what's the contingency plan then

[einride]

chapter 1:

"As internet forums die off, finding community can be harder than ever"

discuss.

---

chapter 2:

at some point, probably like in the next five years and leaning sooner rather than later, running ultimatemetal will not be financially viable anymore and it will close down. which then leaves us old-timers in a position where every trace of the community we've had around here for EIGHTEEN YEARS is probably going to get straight-up deleted. this is a place with a lot of history that has changed all of our lives. a little bit. at least.

so i think before it is too late we should ask and think about possible answers to a couple of questions:

is this sad? is there a solution? should we move? should we ask for a database dump to preserve all this stuff somehow? does anyone care?


and no,
a facebook group
is not a replacement

 

[J.]

Does jayk still pay for this forum? Or did i miss something ten years ago?

 

[einride]

i don't think anyone pays for it anymore. it is just kind of hanging on in the darkest corner of the sql server like some obscure leech, grandfathered in as a random unowned discussion forum because at the time they were going to close it down we cried a lot and screamed and made a big fuss

 

[NAD]

Anytime I take a sabbatical from RC I am always surprised to see that it still exists upon my return. Because yeah I've expected it to just get deleted without warning some day, because that shit just happens to websites in this accursed modern age. I went to the Darkthrone website a few days ago. It is not the Darkthrone website, probably hasn't been for years.

I love y'all but I will not rejoin Facebutt ever. Big fat email chain or international grouptext-a-thon I would do. I mean once Jerry sent me a dick pic all privacy kinda went out the window really.

I highly doubt JayK has paid for this corner for a decade, but I know he still consults The Official Royal Carnage Dictionary sometimes, haha.

 

[MFJ]

Yeah... considering that the most recent post on the homepage is about Judas Priest's "Firepower", I'd say that the days are numbered.

 

[~Neurotica]

Is there a way to keep it alive as some kind of 'archive' where you can't post anymore? If there's a need to pay for a domain name/hosting bla bla - I'm sure there's enough of us to participate, it's true - too many sweet memories might get lost, not like I won't do without them, but I'd like to keep them.
As an alternative move on step - could be an instant messenger group chat, it's a whole new different dynamic but if there's no other way - I'd take that rather than just vanishing into the sunrise.

 

[einride]

Is there a way to keep it alive as some kind of 'archive' where you can't post anymore? If there's a need to pay for a domain name/hosting bla bla - I'm sure there's enough of us to participate, it's true - too many sweet memories might get lost, not like I won't do without them, but I'd like to keep them.

yeah as a matter of principle i like keeping things like this around. it's often fun to read old threads. i like seeing the evolution of myself from surly misanthropic edgy teenager to the very cool, funny and reasonable fun-loving guy i am today.

although remember when i ran a script to mass-delete all my posts under my old account name erik? that was fun. but i kind of regret it a little bit now because they are gone forever and now it would have been fun/cringeworthy to read all those old posts

anyway: i don't have the time necessarily, but i do have the technical know-how to turn a database dump of the forum into an archive or copy the data to another forum installation

even if ultimatemetal lives forever it can't hurt to have a backup copy and i think the data rightfully belongs collectively to all the people who have posted here throughout the years, it doesn't seem fair for it to get arbitrarily deleted

As an alternative move on step - could be an instant messenger group chat, it's a whole new different dynamic but if there's no other way - I'd take that rather than just vanishing into the sunrise.

yeah but here's where volume #29382 of "fuck off nowadays internet" comes into play:

everything now is a corporate silo where data comes in, but never leaves. and nothing is compatible with anything else. so while today i would like it if we had a discord server or something like that, what happens to the data and to the people when discord eventually folds? nothing seems like a safe bet except hosting a forum like this on a server that you own or at least pay for.

i mean fucking hell it's so shit how nowadays you have to have facebook messenger and instagram and skype and whatsapp and zoom and discord and element and slack and snapchat and telegram and who knows who's on what and aaaaa

 

[SonOfNun]

Summation of thread:

 

[einride]

Summation of thread:
View attachment 26689

ugh

fixed, ty

 

[SonOfNun]

I don't know what the solution is, but it would be great if this place could be archived and continued beyond UM if need be.

I wish that I had come back sooner (I peeked in a few times over the years out of curiosity), but I suppose there were other things I needed to work out in my life. This place does hold a lot of nostalgia for me. I literally spent a couple of hours the other morning reflecting on this place and some of my teenage metal experiences associated with it.

I've already run across a few old posts of mine that jogged old memories or even helped me re-learn things about myself and my experiences that I'd totally forgotten.

I've also been wondering a lot lately about some of the people who used to post here and where they are now. I'm glad this place has been available for people to come back to intermittently over the years.

Although I never got quite as close to y'all as some of the others did, I still feel like I know some of you and probably spent more time talking to y'all than many people I've known in real life and been around regularly.

I'd like to still at least be able to send e-mails or communicate in some other way if that time comes.

 

[~Neurotica]

yeah as a matter of principle i like keeping things like this around. it's often fun to read old threads. i like seeing the evolution of myself from surly misanthropic edgy teenager to the very cool, funny and reasonable fun-loving guy i am today.

although remember when i ran a script to mass-delete all my posts under my old account name erik? that was fun. but i kind of regret it a little bit now because they are gone forever and now it would have been fun/cringeworthy to read all those old posts

anyway: i don't have the time necessarily, but i do have the technical know-how to turn a database dump of the forum into an archive or copy the data to another forum installation

even if ultimatemetal lives forever it can't hurt to have a backup copy and i think the data rightfully belongs collectively to all the people who have posted here throughout the years, it doesn't seem fair for it to get arbitrarily deleted

That moment you snapped and deleted half of your posts was also a part of this evolution you mentioned above, and somehow another 'drama' that made the forum alive, which is partly why we are attached to this place so much.

everything now is a corporate silo where data comes in, but never leaves. and nothing is compatible with anything else. so while today i would like it if we had a discord server or something like that, what happens to the data and to the people when discord eventually folds? nothing seems like a safe bet except hosting a forum like this on a server that you own or at least pay for.

I'm pretty sure if someone wants your data specifically - forum isn't any safer than a messenger, plus your posts are open to random people, posts are visible in basic google search.

I'm up for Discord too, if anything, I use it for gaming. But then to worry if one day it's gone... Idk, what if Internet is gone one day.

Two things about WhatsApp and Telegram:
1. The pace of group conversations there is different than forum, you don't deliver your posts like philosophical pieces that define you from each flattering side possible anymore like here, you basically just shoot replies and they are rarely anything special... So I doubt you'd want to re-read that. I have one group like this with my metal childhood friends and when chatting - I'm having fun on the moment and I love the feeling that I can reach out to them within a second but I would never think of re-reading all that mess and if one day it's lost I'll be ok (maybe a bit sad for not being able to re-read some long ass messages of mine where I thought I shined like there's no tomorrow).

2. You can use encryption (idk if it's useful but you can) and there is an option to archive chat conversations into text documents and save them, including visual medias that have been posted.

 

[~Neurotica]

I'd like to still at least be able to send e-mails or communicate in some other way if that time comes.

I prefer ICQ

 

[NAD]

The pace of group conversations there is different than forum, you don't deliver your posts like philosophical pieces that define you from each flattering side possible anymore like here, you basically just shoot replies and they are rarely anything special... So I doubt you'd want to re-read that.

Yeah that's the beauty of forums. It might be less conversational at times, but has such better depth. I still go back to ancient (by internet standards) posts here and learn a lot. Music research or just dialogue. And then I run across my old posts of being a drunken buffoon, but that too is kinda fun in an embarrassing high school memory type of way. Note: I was 25+ during peak alcoholic days. Note 2: I posted plenty of stupid shit completely sober as well.

I thought that Reddit was like an old school forum, but you can't bump old threads there? Huh. I always thought that was the point of a forum, it becomes a living archive that you can always scour later, and possible ignite old ideas/discussion years later. I never signed up because lack of avatars is just bizarre to me, now I know I made the right choice.

Instagram is fun, but disposable by design. That's the only modern social thing I have. But it is absolutely junk food. I quit smoking years ago but Instagram provides a good break from reality a few times a day when I need a pause.

 

[NAD]

I kind of want to PM Deron with a link to this thread and ask him if we can chip in to pay for an archive of all this madness, but on the other hand he might go "holy shit you clowns are still here? [del *.*]" and that'd be the end of that.

 

[Krilons Resa]

I say we somehow create our own little forum from an archive on some other server. I nominate Erik to do all the work. Since he’s so fun-loving and laid back these days, he’s bound to oblige.

any idea how much the yearly cost for something like that is? I’m sure it depends on the server. I have no idea about this stuff.

 

[Krilons Resa]

RC- Living in the fucking past.

 

[Krilons Resa]

I gotta keep pestering them other assholes to get their asses back here.

 

[SonOfNun]

Apparently we're already front page news

 

[Tide In Mind Out]

Buy lots of Shining Sol candles (Deron co-owns the company).

 

[Ellestin]

I'm a complete IT noob but I know that a friend of mine keeps maintaining a phpBB board of equivalent size for like €4 a month, but that could be totally irrelevant to the here purposes, especially migrating the whole database. I'd chip in if something like that were to be organized ofc, though I fear that once we're uprooted from UM things will fall apart fast. Then again I legit thought that the new UM version a few years back with its horrible skins and emotes would be the end of it, and yet. RC is a little critter of its own, dunno if we even qualify as a community in the proper sense, we're just a 1000x smarter GMD right?