems such as the Photobucket account blocking that is currently wreaking havoc

No service is perfect and there have been minor outages. Most times these are resolved without intervention, and when necessary, the support has been responsive.

Software
We had been operating XWeb2 on an outdated and no longer supported version of VBulletin3 for many years. Several options were evaluated, with ease of migration and content preservation being the primary selection criteria.

Xenforo, written by some of the previous VBulletin dev team, offered the best compromise and is a commercially supported product. After several months of testing and trial runs, I chose the hosting changeover as the least painful time to migrate the forum.

While the look and feel is rather different from past customizations, it has proven highly stable, fairly easy to administer/moderate and offered several valuable add-ons. The wiki has been ported over to new software, and content can be added by any user.

Finances
Here's what it currently costs to operate XWeb on an annual basis.

VPS hosting $330
Xenforo forum software maintenance $40
Domain registrations $50
XWeb 1.0 (N54 archives) $70 (we had been paying this but they haven't billed for usage recently so this has been free)

There was a one-time purchase for the forum software in 2016

As of now we have $80 balance in the account to cover expenses, so further fund-raising will be needed soon. Donation info is listed in the announcement at the top of the forum.

XWeb has always been non-commercial. I continued to receive a number of requests to have the forum participate in various marketing and advertising schemes, but I have held firm to our original charter to remain free of extraneous content and be supported entirely by the generosity of those who use the site.

Moderators
A heartfelt thank you to those who continue to serve as moderators - keeping things in order and adding value for all.

Future
XWeb3 is on sound footing once again. Forum software upgrades may be desirable but not required in the short term. We have new members still joining and posting rates remain stable.

I've been administering XWeb since 2008-ish, and treasurer for some years prior. As such, I'm actively seeking someone interested in taking over. Past forum experience and Linux server knowledge very helpful.

Due to other things going on in my life, my involvement in anything automotive has been sidelined for a number of years, and no I'm longer very active here. My one remaining X1/9 of 32 years, along with the stash of parts are being considered for sale later this year, depending on logistics.

Please feel free to respond to this thread with your thoughts, ideas, questions.

Regards,
-Mark
 
Thank you Mark for the info on the state of the forum and the economic position.

I know I really appreciate that our forum has no advertising and is just about the cars and the people who own them. This is a great place and you have done a great job of making it that way and keeping it that way. Thank you.

I have put some into the kitty to help deal with the state of the bank account and would be happy to contribute more if needed.

I wish computer science had been something I spent more of my education on but alas I lack the skills to assist in managing the forum in that capacity. I truly hope that someone else is able to step up to take over and allow you to move on to your next act.
 
Thank you Mark for the info on the state of the forum and the economic position.

I know I really appreciate that our forum has no advertising and is just about the cars and the people who own them. This is a great place and you have done a great job of making it that way and keeping it that way. Thank you.

I have put some into the kitty to help deal with the state of the bank account and would be happy to contribute more if needed.

I wish computer science had been something I spent more of my education on but alas I lack the skills to assist in managing the forum in that capacity. I truly hope that someone else is able to step up to take over and allow you to move on to your next act.

+1
 
A heartfelt Thank You to all who donated this past week (and in the past). We are fortunate to have some very generous members! There's now enough in the account to cover about 18 months of continued operating expenses.
:)
 
I don't take change easily so when the format changed I got in a snit. Well I'm over it so I sent a donation. This really is a good forum so I hope to see it continue for a long time. Thanks for your time and effort.
 
Donated and if you need help upgrading the software, let me know... I am a computer geek as well as a car junky...
 
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