Farewell...

[WillPS]

I'm not convinced by any of the offerings so far, however well meaning they are. It takes more effort than you'd think and on a relentless continual basis to keep a discussion environment going.

I agree that it is worthy of consideration both on the part of the candidate successor webmaster and the community at large how they wish to move forward. Bravo to Rob for making the archive available - I hope the successor and/or continuing community can ensure at least that his costs are covered.

[Willz]

Discord certainly isn't the way to go. You can't archive them and if you delete a channel, it's gone for good.

Eventually something better than Discord will appear and people will flock to that as well. Better having something self-hosted that can be archived.

Certainly looking like Clean Feed is probably going to be the best option around, as much as the twitter account blocks are annoying.

You can technically archive them but making it so nobody can talk in that chat anymore.

[Kojak]

Discord won't work as a replacement for a forum.
People who like forums generally won't like Discord.

Forums on free hosts like Proboard and suchlike - forget it. Not viable.

You need a proper server and some forum software (MyBB is used here) and if it's going to work and be successful, setting it up and making it do what people want is going to take weeks and weeks of work.

No disrespect but it strikes me that some people have jumped in thinking they can grab the userbase in an instant. It doesn't work like that.

Completely agree with you. A lot of this just seems to be jumping on the bandwagon - 'ooh, look, I'm starting a forum, I'm gonna be the next Asa Hicks/Rob Francis!'. It's silly. Stop. If there's not going to be another TV forum - then so be it. Some things happen for a reason. It's sad, but the world's largely moved on.

All this Discourse / free hosted stuff, I'm really sorry but it's not going to be the way forward.

I will say, though, that Discourse is decent forum software, and not just used by three-bit chancers - indeed, our Australian equivalent, Media Spy, runs on it, and that is a long-running, reasonably successful forum. I personally am not convinced by this mooted Clean Feed forum, and don't think it will carry on the same spirit embodied by here and the blue place. This place succeeded because, as Brekkie said, it was set up by a popular and trusted member of the old forum - and in many ways I think Rob was the only person who could have done it.

[DavidWhitfield]

Anyone who's serious should be trying to see if Rob might consider giving or selling the current forum (database and files basically) as it should easily work on another server with another domain, with a condition that it be rebranded fully. These things aren't beyond the wit of man but require some technical knowledge, and of course Rob's willingness to hand it over. If Rob didn't want to do that then the next best thing would be to get a copy of MyBB (it's free), get a *decent* web host, and spin up a new one, start from scratch like Rob did and aim for a similar 'vibe'.

This is a very useful and insightful breakdown for anyone considering offering up a viable alternative, Scrotnig, and I thank you for breaking this down.

Apologies as I know most are well meaning.

I also think it's important to note this.

I see users rushing to open up new avenues of communication as doing so because they don't want to lose what we have here, and I think that's endearing and really rather sweet. I appreciate the thought behind each and every suggested possibility and hope that the users whose suggestions do not necessarily take off in the way it is perhaps initially hoped do not feel despondent or disappointed by this and understand the time, money, and effort it took to get TVF and TVLF to the stage they got to, and see what an uphill struggle it is to get right.

[Scrotnig]

As for passing on the old content.... I'm not sure it's that simple anymore. I think whoever ends up playing host will have to start from scratch - either that or get express permission from every poster to re-publish their stuff (and potentially hold their personal data).

It's possible to do...it's effectively a business that can be transferred to a new owner. There are some hoops but in the forum world it happens a lot without issue.

Nbody, when they sign up to a forum, gets anything that says the data can't be transferred to someone else.

[SuperSajuuk]

For what its worth, it was not my intention to try and “be the next Rob/Asa”. I simply wanted to propose alternative ideas for where the community might go next, and offer reasons why a specific platform would be useful, and offer to help with setting up a new community on that said platform [ie a discord server] before looking to passing ownership to someone else [when people are more comfortable with it] who would be more at tune with the subject matter. As i said before, i don’t mind where the community ends up, as long as it is a location endorsed by Rob.

[lepeterrr]

For what its worth, it was not my intention to try and “be the next Rob/Asa”. I simply wanted to propose alternative ideas for where the community might go next, and offer reasons why a specific platform would be useful, and offer to help with setting up a new community on that said platform [ie a discord server] before looking to passing ownership to someone else [when people are more comfortable with it] who would be more at tune with the subject matter. As i said before, i don’t mind where the community ends up, as long as it is a location endorsed by Rob.

Same, I just wanted to provide an alternative which I hope will work. Yes it looks a bit more ameauterish at the moment but over the next month I plan to massively improve it.

[LI4M]

Me either - I want to help, whether that be to host the software that runs a community or just to make an extra effort to take part in the conversation elsewhere while any new place beds in.

My server is there, if there is demand. If not, I'll be signing up to whatever forum becomes dominant. Discord though is not for me, so I'd bow out of TV pres discussion at that point.

It's possible to do...it's effectively a business that can be transferred to a new owner. There are some hoops but in the forum world it happens a lot without issue.

Nbody, when they sign up to a forum, gets anything that says the data can't be transferred to someone else.

Hey, I'm not a lawyer, and I've never played one on TV.
My fear would be that if, for example, Rob offered up a dump of of this site to whatever site become a 'replacement', both he and the new site would be liable for trading personal data (email addresses, passwords). Then there's potential copyright issues on the re-published content. At the end of the day, everything is fine until one aggrieved person objects.

It's not like selling a company. If this site was owned by a company, you could just buy the company. But Rob owns the site.... I think you'd actually have to buy him to take the data without the permission of his users!

I'm sure it happens loads online - but so do lots of things.

[Brekkie]

A single replacement might not even be the best option. There are several bases this forum covers and although all interconnected we'll all have areas we find more interesting than others. Although it's presentation that bought me to this world it's more the industry chatter now that I find interesting for example. Others like to discuss programmes, sport rights is an area which could possibly sustain a forum in it's own right, for me now the motivations and operational decisions of news channels at the moment is far more interesting than the presentation they churn out on screen. It may be more viable for anyone serious about doing their own thing to start small and then grow naturally to cover other areas.


Indeed one issue today with focusing primarily on presentation is it is quite stagnant within the industry compared to the late nineties and early noughties. When TV Forum launches channels and news programmes were rebranding every 2-3 years, and of course new channels were cropping up all the time, so there was always something worthy of discussion. Now branding seems to sit around for a decade, new channel launches are few and far between and a streaming services navigational menu doesn't evoke the same reaction as a presentation package on a linear TV. Indeed perhaps it's no surprise the "nostalgia" threads are increasingly popular.

[Torpido]

A little neare the time can we have a list of credible and meaningful alternatives and how to find them thanks

[johnnyboy]

If the site costs £50 a month to run it and Rob felt comfortable transferring stuff over to me, I would take on the financial responsibility.

However, I personally would not want to be an admin or a mod. I was a mod briefly many moons ago at MP247. I didn't have the time for it and I didn't enjoy it.

I lack programming and coding ability so someone would need to volunteer for that.

If they were interested, there are certain posters like all new Phil, Brekkie and the old TVF mods who could be mods under new ownership. Or the TVLF mods who do a great job could stay. We could have 3 mods or 10 mods - it'd be up to the forum.

Any way, this and the blue place have given me much pleasure over 20 years. I feel at home here at TVLF and I like my fellow forum posters. How about this as a continuity option?

It would mean, of course, a mod franchise round where the users of the forum elected the admin and the mod. But they were always good fun back in the day.

[CantGetIn]

It's very sad that the forum is closing, it's clearly a place a lot of time and effort has gone into. I don't think any one group is "responsible". What is clear is that there are bad apples in every group of users. The bigger the group the more easier it is for the bad apple to hide.

I personally would attempt to salvage the place via strict changes, i.e everyone must be linked to a real ID, a strict one strike and banned policy, political or religious talk of any nature is forbidden, with similar one strike bans in force. A bit like the freemasons! If someone is harassing the site admins, there are clear steps to deal with that even legally if required.

And we could all really get rid of the self righteousness. It existed in the old place, it exists in this place, and actually exists in the industry itself. Lets be real people, nobody is that moral so stop pretending. Even today it's happening in the Talk TV thread. If you don't agree with someone, that's fine, you don't have to print out your morals in a look at me fasion.

An acceptance in all groups of users that you have bad apples, I think on many occasions people overlook others trying to provoke because they share the same opinion, this was a mistake and the same user(s) are still posting in a similar way. You had some treads where such people went into massive political rants or had digs at things purely based on politics. They knew what they were doing, as did others like the one who cannot be named. They are cut from the same cloth. If this place is really closing, I am sorry to see it go as I was the last place, but in some ways it is a mark of our times, civil discussion cannot exist while anonymity does. Every forum of this type is doomed to fail unless it executes strict rules as above second paragraph.

END

[AJ]

It's possible to do...it's effectively a business that can be transferred to a new owner. There are some hoops but in the forum world it happens a lot without issue.

Nbody, when they sign up to a forum, gets anything that says the data can't be transferred to someone else.

Sure, it's possible to do - but you do need express permission from, or at least notification to every user to do so - with the option to allow members to opt out and delete their data.

An archive would be better in my opinion.

[Brekkie]

I think before people get too far down the track of assuming the forum is up for sale it's worth remembering Rob's initial post and the reason he is closing this place, plus the fact as well as his mental health he has his own online brand to protect. A clean break needs to be just that.

[Scrotnig]

It's possible to do...it's effectively a business that can be transferred to a new owner. There are some hoops but in the forum world it happens a lot without issue.

Nbody, when they sign up to a forum, gets anything that says the data can't be transferred to someone else.

Sure, it's possible to do - but you do need express permission from, or at least notification to every user to do so - with the option to allow members to opt out and delete their data.

An archive would be better in my opinion.

You absolutely do not need permission from every single user.

You are transferring assets, just as you would if selling a business. Businesses do not need the personal permission of every customer they hold data on in order to sell the business to someone else.

There is best practice to be followed - but it is routine and absolutely possible.

As I mentioned earlier, when people sign up to a forum they do not sign anything that says the forum owner cannot transfer the forum to a new owner at a later date.