Plans for the future

[Polyclod]

Has anyone consider the situation in case FX ever reappeared and responded. First of all, is that possible? and if it is, what if he had convincing reasons for his absence? What if he is ready to make the necessary changes? I know many of you are still posting and visiting HTLAL.com, and aren't willing to leave it (me among them). So what would be the situation then?
I know all of these questions are just " what ifs", and that the move is done, but I think we should take that scenario into consideration.

I personally don't need to hear convincing reasons for anything, the guy wasn't ''absent'', he flat out abandoned the site and clearly didn't care about it. Why should we take anything regarding FX into consideration...I thought the whole point was we moved on?

[zenmonkey]

Has anyone consider the situation in case FX ever reappeared and responded. First of all, is that possible? and if it is, what if he had convincing reasons for his absence? What if he is ready to make the necessary changes? I know many of you are still posting and visiting HTLAL.com, and aren't willing to leave it (me among them). So what would be the situation then?
I know all of these questions are just " what ifs", and that the move is done, but I think we should take that scenario into consideration.

I personally don't need to hear convincing reasons for anything, the guy wasn't ''absent'', he flat out abandoned the site and clearly didn't care about it. Why should we take anything regarding FX into consideration...I thought the whole point was we moved on?

I agree with this. However for me, this story is not about FX. There was this great site. It had a fantastic community. That community is now spread over two sites. One can choose to post there or here or both. They each have value for different reasons but it all comes down to the active community.
Personally I'm committed to this newer version and I won't be posting in the remnant site. I'd like to help this place grow. But I can't think of begrudging anyone that focuses on the continuity of both places or stays only on the remnant site.

[emk]

Has anyone consider the situation in case FX ever reappeared and responded. First of all, is that possible?

I would still love to hear from FX! He created a home for this community, and he's incredibly important to its history. He's also a pleasure to speak with. In fact, we've been trying to contact him for the last few years, and he has occasionally discussed technical issues with us. But unfortunately, we've never managed to sit down and have a conversation about his plans for the community's future.

Unfortunately, as much as the moderators really wanted to hear from him before making any decisions, we couldn't wait forever (at least not without severely annoying a big chunk of the community). So as we mentioned in our message, this site has now taken on a life of its own—if only as the community's "vacation home abroad."

Personally, I would still be happy to talk to FX about his plans for his site, and to volunteer some technical help if he wanted to upgrade it. I have a lot of memories there. But at this point, it wouldn't be fair to the community for anything that happened on his site to affect the existence of this one.

(Edited for clarity.)

[Cavesa]

Thanks to everyone who's been taking care of all this!

I wouldn't hold it against FX that other parts of his life took precedence over the awesome community he founded (for which he totally deserves my respect), we just cannot wait forever. I am most curious about the new name.

[Bluepaint]

We'll let you know soon! We want it fully working before everyone starts trying to access it via the new domain Last I spoke to the others we're still on track for announcing it next weekend after an outage for maintenance work on Friday. Emk or Rdearman will let us know if those timeframes change.

[Serpent]

Has anyone consider the situation in case FX ever reappeared and responded. First of all, is that possible? and if it is, what if he had convincing reasons for his absence?

(mod hat off)
Nowadays people warn their teammates in online games if they're in hospital for a week. FX hasn't said anything but "test" since 2012 and barely anything significant since 2010 or so. BUT whenever there was an actual emergency, he was generally semi-available, apart from the latest outage when emk had to inform him via someone else. But my understanding is that he never replied to any concerns about the forum future, even from the moderators. The most recent attempt was just one of many, likely the only one that involved faxes and a deadline. And unfortunately it's likely that he simply uses a different email/phone number nowadays

He might have had any kind of short-term problems, but he's clearly still doing his business and financially stable. Hopefully in good health, too. Even if he was recruited as a spy, he would've had the time to say something, without being able to disclose the details. I'm truly sorry but to me this silence is a lack of responsibility.

BTW, yesterday was also a month since he last logged in. That said, I'm sure he's still welcome to cooperate.

I'm not bashing him. My heart is also broken about the old HTLAL, but I believe it was and is inevitable. And I choose to move now, instead of accumulating even more posts that will inevitably be lost sooner or later, at least without resorting to mrwarper's wonderful backups. (I'll still be contributing at least until I reach 10k posts there if the forum stays alive long enough)

But the community is us. I believe that many are ready to move if everyone else does. So let's not hold each other back and let's try not to feel guilty. We've done our best, as a community and individuals.

[iguanamon]

I feel really foolish for even thinking I was supporting the forum with a pro-membership, . I have rectified that situation now. The last straw for me and, I'm sure for many, if not for most of the rest of us was the domain name expiry.

In a sense FX did us a favor this time. Had he not let the domain expire we would still be there, posting and expecting a different result without a hope for any change for a better present and future. We would have been waiting for the next inevitable outage or incident to occur. The last incident and the last chance we gave plainly showed where we stood with him as a community- just not in his field of vision anymore beyond the bare minimum of keeping the site up and running.

Seeing all that is available here that most of us didn't know about before, seeing what an engaged and transparent management looks like, seeing new people joining and contributing, that's why this forum wasn't shutting down. It's energizing and a much welcome change for the better. That's why the status quo ante was no longer acceptable or wanted.

Onward!

[hp230]

Hey take it easy guys. I was just saying "what if".
My thoughts were likely about HTLAL.com's future with all the treasures it contains. A possible return of FX may mean that HTLAL.com may make some sort of come-back. Are the moderators ready to make the changes if so? Of course, it wouldn't be as if nothing happened, with the new site in place. Think if FX was ready to offer his site for sale for exemple. Would you transfer the data to the new site or make HTLAL.com a better place (which probably would be useless with the new home)?

I know that the community has moved on. I am here with you guys, (a little bit nostalgic) but I've already moved on. I was just putting things on the table .

I understand that you are tired of discussing this old-new site issue and that things are clearly settled now, but HTLAL is still out there with all of the community's history.

[zenmonkey]

Hey take easy guys. I was just saying "what if".
My thoughts were likely about HTLAL.com's future with all the treasures it contains. A possible return of FX may mean that HTLAL.com may make some sort of come-back. Are the moderators ready to make the changes if so? Of course, it wouldn't be as if nothing happened, with the new site in place. Think if FX was ready to offer his site for sale for exemple. Would you transfer the data to the new site or make HTLAL.com a better place (which probably would be useless with the new home)?

I know that the community has moved on. I am here with you guys, (a little bit nostalgic) but I've already moved on. I was just putting things on the table .

I understand that you are tired of discussing this old-new site issue and that things are clearly settled now, but HTLAL is still out there with all of the community's history.

Let's play out that scenario for a second. Imagine that the site was 'sold' or 'given' to the community or an individual and some how an agreement was reached - that site software is dead - as it stands - not updated, too costly to do so, too much specific local development, versus what we have here. The only realistic choice would be transfer data from there or lock and archive that site. Possibly have the URL point to this server. But transferring data requires not only an agreement but also writing a nontrivial import function. So even in your scenario - this site is it. At best, at some future point, the old URL will point here (don't hold your breath) - whether the data is integrated or not. FX may decide it is worth "hooking up wagons" in the future but that scenario is now one of coming to "the community" and not vice versa.

What people that value their data from the old site should be doing is thinking about what to do to conserve it WHEN it disappears. It likely won't be for a while but it will happen. Keeping a site up costs money - what do you think will occur when the revenue isn't there?

[Serpent]

Hey take easy guys. I was just saying "what if".
My thoughts were likely about HTLAL.com's future with all the treasures it contains. A possible return of FX may mean that HTLAL.com may make some sort of come-back. Are the moderators ready to make the changes if so? Of course, it wouldn't be as if nothing happened, with the new site in place. Think if FX was ready to offer his site for sale for exemple. Would you transfer the data to the new site or make HTLAL.com a better place (which probably would be useless with the new home)?

And I was just saying that to me there's no convincing reason to say nothing for years, while keeping the site online and sometimes making a serious effort.
To me the questions are too abstract, as it depends on how exactly FX reacts when he finally finds out, what he suggests etc.

I'd say not getting a reply from FX wasn't the worst thing that could happen. It would've been much worse if he sent a quick reply and disappeared again. I'm sure many of us have been in a situation where we've discussed for example a language exchange or skype session, both sides liked the idea but nothing happened. I imagine the first step would be making sure it wouldn't be like this - that unlike before, FX would show commitment.

Also, as the archive here grows, the old abandoned treasure gets less valuable.