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       #Post#: 1025--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: ivanleo
       Date: July 8, 2023, 5:30 am
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       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > No idea what 1st amendment has to do with anything unless
       we're running a church.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       It means that any requests to shut down / delete the forum due
       to someone finding it objectionable for whatever reason are
       likely to be ignored.
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > Their privacy policy...
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       You mean our privacy policy? It's the privacy policy of the
       offshore company that southpaw has set up to own the site, we
       just haven't got round to amending it yet. We're not going to be
       disclosing anything to anyone unless compelled to by a court
       order, which would require the order to be served on an offshore
       entity, which is likely to be more hassle than it's worth for
       most people who might seek disclosure.
       I'm sure southpaw and I will get round to updating it at some
       point.
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > I would say the relatively little extra work to create a self
       hosted forum...
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       What's to stop a hosting provider equally deciding they don't
       want to host the site? At the end of the day unless we want to
       set up our own proprietary data centre, we're relying on a
       hosting provider of some sort or another.
       #Post#: 1053--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: notmeatloaf
       Date: July 8, 2023, 6:29 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I don't know if you're being deliberately unintelligent.
       1st amendment is freedom of religion. Nothing to do with an
       online forum.
       The privacy policy is currently up to the host CreateaForum.
       They are hosting it for free, they decide who has access to the
       data.
       If you are paying for hosting you make regular backups of the
       database and move the database to a different provider if
       needed. With CreateaForum you pay $50 per backup with no
       guarantee the data is usable seeing as they use their own custom
       software.
  HTML https://support.createaforum.com/8/export-content/
       Pepipoo heads down the same path as the old forums, if the owner
       gets hit by a bus/goes AWOL then the forum becomes a zombie
       forum.
       #Post#: 1054--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: Southpaw82
       Date: July 8, 2023, 6:37 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > I don't know if you're being deliberately unintelligent.
       --- End Quote ---
       For a start, don’t gob off at admins. Hard no.
       --- Quote ---
       > 1st amendment is freedom of religion. Nothing to do with an
       online forum.
       --- End Quote ---
       The First Amendment (as an aside, I’ve seen the original, which
       is bigger that I imagined it would be):
       --- Quote ---
       > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
       religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
       the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
       people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for
       a redress of grievances.
       --- End Quote ---
       Clearly, it covers more than freedom of religion. In terms of
       online forums, it generally means that the government (of
       various stripes in America) won’t grant warrants against a forum
       because of what was said, unless it infringes the First
       Amendment (which is difficult).
       This site is still in its early days. I’m happy to receive
       constructive advice and help. Frankly, I don’t understand much
       of what you’ve said (though I’ve also not taken any time to
       research it) - but if you can articulate a ‘better way’ in
       simple terms I’ll listen.
       #Post#: 1055--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: andy_foster
       Date: July 8, 2023, 6:41 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       If you must "correct" someone and call them thick, in public, I
       would strongly suggest getting your facts straight first.
       The First Amendemnt is *not* confined to religious freedom, it
       covers religion, freedom of speech, free press, assembly, and
       the right to bitch to he government.
       Or to put it another way, I don't know whether you are being
       deliberately unintelligent, or whether it just comes naturally.
       #Post#: 1056--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: ivanleo
       Date: July 8, 2023, 8:06 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > 1st amendment is freedom of religion. Nothing to do with an
       online forum.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       You are very seriously misinformed, you might have found
  HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution<br
       />but you need to scoll past "Freedom of religion" and read
       "Freedom of speech and of the press" and the rest of the page.
       There are some exceptions such as "fighting words" but
       everything that would be acceptable to us would be protected
       speech within the meaning of the US constitution, so there's
       little to no chance of the site being taken offline by the
       hosting provider. It's actually a fascinating area of law if you
       look into it.
       But even if the hosting provider wants to shut down the site,
       the offshore company owns the domain name so we can easily
       re-point the domian somewhere else.
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > The privacy policy is currently up to the host CreateaForum.
       They are hosting it for free, they decide who has access to the
       data.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       Actually as both the domain name and the SSL certificate have
       been paid for, there's a contractual relationship that is just
       as enforceable as the contractual relationship with any other
       hosting provider (you know, consideration, acceptance and all of
       that).
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > Pepipoo heads down the same path as the old forums, if the
       owner gets hit by a bus/goes AWOL then the forum becomes a
       zombie forum.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       Surely that would be true no matter what the hosting solution
       is?
       I'm also not quite sure why everyone is so obsessed with the
       database, the database of old posts isn't really worth much as
       most become outdated within a few weeks to a few months at most.
       The real value in the forum is the people it brings together and
       their collective knowledge.
       #Post#: 1071--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: sparx
       Date: July 9, 2023, 3:24 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: cp8759 link ---
       >
       > I'm also not quite sure why everyone is so obsessed with the
       database, the database of old posts isn't really worth much as
       most become outdated within a few weeks to a few months at most.
       The real value in the forum is the people it brings together and
       their collective knowledge.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       Not only that, but the internet archive has archived a lot of
       it. Granted, it won't be easy to just "browse", but if pertinent
       information is later required to be found again, it's probably
       on there.
       #Post#: 1076--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: notmeatloaf
       Date: July 9, 2023, 5:12 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Southpaw82 link ---
       >
       > This site is still in its early days. I’m happy to receive
       constructive advice and help. Frankly, I don’t understand much
       of what you’ve said (though I’ve also not taken any time to
       research it) - but if you can articulate a ‘better way’ in
       simple terms I’ll listen.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       On a normal forum you have control of the database and so if you
       need to move to a new host, new software or whatever you are
       able to do this.
       With this setup, someone else controls the data which means it
       is practically very difficult if the host decides to stop
       offering the service, close the forum, even start charging high
       fees, because you need to pay them for the data of all the
       users, posts etc and very likely even if you did it's not going
       to be in a useful format you can use to move the forum somewhere
       else.
       Additionally, at the moment CreateaForum are monetising all the
       links which means they are getting revenue which could instead
       go towards paying for the site costs.
       Certainly CreateaForum could be a great company who will host
       the site without issue. But if they turn out not to be or just
       want to close the business, or someone takes it over with the
       aim to charge the existing client base then very likely the
       forum will need to start from scratch again or pay whatever they
       ask.
       Hosting is cheap, and if the forum was hosted by FTLA then there
       would be no need to rely on one company. Multiple people could
       receive daily/weekly backups. You can also control what forum
       software you want to use and upgrade as and when for security or
       aesthetic reasons rather than being reliant on the current host.
       tl;dr Data is valuable, and the current setup means we are
       locked into the current provider who may or may not continue to
       provide access on the same terms in future.
       #Post#: 1077--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: notmeatloaf
       Date: July 9, 2023, 5:18 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: cp8759 link ---
       >
       > Actually as both the domain name and the SSL certificate have
       been paid for, there's a contractual relationship that is just
       as enforceable as the contractual relationship with any other
       hosting provider (you know, consideration, acceptance and all of
       that).
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       The domain name has been purchased from GoDaddy. From their
       website CaF don't sell domain names so presumably it was
       purchased seperately.
       The SSL certificate is a free Let's Encrypt one so if you paid
       for that you've been ripped off.
       #Post#: 1078--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: ivanleo
       Date: July 9, 2023, 5:45 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: notmeatloaf link ---
       >
       > tl;dr Data is valuable, and the current setup means we are
       locked into the current provider who may or may not continue to
       provide access on the same terms in future.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       I still don't know what "valuable" data you're talking about,
       see the comment by sparx above.
       #Post#: 1096--------------------------------------------------
       Re: A new beginning
   DIR By: sparx
       Date: July 10, 2023, 9:56 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote ---
       > Hosting is cheap, and if the forum was hosted by FTLA then
       there would be no need to rely on one company. Multiple people
       could receive daily/weekly backups. You can also control what
       forum software you want to use and upgrade as and when for
       security or aesthetic reasons rather than being reliant on the
       current host
       --- End Quote ---
       Whilst i'm all for self hosting stuff for control of the data,
       YOU are then responsible for the security of that service.
       From managing many SMF/phpBB instances in the past, that is not
       an easy undertaking. Plus if you host on your own VPS, you need
       to ensure the security of that too. The benefit of using a
       service like CreateaForum is that they will manage that, so
       everyone else can get on with providing a useful service to
       everyone else.
       Plus, it appears that if you fancy donating some money, you can
       buy perks for this forum direct from Createaforum (see the link
       in the footer), so in a way, supporting it.
       --- Quote ---
       > The SSL certificate is a free Let's Encrypt one so if you paid
       for that you've been ripped off.
       --- End Quote ---
       If it's been paid for, then they have probably paid for the
       service to apply it to their account. There was always
       historically a cost for having an SSL cert applied to a hosting
       account, in addition to the certificate itself.
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