It's been, what, 27 years since this forum started. Most of us here are familiar with the history. Hell, the last post was commenting on that. Truth be told, I've basically been keeping this place up as sort of a competition to see how long it would stay up. There's maybe a few people who come in to post a once or twice a year, or get the email notification and reply to a few more threads.
But, phpBB is also old software, and back in the day, a constant source of attacks. I haven't really been keeping up with updates or patches or any of the sysadmin stuff here. So, I'm a bit worried about attack vectors, especially as I migrate the server to a new VPS to upgrade the core OS again. I'm barely motivated to do even that, considering there isn't much on the server, besides a destination for my email and a bare-bones website. But, the version of Debian on that thing is pretty damn old, so it's just something I'm overdue to fix.
And well, message boards aren't exactly the primary means of communication any more. Everybody's moved on to bigger platforms. There's not a lot of independent message boards left. I might find them as part of some hobbyist web site or open-source project.
So, as part of the server move, for all of the reasons I mentioned, I'm going to retire The Shrine. It's had a good run. But, keeping it going is just kind of delaying the inevitable. I'm not really interested in keeping it up any more, and most of us can just contact each other in other mediums, anyway. I thought about converting it to some Lemmy instance, but that's just going to turn into a moderation and maintenance time-sink.
I'll keep it around for a few weeks at least, while I move things over to the new host. Maybe until mid-January or so.
In the meantime, everybody post their contacts and the platforms you hang around at.
I've been posting on Lemmy (as SineSwiper) for the past several months. It has served as a good replacement for Reddit, and it's part of the ActivityPub federated standard, so it's open-source and doesn't have any commercial connections. Considering how dogshit Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook has turned out, Lemmy, Mastadon, and Bluesky are turning into much better alternatives.
I'm SineSwiper on Steam, GMail, and pretty much anywhere else you can find me. Though, I've already ditched my LinkedIn profile, and barely log into Facebook.
But, phpBB is also old software, and back in the day, a constant source of attacks. I haven't really been keeping up with updates or patches or any of the sysadmin stuff here. So, I'm a bit worried about attack vectors, especially as I migrate the server to a new VPS to upgrade the core OS again. I'm barely motivated to do even that, considering there isn't much on the server, besides a destination for my email and a bare-bones website. But, the version of Debian on that thing is pretty damn old, so it's just something I'm overdue to fix.
And well, message boards aren't exactly the primary means of communication any more. Everybody's moved on to bigger platforms. There's not a lot of independent message boards left. I might find them as part of some hobbyist web site or open-source project.
So, as part of the server move, for all of the reasons I mentioned, I'm going to retire The Shrine. It's had a good run. But, keeping it going is just kind of delaying the inevitable. I'm not really interested in keeping it up any more, and most of us can just contact each other in other mediums, anyway. I thought about converting it to some Lemmy instance, but that's just going to turn into a moderation and maintenance time-sink.
I'll keep it around for a few weeks at least, while I move things over to the new host. Maybe until mid-January or so.
In the meantime, everybody post their contacts and the platforms you hang around at.
I've been posting on Lemmy (as SineSwiper) for the past several months. It has served as a good replacement for Reddit, and it's part of the ActivityPub federated standard, so it's open-source and doesn't have any commercial connections. Considering how dogshit Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook has turned out, Lemmy, Mastadon, and Bluesky are turning into much better alternatives.
I'm SineSwiper on Steam, GMail, and pretty much anywhere else you can find me. Though, I've already ditched my LinkedIn profile, and barely log into Facebook.
Rosalina: But you didn't.
Robert: But I DON'T.
Rosalina: You sure that's right?
Robert: I was going to HAVE told you they'd come?
Rosalina: No.
Robert: The subjunctive?
Rosalina: That's not the subjunctive.
Robert: I don't think the syntax has been invented yet.
Rosalina: It would have had to have had been.
Robert: Had to have...had...been? That can't be right.
Robert: But I DON'T.
Rosalina: You sure that's right?
Robert: I was going to HAVE told you they'd come?
Rosalina: No.
Robert: The subjunctive?
Rosalina: That's not the subjunctive.
Robert: I don't think the syntax has been invented yet.
Rosalina: It would have had to have had been.
Robert: Had to have...had...been? That can't be right.
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." 
