Say it ain't so

[greg lousy]

I'd like to thank everyone here while I can. I've been involved in a few forums, mechanical and otherwise and this has always been, for the internet, unusually positive and helpful.
I make my living wrenching now and the help I got here was a part of it. Was never made to feel dumb even years back when, relative to vehicles, I was kinda dumb.

Thanks and best wishes to all.

On a side note, If anyone wants to sell a mk 1 rabbit or pick up with workable rot level that I'd have an 80 percent or better chance at driving to Rhode Island let me know

[greg lousy]

..... or 80 percent after a day of work... still have IPs and a good head and things of that nature .
Cheers

[TylerDurden]

I know it's been pretty slow here, but the spam problem got so outta hand on the GTD board it looked like this board would be the only good alternative to the vortex.

Thanks to Jack and y'all for making this a decent place.

And, maybe there is a chance another host can take over the board, if Jack wants to pass it along.

TD

[TylerDurden]

... That was pretty-much the OLNY solution ever offered here. ...

Here's another solution... learn how to spell-check.

[Fatmobile]

That was probably my last chance to delete a thread made by some asshole, ha.
Everyone knows we've offered much more help than just clear fuel lines,.. but that's the first place to look.

Really bummed to see this forum go.
Lots of time making build threads and so much great help and info on here.
Probably contributes to how slow it's going.
People can just do a search and find what they want, instead of posting.

These cars are getting more rare all the time.
I drove from Iowa to Cali, down to AZ and Texas in my Rabbit a couple years ago and the only other Rabbit I saw was at Libby's in AZ.

They keep finding me though.
Seems like I always have a new Rabbit project to work on.

Gotta go I'll post more later.

[sgnimj96]

Fatmobile, you rocked this forum - but it really went quiet over the last year. It had kinda became an unknown secret jewel of the web, I blame google .
what's up with Jack? phpBB is open-source software and hosting sites aren't much at all compared to most monthly bills, EH ?

[vwtyp133]

Wow, not good news, guys. Have been more of a lurker here than a steady contributor, but was looking forward to getting back into some heavier interactions with my (5) VWs once school gets out, and selfishly anticipating communicating here with some diesel brethren.

Wish I had the digital skills to help facilitate a continuation of this board... I don't. As a 'plan B', is it possible that the info already accumulated could be archived & online-accessible somewhere? I am bummed!

[sgnimj96]

https://web.archive.org/web/20060101000 ... lparts.com
you can try to navigate to specific pages you liked, and save them to the archive while the web site is still alive

[Fatmobile]

Coke has done a great job of keeping this forum running like a well-tuned vw diesel.
I have no IT skills.

Here's an email he sent me:

phpBB is a huge code base that is ever evolving and due to this, it is
imperative that updates be applied timely due to the fact that we can't
risk compromise on the system it runs on. The website's SSL certificate
is up for renewal again in June, and I think this would be a good time
to seriously consider taking the forum down for good.

At this point, I have the forum running on a "beta" release branch of
phpBB direct from their GIthub repo due to the fact that 3.2 was not
compatible with the software run on the machine that hosts it. This
makes it impossible to do incremental upgrades, and I have to rebuild
from the ground up each time. I just don't see enough activity to
justify the expense of time involved in maintaining it. However, I am
looking for input from both of you as to how you feel we should proceed
from here.
It would be great if we could figure out how to keep it running.
With a new sponsor, advertisements or something.

I'll have to figure out how to use the wayback machine to save some of my build posts,
hagar's thread and a few others.

[sgnimj96]

Saving just the Hagar thread would take 181 page saves on wayback
https://www.whoishostingthis.com/compare/phpbb/

[bscutt]

Very sad to see this go after 16 years on here. Amazing amount of incredible information you're not likely to find anywhere else. I haven't had to do much to my 82 since the floor pan repair exercise and it doesn't get driven in any wet weather since then. I too would like to archive this somehow but that is a huge exercise and beyond my means at this point.
I do have some information stored from here in small amounts and have the IP rebuild in a Word Doc (25+MB).
Wow I'm still blown away that this is going away. Incredible group of people on here, thanks to all for wisdom and help. And many thanks to Coke and others for administrative work and especially thanks to Jack for his financing all this for these many years.

[TylerDurden]

Well, I'm happy to chip-in $ to keep the lights on...

How much is the SSL/year?
How much is hosting?
What hardware will be sufficient to run the latest SW?


Anybody else wanna go in on it?

[mogwopjr]

Oh man! this stinks! I sold my caddy to a good friend earlier this year because I just have too many projects. I was thinking about Hagar's post and that was sad enough when he passed away... but now the whole forum that's a huge bummer. I know I wasn't ever super active, but this forum IS absolutely invaluable and contains information that needs to be saved. I work in a completely different sector of tech so I am not even sure how to go about preserving the knowledge in this site.

I do know that letsencrypt dot org does free SSL certs... If money is needed, I don't have much but I'll throw down what I can.

[edit]
I'm not sure how large the data store is for this site, is there any way to get a copy of the data if its just going to go away? maybe someone can lock everything down for new posts and just maintain the forum as it is? There's just so much information that (I don't think) shouldn't be lost to the bit bucket.

[edit 2]
@TylerDurden - I'll pitch in what I can.


Travis/mogwopjr

[wmasscaddy]

I'm sad to see this go, I still need it! Its a great resource full of helpful people, I wish the rest of the web was like that. Thank you Coke and Fatmobile. Thank you to everybody who answered questions and gave advice when I needed it.
I would happily chip in to keep it running.

[30dodgeboy]

I too am sad to see this site go away... and it sure sounds like its a done deal.

From what I have seen it has been a very informative group of experienced people concerned about helping each other out. Thanks for that.

With that said, what is the next best thing / site available as a substitute?