Site Management Forum Rebirth: Did you ever have to start over ?

[Cedric]

Sometimes we face challenges and circumstances that lead us to make a tough decision – to start over with our forum. Whether it's due to a major rebranding, a fresh vision, or unforeseen setbacks such as hacking, the process of reinventing a forum can be both exciting and daunting.

So, let's talk about it. Have you ever had to start over with your forum? What prompted this decision, and what was the driving force behind your desire for a fresh beginning? Whether it was a shift in focus, a complete overhaul of design, or a need for a clean slate, we'd love to hear your experiences and insights.

"In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.” — Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

Starting new can be a challenging journey, and your stories can offer inspiration and guidance to others who may be contemplating a similar path. So share your challenges, your successes, and any lessons learned along the way. How did you approach the transition, and what were the key takeaways from your experience?

By discussing these moments of forum rebirth, we can learn from one another and explore the dynamics of growth and change within our online communities.

 

[Al]

There’s not situation I can think of where starting over would be a choice I would make. Only if it was forced, such as the mentioned hack and/or total loss.

Bill Gates, one of the smartest men alive, said “content is king”. It needs to be the forum administrators mantra. If you have existing content it’s a bad decision to start over completely. Reuse what you have as the basis for moving forward.

 

[Sinistra]

Starting over back in the day when there were no "auto site backups" were commonplace. Somehow the site server got hacked so they lost all your data! frustrating. And yes I had to start from scratch at one point. Did I enjoy it? No did it make my community better? somewhat. Would I do it again? It would depend on what I could do with what I have, As for Anime Insight I have thought that using an old domain name that I have had in the past might of been a bad idea, So I will see what happens after the first of the year and see what I can do by then. Might see where I am at on the first anniversary of the site.

 

[Empire]

I did start Bayside over again, not by choice by any means, but at the time it was a good idea and also six months into it wasn't too bad. Story to be told as short as I can make it that I was running SMF and wasn't happy with the software and wanted to move over to IPB and at the time the database was not going to be easy to be converted It was just as easy to start again with the database.

 

[Spartan]

I had to start over after I lost my files and my laptop so was afk for a while, as I was a teen and couldn’t get a new computer quickly. Sadly lost the domain too, but restarted on the .net version.

 

[Cedric]

I had to start over after I lost my files and my laptop so was afk for a while, as I was a teen and couldn’t get a new computer quickly. Sadly lost the domain too, but restarted on the .net version.

How much time was there in between? Did you ever get to register members from the original version? I'm guessing you're talking about Gaming Cave ?

 

[kolakube]

After a long period of development of my flagship product, my forum and community spirit has lost a lot of momentum due to my inactivity. I am excited to return with a new product but there will be a lot of rebuilding to do that comes along with it.

 

[Seeker]

I started a site in 1998 which ran until 2014. We has about 19,000 members and 250,000 image uploads. I made the decision to backup all the files and db and close the site. Last year I bought a second Xenforo licence imported all the data and started fresh.

The first thing I did was setup the activity newsletter to allow a much longer inactivity period. Of course there was a ton of bad email addresses but many core members came back.

I too setup a facebook page but after months I gave it up. Now its pretty much search and referrals.

I'm currently looking for something more.

 

[Cedric]

I started a site in 1998 which ran until 2014. We has about 19,000 members and 250,000 image uploads. I made the decision to backup all the files and db and close the site. Last year I bought a second Xenforo licence imported all the data and started fresh.

The first thing I did was setup the activity newsletter to allow a much longer inactivity period. Of course there was a ton of bad email addresses but many core members came back.

I too setup a facebook page but after months I gave it up. Now its pretty much search and referrals.

I'm currently looking for something more.

It's nice to see some original members have returned. Your site must've left a good impression over the years. Can you explain the looking for something more part? Perhaps we can be of assistance with that.

 

[Senkusha]

I've had to restart a number of times. My first forum, I think i ended up restarting like three or four times. One of those times was because somebody that I promoted to a staff position totally hacked my forum and I had to start over. Another time was because my database crashed and become corrupted (during a software upgrade). Another time I had to restart because I totally changed forum software platforms.

My most recent forum, I've restarted like three times, only because I was indecisive with my domain name, and what my specific niche was going to be. Now that I've settled all that, it's just a matter of "soft restarts". This is more like just reorganizing my current topic set, or changing the theme to become an identity or brand. Which could be disturbing to a member-base (if I had a super active one), but I guess right now, I'm just on a path of "rediscovery" about how I want to communicate my niche topics.

In fact, I'm considering if I should "unorganize" my board -- I'm thinking that I've categorized some of the topics too much. I'm also working on a new banner image and signature image for my "brand" Finally I'm thinking that I may "rename" my site as an Anime Role Playing Club or Society, as I want to get away from the military feeling the current brand conforms to.

 

[Spartan]

How much time was there in between? Did you ever get to register members from the original version? I'm guessing you're talking about Gaming Cave ?

Around 3 months total to go down, even after I wasn’t logging on daily I could check some times and it was up with some posting still. But with out a computer I couldn’t make money to pay for hosting and stuff so eventually it went down.
I did get some of the more active members and staff to join back originally since we had been using YouTube and other social medias they followed and I played Xbox a lot with some of them still, but I didn’t get gamingcave started again for maybe 2 years, once I got a new computer I started other projects that I just didn’t enjoy as much as gamingcave, and around senior year again I started it back up.

 

[Cory]

I semi-started over with the discussion areas of my board. I made a discussion board for non-coding related discussions and it did not end up getting much traction, so I ended up moving all the forums back over to my resource forum. I don't think it was a smart move to separate the two boards in the long run. I have a lot of topics in the trash can now that were in the discussion forums previously on the resource board. The only topics I moved over from the trash can to the discussion forums were popular ones. However, my discussion forums on my resource board have built up quite a bit since we moved back.

 

[NeoMetallix]

I had to start over as I started my forum on Invisionfree which converted to Zetaboards, but when it went to Tapacrap I decided to start over on our website server using MyBB. It was a huge blow going from 1.26 million posts back to zero.

But if all that old stuff is irrelevant, is it that big of a deal?

 

[Cedric]

I had to start over as I started my forum on Invisionfree which converted to Zetaboards, but when it went to Tapacrap I decided to start over on our website server using MyBB. It was a huge blow going from 1.26 million posts back to zero.

But if all that old stuff is irrelevant, is it that big of a deal?

Damn that really sucks. I remember tapedrive (Correct me if I'm wrong) creating a scraper and thus you were able to move over your content from ZetaBoards. Were you not aware of it or didn't want to bother?

 

[Ravenfreak]

I had to start over as I started my forum on Invisionfree which converted to Zetaboards, but when it went to Tapacrap I decided to start over on our website server using MyBB. It was a huge blow going from 1.26 million posts back to zero.

But if all that old stuff is irrelevant, is it that big of a deal?

Honestly I think the change really did help your community. Tapatalk restricted too many features behind a paywall, you wouldn't have been able to have all those awesome themes you've got installed now. Sure it sucks that you lost so many posts and years worth of content, but at least now you can rely on your forum functioning better than if it was under Tapatalk. Still sucks that you had to start all over though...

 

[NeoMetallix]

Damn that really sucks. I remember tapedrive (Correct me if I'm wrong) creating a scraper and thus you were able to move over your content from ZetaBoards. Were you not aware of it or didn't want to bother?

I was aware and tried to do it but it kept failing. I think it was too big to scrape and Tapatalk security caught on or something. After trying a few times I was ready to move on.

Honestly I think the change really did help your community. Tapatalk restricted too many features behind a paywall, you wouldn't have been able to have all those awesome themes you've got installed now. Sure it sucks that you lost so many posts and years worth of content, but at least now you can rely on your forum functioning better than if it was under Tapatalk. Still sucks that you had to start all over though...

It was too restricting and while they tried to add theme customization for ZB converts it just wasn't as good. It wasn't as customizable and trying to view a TT forum without an ad blocker is a nightmare! It looks horrible with all the ads and crap they ad to it. Tapatalk is probably the worst forum platform out there if you ask me, I'd take proboards over it. Although proboards has come a long way since 2003.

 

[Cedric]

I was aware and tried to do it but it kept failing. I think it was too big to scrape and Tapatalk security caught on or something. After trying a few times I was ready to move on.


It was too restricting and while they tried to add theme customization for ZB converts it just wasn't as good. It wasn't as customizable and trying to view a TT forum without an ad blocker is a nightmare! It looks horrible with all the ads and crap they ad to it. Tapatalk is probably the worst forum platform out there if you ask me, I'd take proboards over it. Although proboards has come a long way since 2003.

You needed to scrap before the transition to Tapatalk, while still being on Zetaboards. That may been the problem.

 

[Cory]

I remember tapedrive (Correct me if I'm wrong) creating a scraper and thus you were able to move over your content from ZetaBoards.

Yeah, that was his username at the time: https://support.zathyus.com/zetaboards-converter-t176341.html

I think he goes by "dumpfire" on my board.

 

[NeoMetallix]

You needed to scrap before the transition to Tapatalk, while still being on Zetaboards. That may been the problem.

Ah, I may have misremembered then. I tried to do it before it was on Tapatalk but I still kept getting errors and it wouldn't do the whole thing. Either way, it was time to move away from Tapatalk as it destroyed the ethos of our forum.

Ethos is more important than hanging onto 15 year old content. Lol

 

[Cedric]

Some would argue with that. But it was a very disturbing time indeed.