The End

[SineSwiper]

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.

[Eric]

Aw.

When will the site go 404 Not Found?

Blackage@gmail.com

[SineSwiper]

Probably the end of the month. I still have the domain, so I might put a closing message on there, but it won't be with phpBB.

[Replay]

I'll take it back over rather than let it collapse if you want, Sine.

[Replay]

Hi! I'm Replay, aka Mental, aka Anders, aka the dude who started this board in 1997. I'm on Bluesky these days, but most everyone here still probably hates me so you can only have my contact information if you agree to be cool. If interested hit me up!

[Julius Seeker]

This is quite sad.
I always saw this as a place I could come back to. A relic and piece of the old internet remaining like a heritage site that will be here for a long time yet to come.

But I understand, maintenance isn't free.
Let's make sure Don and Oracle (who are still semi-active) find it, and then we can organize a post-shrine life. All of us here have known each other online ~1/2 to 2/3rds of our lives - I joined at age 16... and now I'm... 43... Fuck!

tOWS, Another casualty of the 27 Club.

[Don]

Sure, let me know if you guys want to setup somewhere else.

[SineSwiper]

I figured there were so little threads started any more that there wasn't much saving besides a shell of what was, and some old history of posts.

But, I dunno... maybe we could start a Lemmy community on lemmy.zip or one of the other Lemmy servers. Running a community is pretty low maintenance, besides moderation of new posts. Certainly better than a Lemmy server, where you have to worry about code upgrades, hacking attempts, and all of the lower-level admin moderation.

[Replay]

I'd be thrilled to re-take-over the hosting for the Shrine, or else set up another message board for everyone somewhere else as well. This community, for all our faults and fights, is older than Google. The notion that we've had a website on the 'net since April 1997 is crazy.

If nobody wants that because I am still a pariah, that's fine. But I do think it would be sad to see the community lost.

[Julius Seeker]

We're older than Final Fantasy 7 - the Western release that is. And I think everyone still active here was there during that time. This is a relic of that time on the Internet where pretty much everyone in the gaming fandom community was within 3 degrees of separation.

Anyway, I don't care who runs it, just as long as it is easy for old members of the community to find - that's probably the number one thing. The only person I know outside of this community is Manaman. And we should probably have a backup place as well. I think we're at the point now where we don't really need to worry about moderation against anyone but ad-bots and newbies, like Barret.

Mental, you're not a pariah.

[Eric]

Also it's not just that, this video game board has a lot of history. I can still go back and find when I first posted about AM2R and like Megaman X Corrupted. Those posts are decades old lol. Is there a way to download all the things?

[Replay]

Mental, you're not a pariah.

I appreciate you, Seek. I do have some resources these days and would be happy to do what it takes to see the Shrine keep going.

[Julius Seeker]

Where will we meet up once this place goes down?

Also, perhaps we can migrate (maybe manually) some of our more relevant threads that we’ve been slowly updating in the past few years. I understand the value of the decades long history, but I’m OK letting that part go, but the more recent stuff has some prediction posts that are somewhat longterm.

[Replay]

I think the right answer really depends on the will of the community.

Sine, are you interested at all in transferring the financial responsibility for the current Shrine hosting contract to me? What are we looking at right now?

[Replay]

Actually, I should ask this first:

Is the choice to retire the Shrine financial? Or simply being made because it feels like this community isn't active?

I quite agree with the others here who have said we have a lot of history and that this community is worth keeping.

I'd be thrilled to be more active here - I only ever left because, well, one of our members threatened to kill me.

It all really depends on what the community wants.

I think we can save the Shrine.

[Julius Seeker]

Any updates on the future of this community?
Is it in our hands to make a new Shrine?
Can we migrate stuff over?

[Eric]

E-mail me somethin in case the lights go out so we can navigate the darkness lol

Blackage@gmail.com

[SineSwiper]

Is the choice to retire the Shrine financial? Or simply being made because it feels like this community isn't active?

No, it's not financial. Otherwise, I wouldn't be so lazy in keeping this old VPS alive here. The new one has already been ready for a while, and I'm currently paying double price in the meantime. (Linode VPSs are decently cheap, though.)

Like I said, it's a matter of security, but also a lack of motivation and yeah, the fact that we maybe post a few times a year now. I also just want to end things on definitive terms, rather than having some hacker or mistake with domain renewals suddenly cause the site to disappear without warning.

Again, if we want to keep in contact in the same place, I'm fine with just starting a Lemmy community and continuing there. It's not much commitment to set up and maintain, and there's a real chance of getting new people showing up, so that we aren't just talking amongst ourselves. But, it's not going to have the post history carried with it.

I quite agree with the others here who have said we have a lot of history and that this community is worth keeping.

Past me was probably a bit more obsessive with hoarding posts and history. I know I spent a lot of time in the past making sure everything was converted over, especially when we migrated from RPGBoard to phpBB. The fact that we can look up posts from 25+ years ago is kinda cool.

Current me is, I guess, more pragmatic. I don't even remember the last time I tried to look up some old post here. With maybe 6-7 people left here, it doesn't even seem useful to keep all of this history around nowadays. I was just having a personal contest to see how long I could keep this site up, but I mean, it's been 27 years, so I guess Mission Accomplished?

Hell, I'm not even sure how much of that I want public any more. I probably said some pretty embarrassing shit in my youth. In a way, I'm glad the old adage that "the Internet is forever" isn't actually true.

But, I tell you what... here's my new plan:

1. Everybody here signs up for a Lemmy account, and then post your account details here. It's like Reddit, except it's not shit, not full of bots, and not owned by megalomaniacs. Also, it's part of the ActivityPub protocol, so it hooks in with Mastodon and other compatible networks. The tech is cool, and the communities are usually pretty chill. (Also, whatever server you choose doesn't really matter, as long as you're cool with the general vibe of the instance. They are all interconnected, like an email address.)

2. I'll create a new tOWS community in Lemmy and set it up. I can set up the banners and images and all of that. I'll probably give most everybody here admin rights, anyway.

3. I'll figure out how to migrate the data to a new phpBB instance (with the current user list) and put it in read-only mode with only new signups on invite. Basically, if somebody wants access to the phpBB archive from Lemmy, like if we found an old friend from years past, I can give them a new account here (if their old account didn't work) and they can access it.

That should keep it secure enough, and with the Lemmy community, we would actually have a chance to grow again. Not sure if you're aware, but new accounts have been disabled here for years now. Too many spam bots and the like. Even then, it's not like real people would wander in here on a whim. That's a helluva lot more likely with Lemmy.

At least with a Lemmy instance, the instance admins can handle bots, spam, Lemmy upgrades, and all of the other maintenance costs. We just need to keep it clean on the community itself. (Doubtful it's going to be much admining for us, really.)

Does that work for everybody?

[Replay]

Real talk Sine, if I can get some assurances that the other moderator you appointed here won't murder me, I'll come back and post all the time.

[Replay]

I'd rather stay here than migrate to Lemmy for now? Again, I can start putting up funding if it's an issue.

The board works. It works fast and well. We have a community full of developers here (well, at least you and me) that know how to code for it and when we want to migrate it, hopefully it shouldn't be that hard.

To me, the community matters more than keeping the records. I'm not sure I *want* every stupid piece of shit thing I've ever said here when we all got into fights recorded for posterity. But I'm okay with it too if we want to go that route.

Hopefully others will weigh in. The mere notion that we are approaching 28 years as a community is honestly kind of special.

[Julius Seeker]

I’ll take a look when I have a day off. Not today. It’s a 12 hour crunch day.

[Replay]

I say let's just cool it and hang here for a year while we put the community back together, then plan our next moves.

Again, Sine, I'd be thrilled to co-fund the Shrine or even take it back over completely if it's getting to be a burden on you. I'll try to do my part to make the Shrine active again.

Technically, we are one of the Internet's oldest social networks. Maybe we can find a way to flex on that and build some fun here again!

[SineSwiper]

Again, it's not funding. It's security. Even the styling says "©SiteSplat 2013", and I seriously doubt I'd be able to upgrade that. I'll probably need to just cut that part out and revert to some standard phpBB style. That is, if I can even upgrade this 10+ year old version...

[Replay]

I'm not opposed to moving, particularly to someplace where we might find some more members/traffic. I'll make some time in the next few days to check out Lemmy.

[Oracle]

Shit.

I've literally only checked the Gamethought forum in 2025.

Really glad this didn't come to pass (yet). I don't make long and prolific posts, and I contribute sparingly, but I really appreciate that this place is still around. I've actually been a bit amazed that you've kept it going, Sine. I hear ya on the security front.

If I can help in some way, let me know. Still Oraclops on steam.

[Replay]

We absolutely have the talent pool and resources to keep the Shrine going. I think it's worth it simply because we are - literally - OLDER THAN GOOGLE. Yes, we do need more traffic. I have been trying to do my part on that since coming back this year.

My only concern with being involved more actively in this community again is - very simply - what's up with our other moderator? Does Kali still allude to killing me? Has anyone even *seen* Kal in the last several years? I can't find any recent activity from him, and we know he's had problems with fentanyl in the past. The only hard requirement I have for providing financial and technological assistance again is that if Kal is still around and is still going to be part of the Shrine, there's either gotta be some kind of detente worked out between me and him - or else he doesn't get to be a moderator anymore. Having a wealthy fentanyl-addled real estate baron who hates me make allusions about killing me here twice - and not having anyone else even give a shit about it! - not our finest hour.

If I become involved with the Shrine's governance again, I need to insist on some basic codes of behavior that ensure user safety. (And yes, that would apply to me and every other user equally to Kal.)