Pieszyce wrote on Mar 19^th, 2023 at 2:18pm:

Thank you for your update. I always appreciate feedback from other YaBB users. It's very helpful.

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My websites are separate from YaBB. For the websites I have wordpress and discussions are not possible there, that is closed, is also different news on it than I post on the forum. So that's just the problem. I use everything separated to avoid this, the bolded in the quote, more work but safer.

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That new Index https://forum.polenforum.nl/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl has been around since December 2022. That's the modified index from the emptied forum, after I made the backup and had another backup made by the host (his last one), which he sent me as a rar.

I can see it, I'm now going to spend a few weeks solidly translating and working on the Html library, but the original backups will last forever, after all, you never know, won't be the first time a developer group quit and revert to something from the past to improve it.

Good luck and so long

From my perspective, it seems that you're headed in the right direction when it comes to your dilemma with YaBB.

The information that I have in the YaBB forum that I operate is hardly important since it's just an entertainment portal that's specific to one production, i.e., it's simply being used as reference points. The sudden loss of that forum wouldn't shutter the production even though it would be an unwanted, and major inconvenience.

In your case, all of that translated news about Poland, including all countries in Central and Eastern Europe seems to be very important information. I'm glad that you have backups of it all; at least 80% of it.

Regarding the backup you have of YaBB on your PC, I hope it's not just the actual YaBB backup. In other words, I hope it's a backup of your actual files. My preference is to use WinSCP for my backups. Flat files have the advantage of being searchable, which can be very helpful.

By the way, like you, even though I'm on my cell phone a lot, I'm a desktop guy. That's my preference. I think a lot of people are that way even though the stats I've seen over the years show that websites are mostly accessed by smart phones. Of course, as you pointed out, discussions are few these days because the keys are too small for long posts.

Luckily, though, pinching & resizing a smart phone's screen makes reading a YaBB forum pretty easy to do. It's not mobile ready like phpBB or SMF are, but it's not that big of a deal for me.

Pieszyce wrote on Mar 19^th, 2023 at 8:53am:

Ironically, your example of a city library burning down is exactly what happened to the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles in 1986. I remember it well. That fire damaged more than one million books. The library was closed for seven years. Particularly for the employees, it was a devastating loss. A lof them suffered anxiety, and depression because they were no longer serving the public.

There's an African proverb that says, "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."

I realize this won't be much of a consolation to you, but a lot of webmasters administered their entire websites through their YaBB forums. When that software failed, or when it became obsolete, and inoperable, their websites were effectively shuttered.

The solution? Create a new index page, explain what happened, and tell your website's visitors to stay tuned.

For me personally, a setback like losing a YaBB forum will inspire me to change operations for the better. I won't like it, and I'll surely complain like you're rightfully doing, but my intention will be to continue to see the glass as half full.

You seem to be the kind of person who figures things out. After all, you've already come up with solutions to your dilemma with YaBB.

Take care.

Welcome to the club, I have the same half-full glass. 

The problem is, you don't understand what MY problem is. My forum contains translated news about Poland and actually about all countries in Central and Eastern Europe, I translate articles 13 hours a day about what happens there, from Polish to Dutch. Discussions are few these days, now that everyone has a smarttphone because the keys are too small for long posts so people prefer not to write too much. I am a desktop guy and will never change that.

Since YaBB forums are now at risk of failing, it is untenable and too much of a risk for me to continue with that software, because I could suddenly lose EVERYTHING. Also what was on the forum as history. 18 years of information is now 80% stored on the PC via a backup the rest is on a forum with other software. From that 80% we are going to grind html pages and place them in a kind of library, unimportant news is deleted. If YaBB had NOT stopped, I would not have had to do this now, as this is extra and very much work.

Converters are not there, otherwise I would have used them. If one wants help, some ask for a fortune. 

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This is very easily said, you should say that to a city library one day when it is totally burned down.
Oh, I certainly know what change can mean. After 20 years of municipal politics as a city councilman and alderman, I have experienced enough change.
 
However, a forum with the work I do there is totally different. I just can't access and edit a huge amount of posts down through the forum, as said over 18 years of translation work and historiography on Poland gone. It exists only in a backup. THAT Mr. Myers is MY reason for complaining. Your forums I do not know, my forum has a team of people working on it and every day, two have already left because their work is no longer visible. NOW my host no longer wants Perl on his server it is all over and out. Oh yes, sure, I can get another host. But with the uncertainty of whether YaBB will remain stable for the first 10 years, that's a change risk. Not EVERY CHANGE IS AN IMPROVEMENT.

I'll leave it at this.

I wish you continued enjoyment 

Pieszyce wrote on Mar 14^th, 2023 at 12:01pm:

I understand. I felt sad about it all, too.

The thing is, I'm one of those the glass is half full kind of people, which is why I choose to stick with YaBB even when I also had some issues with it (including issues with videos, which I worked out on my own).

After all, from my generally positive point of view, YaBB was always superior in regard to the way that I used it; better than any of the other forums out there for me personally. It didn't need to literally be the best; just the best for me. Even if the YaBB forum I still operate stopped working today, and I'm unable to fix it, it had an amazing 21+ year run.

If or when it does stop working, I'll adapt just as I have with everything else that's become obsolete over the years. Change isn't always easy to accept even when that change is good. But change is inevitable.