[Robert Moran]

[Matthew Amt]

HEY! It's BACK! I don't even remember when I first couldn't get in. Tried different browsers on different machines, never got farther than maybe the front page and then it was just error pages. Figured the old place was toast. This morning I clicked the bookmark for no real reason, and presto! Yay!

Got a little catching up to do. Sure is a lot of pop-up ads, oh well.

Very much agreed that an old clunky board like this is VASTLY better than FB for the kind of discussions we have. So I'm really glad it's not dead!

Matthew

[Anthony Clipsom]

Good to see you again Matthew. Hopefully, the slow rebuild will continue and the old gang will reassemble.

[Sean Manning]

One small piece of technical debt is that if a URL in a forum post has a keyword such as

[Victor R.]

[Michael Beeching]

So, I just want to throw something in here as a suggestion:

I am an olde-schoole forum guy. I have played with Discord in reasonable measure, with the latter just being an evolution of services like Skype and IRC or messenger-type programs. That said, this environment is my preferred method of internet socializing (when I actually do such things). Traditional forums are fantastic places to work out long-form conversations, develop complex ideas, and frankly, encourage skillful writing in a more practical way than a classroom can provide. While I've not been here for a while, spaces like these are the ones that I really care about for conversing on the net. I too would like to see it stick around for a good while to come.

With that preamble in place, why is it that I've not done a good job of sticking around? Frankly, it's a matter of interest! And so, how would interest be improved for me? If I can be so selfish as to give a list of items, please consider the following:

1. I'd like a space I'm familiar with, like myArmoury, to better facilitate HEMA and study groups. I recall putting out proposals here in the past (and also the OG HEMA Alliance forum!) and not getting anywhere. I realize there may be better platforms for that sort of conversation, but as I noted before - I prefer it over here! Part of the great delight of arms is using them, and a better, dedicated place for discussing martial arts here would be welcome to me. Of course, the major hurdle there is the forum registration issue and then, potentially the software issue.

1a. As an addendum, those who enjoy HEMA / martial arts in general are perhaps in a similar vein to those who like historical gaming, or fantasy with some sort of historical angle. Having dedicated spaces over here for that subject would probably benefit a good deal of potential users here.

2. It would be wonderful if there was an update to the reviews and history sections. Search functions are not available to unregistered users, and easy access to vetted historical articles on this site are what is likely to pull in people who want to use this site. The detailed review section here is a wonderful resource, and having more of it wouldn't be detrimental to anyone if good curators can vet the materials.

3. There is nothing stopping myArmoury from setting up on Discord or IRC. There are problems you need to consider with that, however:

3a. You will need more active moderators for those platforms.

3b. You will diminish the presence of the forum proper, which you ought to save first!

...In short, just setting up better dedicated spaces for interest groups might go a long way, and that might not require anything terribly drastic to start with. And adding more and better reference material can only be a welcome addition.[/i]

[Anthony Clipsom]

I think the problem here is not a lack of desire to update and innovate but the ability to do it. We have a limited access to the technical side and so can't fix things that go wrong. We have said before that some sort of mechanism for alerting the world to the outages and more particularly the restorations needs to be found. Part of that might simply be posting on other forums, but creating an alternative to the locked FB page as suggested could be another.

[Chad Arnow]

Hello everyone,
As of quite recently (yesterday, as it turns out), I have access to post/administer the existing Facebook page, which will be used to share news/outage info/interesting things/etc. Nathan and I have had some recent preliminary conversations about the future of the site. I plan to keep the convos going.

The suggestions posted recently (an alternative FB page, creating a Discord server or something similar) have some great merits. I do worry about taking away from a forum that is limping along but filled with great info as well as worry about trying to figure out how to administer some of these new platforms. Some people have volunteered to help (thanks so much to you all!), but I’ll have to think about what makes the most sense and run things by Nathan, as this is still his operation ultimately.

For now, I’m happy to see the forum running and more folks around. I’m happy the FB page can be used to communicate with people having access issues. These are small, but important steps, to revitalizing things. After years of stasis, this is pretty big.