When a forum is sold to the corporates like Vert\*\*\*\*\*\* this is what happens, because it's the database they want, not the users. The database is the honeypot for the search engines. https://www.hockeyforum.com/ This was a huge active forum now it's absolutely dead…like the Parrot. [URL=https://i.imgur.com/m9uQzag.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/m9uQzag.jpg[/IMG][/URL] It's had 8 posts in the last 4 months, mostly by people who join, post a couple of times and move on because they get no reply. [URL=https://i.imgur.com/5DHw4Hj.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/5DHw4Hj.jpg[/IMG][/URL] This is when the head admin last posted, The other admin appointed 7 months ago has made 19 posts the last one to a 1 post wonder 22 days ago. The whole place a monument to how the corporates can destroy online communities…do they care no, because it's slathered in adverts, it's a billboard sprayed heavily in search engine attractant. Effectively the forum itself is like a huge spambot. It's quite depressing.

Thank goodness Dave, that you have publicly stated that this will never happen to this forum. You ensure that by using a totally free hosting. By not forming a Limited Company…….let us talk a little here. It is just my view but to turn a forum into a Limited Company suggests either the owners are worried about being sued, therefore seeking to limit their liability, or more likely, they think it is easier to sell on one sufficient growth has occurred. Sometimes it is much easier to be transparent akin to the way we have tried to raise funds from the forum to be passed on in entirety to Flarum, than raise funds which are passed on to the Limited Company then lost from view. I wonder which business model will be around the longest?

@"DavecUK"#p736 It’s sad the way the established forums become irrelevant. Some good observations and questions from @"dfk41"#p748 IMO, which we all know, limited companies despite their limited liabilities, have to be profit driven. The firm will also have to discharge the responsibilities, governance, file tax returns, … within the defined set of parameters; these costs money and hence the profit motive. It’s difficult not to give-in to the temptations of selling, if a good offer comes around. The current model, I think, is better, although it creates a dependency, setting in motion a what if scenario. We don’t know how much it costs to keep them going. The third option is a non-profit organisation route, whose duties and responsibilities are similar to that of the limited firm. Is there a fourth option, which is not profit-driven, not requiring non-profit org registrations and legal responsibilities route, free us from the dependency and yet continue what we do? It will cost though. The biggest challenge is finding finances to keep it afloat. We know some one will have to pay to keep the forum running. Either the forum members will have to fund enough to cover all *a to z* costs or let it funded by sponsors and adverts. There are no free lunches, I am afraid. 😊

let’s not forget we don’t have any control over this. At any point our hosts might decide to switch their servers off and we will need to find another home. What coffeetime shows us is that there’s no second intentions behind the scene here. We are here because we enjoy coffee. If our hosts go - we hope they never do! - we will just have to find another home and start again. We have a community, we proved to ourselves we can do it and that’s what it matters: the community. As the saying goes, it’s about the people, not the building.

@"MediumRoastSteam"#p758 Exactly

@"MediumRoastSteam"#p758 I have considered that possibility and already identified a paid hosting plan should anything happen. We can simply take the database, they already have flarum loaded, I could probably have the basic forum running in a day and all extensions functioning and configured by day 2. I would then put a signpost on Tapatalk coffeetime.

@"DavecUK"#p761 Without wanting to appear a sycophant I am impressed mightily by your grasp of the forums complexities and what lengths you are prepared to go to achieve your aims. Well done. Ian

@"DavecUK"#1 Must agree with Eyedee you have put a lot of work into setting the forum up and working hard for it’s continued success. Thanks again Steve

@"DavecUK"#p761 brilliant bit of disaster planning.. straight Sod's Law…if you make all preparation for the worst, it never happens, lol

As others have said, a huge thanks to Dave for his time and efforts setting this place up it's very much appreciated

When Glenn set up CFUK in 2008, I like to think he did it to further a community spirit for all things coffee related. That said, it became clear, as time progressed, Glenn's focus began to shift IMO. Glenn was adept in maintaining the image of a forum focussed on a community aspect whilst building the forum as a profitable business evidenced when he sold it for a five figure sum. The new owner bought it as a business which understandably hacked off a number of members who bought into the community myth Glenn fostered. That said, the new owner, after getting his fingers well and truly burned, ceded responsibility for day to day running to the mods. This proved to be a two edged sword. It enabled the mods to ensure the forum wasn't taken over by a small vocal minority and, as a consequence, it thrived and attracted more paid advertising. Mods knew this would likely mean that at some point the new owner would seek to cash in and sell on which happened recently. The new owners have a very different agenda. They made no attempt to get in touch with CFUK mod team to start a dialogue/relationship - clearly it would seem the past was of no importance to them. It's a sad story but that's life - everything is reduced to monetary value - community is a term that is bandied around like confetti but the reality is the opposite. CFUK may continue but its heart has gone IMO which is why the mods decided to withdraw completely and set up this independent, not for profit, coffee community focused forum.

What corporates can do when they monetise a forums data

DavecUK

I thought I would give this thread a little love today. I actually truly believed we couldn’t hurt a big corporate, and we can’t really, but we have caused them some irritation. They contacted the previous owner of CFUK expressing some concern…said owner contacted me and said why have we set this up…I told him in no uncertain terms why.

I suspect their admin is getting an arse kicking due to the loss of forum traffic on CFUK. When looking through various forums that talk about Borg acquisitions, it does appear that resistance is not futile. Not all forums die and some are successfully assimilated. Of course some do die….and their remnants can be found for those who look. Some I couldn’t find, my assumption, when the cost of running the forum exceeded the ad revenue…a forum is simply closed, much like a drone is scavenged for parts.

These dead or dying forums have one thing in common, a team of mods that said no…we’re off and we will start our own forum. The old forum looked big, but wasn’t…it purported to have 29,000 users, but it didn’t. No user was ever deleted, ever, even spammers, or accounts that were made, but never even answered the validation e-mail. In my time as a mod and with access to quite a bit of the admin panel…I realised the old forum only ever had around 80 real regulars and around 200 or so regularis-ish members, we now have most of those!

When a forums traffic drops, then it’s ranking drops, it makes less adwords money….usually a significant traffic drop takes 4 years, so they get their money back and make a profit. On the old forum the same traffic drop has happened in 4 weeks. Their posts are pretty much 85% down on what they used to be. For example today we are set to have 8 or 9 times as many posts as CFUK ( as we have had for the last week or more).

This is a serious traffic drop, and it’s been noticed….it might be that they actually don’t make very much from CFUK, or even get their money back. We’ve done well, and we’re not even properly picked up on the search engines yet…although I noticed some scamp had placed a pointer to our great forum on reddit 🙂 Hopefully these unknown agents are also popping our name/link on all the other socialmedia sites I don’t use, like facebook, snapthing, instawhatever, Ticky something….

Today we have done 171 posts and on target for almost 200 posts, the last time I checked they were on 20!

To the Borg who tried to assimilate us…I can only say

Sure, they assimilated a few, but we escaped….to make our home here!

MediumRoastSteam

DavecUK said owner contacted me and said why have we set this up

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Errrr…. Because?

LMSC

MediumRoastSteam 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Errrr…. Because?

you and I …..

Giphy - Episode 8 Nbc GIF by Law & Order

😂

Jokes apart, I’m glad we started this. 😊

MediumRoastSteam

LMSC you and I …..

That’s a great song by Queen, from A Day at the Races album. Pretty sure when I was a teenager, my mum took me to the music shop and we bought that. 😊

Pompeyexile

Well, when I started getting into this coffee malarky about 9 years ago CFUK was the only UK coffee forum I could find and I have to be honest, the people on there helped me massively. From buying my grinder to fixing my Gaggia after blowing it up a few times. I even went to one of their meet-ups. But as you say, over the years it has gone down hill and even recently, when I asked admin to change something on a post, I never got a response or the request being sorted out.

So, I went a hunting and found COFFEETIME! and I now have absolutely no reason to go anywhere else. So, thanks Dave and anyone else who have taken it upon themselves to set up and help keep this forum going. It is very friendly, extremely knowledgeable and more importantly… patient, forgiving and tolerant of numpties like me. So, if I meet anyone interested in starting their real coffee journey, this will be the first place I will direct them to.

SteveBRS

Just sent my email to privacy@verticalscope.com to delete my account etc.

Meanwhile a few ‘subtle’ additions to my profile on the old site:

Rob666

I sent the privacy email at least a week ago. I’ve yet to hear anything back…

Grif

Sent one a couple of weeks ago, heard nothing, could be quite a while if ever.

hornbyben

Interesting, they’re obviously getting cheesed off with our requests, as they replied to me next day. We’re obviously having an impact 😝

Meldrew

I sent my privacy email on the 29th December and have not had any confirmation from them.

DavecUK

Presumably they are getting a tad upset…

Meldrew

DavecUK

SiblingChris

I know everyone has been sending the privacy email to VS requesting account deletion but I also realised yesterday the T&Cs still say about termination that accounts aren’t ever deleted so if you don’t want it anymore don’t use it, I suppose you could change your user name and email address yourself and remove other profile details if bothered about that, you could even use a new email account make the changes on the forum and then later delete that email account…

MediumRoastSteam

SiblingChris

SiblingChris but I also realised yesterday the T&Cs still say about termination that accounts aren’t ever deleted so if you don’t want it anymore don’t use it

There’s more to it. They don’t need to delete the data. Let’s face it, once out of your hands, it’s here forever. All they have to do is to make sure they obfuscate and make your data anonymous, so there’s no way anyone can see the data and then correlate it with that being yours due to some PII not being dealt with (e.g.: historic data, data logs, snapshots, audit trails, etc).

CafeNoir

SiblingChris Funny you should say that…….lol lol

Rob1

To be honest I was never really happy with the old place. The monetisation and advertising on one side and then ‘sponsorship’ on the other. Either it’s run as a business and it makes money from users and traffic and advertising or it’s independent and relies on donations. When you run something for profit you can’t ask people to make donations and sponsor you so you can make more money.

That signatures got locked away behind paywalls irked me, especially when I had links in the signature to help people. Then there was the fact it claimed to have tens of thousands of users yet only a tiny percentage of those were active and posting….but that didn’t stop them using their inflated stats to get small businesss to pay more for adverts.

I just glad we’ve got a place that is not for profit and we’re free to discuss things without worrying we might recommend something that somebody hasn’t paid to advertise.

DavecUK

Rob1 I just glad we’ve got a place that is not for profit and we’re free to discuss things without worrying we might recommend something that somebody hasn’t paid to advertise.

Absolutely, with no costs, we are our own masters….even if we get too big for freeflarum, to run flarum on a host is inexpensive, and we will cross that bridge if/when we come to it. Even having a commercial directory and areas for specific companies is a cause for concern, and the three of us will be discussing that over the next few days/weeks.

It’s quite likely that it will go and members, who are commercial companies, will simply have a commercial tag against their name. This forum is here to benefit our community…nothing else, and it will be what we make of it..

As for the old place, they have not even migrated it to Xenforo yet, for if you didn’t like it as it is… then it’s like that old song.

If you look hard, you will spot Orlando Bloom (Legolas) on drums

HVL87

Rob1 Nicely said - my thoughts exactly.

capuchin

DavecUK To run a forum like this is inexpensive as you say, probably £50-150 a month including admin and legal costs. I say legal costs as you’d absolutely need to make it a cooperative ownership structure to prevent the same pitfalls. That way no one person would have a right to sell or advertise on it, no matter what. The server stuff is relatively easy, you’d want to pay somebody to run the backend (takes around an hour a month), and then have volunteer moderators.

Grif

DavecUK If you look hard, you will spot Orlando Bloom (Legolas) on drums

Hehe… thats uncanny!

JahLaza

@DavecUK I left a message for you in donations a couple of days ago, just wondering if you got it or if it’s not working for me?

DavecUK

JahLaza I got it, but I was just waiting to group it with any others that come in….but I shall send a paypal ff req out in the next few days.

DavecUK

capuchin To run a forum like this is inexpensive as you say, probably £50-150 a month including admin and legal costs. I say legal costs as you’d absolutely need to make it a cooperative ownership structure to prevent the same pitfalls. That way no one person would have a right to sell or advertise on it, no matter what. The server stuff is relatively easy, you’d want to pay somebody to run the backend (takes around an hour a month), and then have volunteer moderators.

Well at the moment it’s free and certainly even if it was on a paid server, it wouldn’t cost 50-100 per month, I have already found one should freeflarum ever say we’re too big, affecting other forums and have to move. Hopefully that won’t happen as I keep it lean.

The one thing I know is I’m not going to sell it…but when I can no longer run it, or no longer want to admin it…all the above stuff can be dealt with as it’s handed back to the members. At that point people will know how successful it is, how much if anything it costs to run, how they need it staffed and owned. Sadly life has taught me that some people are easily corrupted and you can never tell who they are, not geting political,<politics on> but there is a shining example in Westminster </politics>. It takes a lot of resistance when a company like VS says here’s 50-60K for your forum. I know I will tell them to get stuffed and I have to make sure it never goes into an ownership structure where people say…thanks and ride off into the sunset

So you guys can open that complex can of worms when the day comes……at the moment I’ve done my best to ensure the forum has little if any value.

There are no prebuilt migration programs for flarum to other systems that I know of
there is no url, we share the freeflarum certs and url
there are no images or documents held on the forum (why do you think Tait was so desperate to have everything held within the forum database).
The forum has no paid advertising (and soon may have no commercial directory)
I’ve already shown every member of this forum, just how easy it is to set up another one and move the entire membership to it, for “completely free”
We have given VScrote a bloody nose and word gets round, so I don’t think anyone’s even going to be offering to buy us.
I couldn’t care less about SEO, so thread name changes, tag changes, peoples name changes…I don’t care. All these things affect SEO and thus value.
I have not formed a company…in my experience, corporates need to pay a company, see accounts and suchlike

One thing I completely forgot to mention, because it should be obvious, if a profit making corporate or business entity owned this forum, it would be rapidly shut down by freeflarum as it breaks the TOS.

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